CAD Style Drawing Tools

[mark_kauffman]

One area where InfraWorks is significantly lacking in basic functionality is in the drawing tools. Take, for instance, any of the basic creation tools; coverage, building, sketch roads, railways, etc. If you try to draw, after the creation of the first point you only have the ability to specify a distance to you next point. You cannot specify an angle or a line type, such as an arc. You cannot create geometric primitives such as rectangles, triangles, n-gons, and ellipses. There are no snapping tools or Boolean functions for creating more complex shapes. Instead, an IW user must rely on an external tool such as Autocad to create more precise shapes.

Therefore, I recommend a 2D drawing tool be added to IW to address this deficiency. This "CAD Drawing" tool would include much of the basic functionality seen in Autocad. The user should also be able to work in an isometric (planemetric) mode for easier drawing, as working in a perspective view can cause drawing and precision errors. Additionally, it would be nice of these 2D drawing tools included splines for more customized shapes as well as the ability to modify imported vector shapes. These drawing tools could also be used with the design and component roads for better precision when creating these assets. Combined with an isometric viewing mode, the user would be able to create highly accurate model assets using aerial reference for existing condition proposals.

With precision drawing tools, users would be able to more rapidly create accurate and robust representations of their designs and provide a better content for interaction with their other AEC applications. Given these tools, a user would be able to create very accurate metadata rich 3D GIS models for insertion into a spatial database. With these tools, users would be able to take their designs further than what is possible today. (I sound like a marketing person there, but you get the idea).

[alexey.kurenkov]

It is very necessary. Tools Coverages and Land Areas need Ortho Mode, similar buildings. For example, to create a section of 60x60 meters. This is a simple task. It is difficult to make.

[rburnham]

I agree. A locking ortho mode is very much desired. I would use it to be able to export jpgs with known scales. If I have a 16"X9" paper space viewport, I can create a coverage area in the appropriate scale ( for example 3200' X 1800' for 1"=200'). I can create a snapshot, bring that jpg it into another program (InDesign, Corel, or other program) crop it to the coverage area and know I have the correct scale.

Creating that coverage area is very cumbersome without ortho tools.