Should I switch to 3D CAD?
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Some people spend their entire carreer explaining what BIM should be and what is not. Some people are tired hearing all of that, Probably me getting old. But in academIc circles this high apple is still very fashionable, especially if you add Digital Twin.. oh boy!! I do hope some day people realize we are better of without 'naming the thing that is BIM'. We are better of without practicing it, give your data better names!0
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@Tom Foster said:
There's no such thing as 3D drafting - what you do in 3D is construct a model.These days I run into job shops that don't want to see a dimensioned 2D drawing. They think they can make parts from the 3D model. I ask them, how do I communicate tolerances, finishes, etc., without a 2D drawing. Their standard answer? "Tolerance?"
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@Hans Lammerts
People think that the problem is BIM "connoisseurs" like me getting all picky, but that has nothing to do with the real problem.
The problem at hand is mainly autodesk telling everyone "We sell BIM, its all here waiting to solve your problems".
The architecture people know what Revit is, and expect a certain level of functionality from it.
But then the civil's have never had BIM level software, not even close, so get all confused.
Then I have to explain to people we don't have that kind of software, and that just getting people to do the closest we have to BIM is still barely functional unless you have a police person watching them.
Then you have the people that call anything 3D as BIM these days.
The point is, autodesk hijacked, or is trying to, the meaning of BIM so they can wash their hands and never make civil BIM tools.
It will be interesting to see what Bricsys does about our industry. Its much different than architecture because our lowest level geometric information is somewhat complex compared to walls and doors. Its also sensitive because if you try to simplify it in any way, like trying to line up the change points in plan and profile like adesk did, it messes up both the creation and revision activities involved.
anyway, the whole world is waiting for civil BIM tools, and are barely on the track to making them. I have mine but have a lot of development to specialize them, though I know exactly what needs to be done.0 -
So what is BIM? there are so many conflicting theories and descriptions all trying to point to the whole global concept. Can anyone go the other way, have any of you read 'Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance' I'm particularly thinking of the section where a student is asked to write an essay about America but can't make a start, she is asked to then start with the town, then a building until eventually to start with just the upper left brick. For me that is always the problem, people try and describe BIM as the whole picture, but how does it apply to the brick.
Can anyone give a clear uncomplicated vision of how BIM of a brick is different from a hand-drawn 2D plan, elevation, and section of a brick or even a 3D solid rendered brick? Or is that just the plain wrong approach to BIM. Can anyone point me, everyone, to a good example of what BIM really is about.0 -
Can anyone give a clear uncomplicated vision of how BIM of a brick is different from a hand-drawn 2D plan, elevation, and section of a brick or even a 3D solid rendered brick?
BIM = Building Information Model
The priority is on Information.
Where, especially in a 2D Plan, there are just Lines with no further information
about what they illustrate. In 3D there is at least geometrical info of 3D Model parts.
But in a complete 3D BIM Model
each part has info about what it is, like a Slab, Wall or Window.
Also it can and should have all kind of further information, like costs, manufacturer,
fire rating, materials, how to clean and use, .... until how to get rid off after life time.In BIM the 2D Plans and all kind of calculations get generated automatically.
All changes are done in a single complete 3D Model.
So all lists and plan output, when re-generated will be consistent.After changes in 2D you would have to go through all of the plans effected and
update them manually. That is tedious and error prone.2D is faster at the beginning of the planning cycle but gets tedious in later phases.
BIM needs more work at the beginning of the planning but causes less problems
in later phases.
And the quality of the planning should be better as problems get visible much earlier.
(collision detection, model analysis, ....)0 -
For a start, BIM skips depicting the brick, instead straight to a kind of sheet material called 'brickwork' - and not just depicts but specifies its numerous non-pictorial qualities (incl the brick, and the mortar, and the wall-ties etc but non-pictorially) - and not just the brickwork but a mighty assemblage of such things incl other brickworks, and the effects of their coming-together.
This can compound infinitely into something that can't be taken in as a whole but has to be trawled through, hoping to not miss anything. The difference between a paper map, where the detail and its orientation within the whole can be seen at once, compared with satnav, where you have to zoom between the whole in over-skimpy detail, or the detail without any sense of orientation within the whole.
That's what this topic is about IMO - how to make the gigantic 3D (pictorial) model, or even worse the BIM (Incl non-pictorial) model, comprehensible both in detail and as a whole, at once. If you can see both together at once, you can tell what information has to be there in the detail, hence guarantee of not overlooking bits of detail, provided you actually pay attention. That's how we use a 2D drawing (with or without pseudo-3D isometrics etc).
I recommend again https://tangerinefocus.com/about or go straight to
https://books.apple.com/us/book/tangerine-media-innovation-spec-2018/id1431050581 or even straighter to Chapter 3 of that.
by Rob Snyder the author of Microstation's pioneering Hypermodeling (infusion of 2D into the 3D model - a watered down version of what might have been). Brics had a chance to embrace this thinking but Rob is now with Graebert, the 'other' dwg-plus co that looks set to out-run Brics. Now that Erik De Keyser has finally left Brics, his baby, to whatever Hexagon will make of it, will he be working on such gaps in the CAD market?0 -
Now that Erik De Keyser has finally left Brics,
Hmmh, what ?
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May 8, not secret AFAIK
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@Steven_g
You said "So what is BIM?.....".
There are two kinds of answers on that - the kind everyone replied with "its building information...", and mine "its a lingo word the architecture world came up with as they switched to revit, archicad, and other "no more lines and arcs" design software.
I could care less about the first argument. Heck, a paper planset is building information. If you must have it in the computer, ok, anything in the computer is a model. That conversation may be interesting, but useless to my needs. I bow to anyone on that before I even talk.
The other one though is a big deal to civil's, as autodesk markets civil3d as if its like revit, also Infraworks (a product I love).
I have to constantly re-educate clients, managers, partners, so many people that do not even understand what an alignment object is or a tin surface.
Of course they assume as time goes on, the software gets better so we must be there by now, right?
Nupe. We still model with generic things called alignments which those same people barely grasp.
In the end I am saying my workflows are the best our company can do, and autodesk marketing is saying we could save 40% more time if we just did civil3d BIM in the cloud, wearing AR visors, with everyone working remote and in different time zones.
That is what bothers me, as autodesk is meanwhile doing nothing important on civil3d. They won't address the sharing, fragility, pipe network mess, nor alignment based real life things like walls and pipes, how it should be done. I'll stop for your benefit
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Didn't find anything about him leaving on Bricsys site or blog.
This came a bit unexpected for me.
Have other Software that took a similar direction years ago.
Never had any interest or could really identify with the group who bought it.
And am not very happy with where they ended now.And I don't know anything about Hexagon to know if I should now be concerned
again or not.Back to topic,
At least at the time when Viewports need no more manual Annotations,
All should switch to 3D CAD.
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@Michael Mayer
right, the "no more manual Annotations" is a big one.
Honestly, if I said to an experienced cad person "switch to 3D CAD", they would look at me like I knew nothing.
There is no pure 2d cad program I can think of, all have xyz.
Then, you never switch to just solid modeling, there is some add on app that stores parameters and draws the 3d thing for you.
Its that add on app or whole program that you would say - "switch to revit" "switch to civil3d" "switch to Maeding CAD (as they call mine)"...0 -
And beside manual annotations,
there are some nice tutorials on YouTube of how to draw 2D Architectural Drawings.
And these can look so beautiful.
Carefully chosen Line Weights, hierarchy of importance, contrasts, readability, ....
So 2D Plans having Form and Function.There is some room for improvements for control of generated drawings in Bricscad too.
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@James Maeding Please continue for my benefit. I have been struggling for years with the 'Revit' is BIM ideology. I took a 1 year night school course that was just pure BS, teaching me how to draw walls the BIM/Revit way, I still don't get it, the only thing I took away from that course was it takes about 5 times as long to do anything in Revit and serves no purpose for the types of work I need to do, just so you can say 'but this is BIM' is BIM then just this ability to be able to add a few extra custom properties to the lines you draw. Yeah yeah you don't draw in BIM you model but what should this model have that you can't create in just a simple quick easy CAD program by just adding a few custom properties to an entity or use some kind of custom data that you can link to objects, OK Revit and BricsCAD might do that in a more user friendly (Revit is anything but user friendly) more logical fashion, but is that it, is BIM just about adding information to elements heck I can do that with a pencil sketch and add notes to the sketch naming the supplier and model number with prices and delivery schedules, and I could probably do that quicker than it takes trying to set up the project parameters and geospatial sun location for the next BIM model because if you don't hold your tongue at the correct angle turn round three times and click your heels then the staircase you have so carefully constructed won't show up when you place it in the model.
Sorry maybe I have gone too far with that, and at 60 I'm probably too old to 'teach an old dog new tricks' but to me BIM just comes across as marketing hype, For 3D with text linked to elements.0 -
@Steven_g said:
at 60 I'm probably too old to 'teach an old dog new tricks' but to me BIM just comes across as marketing hype,
There is no question, that the more complex a program gets, the harder it is to understand what it is doing or thinking. And you also multiply the ways it can go wrong, and give you wrong information.
For an example from 2D drafting... dimensions can be set to be linked to an object. But, there are also many ways to unknowingly break that link. Once that happens, you can't know if the values in a dimension are correct, and then your entire drawing is now suspect. So, I have turned off associative dimensions to avoid this ambiguity. I know that if I want to change and object that has a dimension, I must move both the ends of the object, the defining nodes of any dimensions. Sometimes that gets to be a pain, if I have a great many layers that all must be on to make sure all dimensions are also updated. But, at least I have a known behavior, and not some random result.
-Joe
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I'm 70, and I would love to work in a true BIM system, and wouldn't at all mind learning new tricks. I mean a BIM system that lets me draw a brick and then assemble bricks like that into a wall of specified length and height, complete with mortar and ties and weep-holes and an air space behind it with mortar-guards, and sheathing on a stud-framed wall with insulation and interior surface material in similar detail. And then interrupt the wall with openings and penetrations, and then right-click on the wall and read the area of wall and the number of bricks and studs and the volume of mortar. Or right-click on the brick and change its dimensions, or click on the gypsum board and change its thickness or the number of screws along each panel edge or intermediate support. And I'd love to just give that model to a construction crew to build from, and I think they'd prefer that over a set of drawings. That seems much better to me than the tedious and primitive act of drawing 2D plans and elevations and sections, as we had to do before there were computers. I'm so tired of that. Even to have the software generate 2D drawings from a 3D model seems like a relic of a bygone age. But it's hard to get enough detail and information into a 3D model with the software that I have. And anyway the system isn't set up to get a building permit based on an information-packed 3D model, and construction crews probably aren't set up yet to work from such a model. And if there is software that can create such a model, I probably can't afford it, nor the hardware that it would need to run on. It would probably cost more than my entire salary.
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@Anthony Apostolaros That's my vision of the future of designing. We already have CAM equipment for bricklaying I can see sending the final design to site and just plugging it into the manufacturing unit.
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