[cad-linux] 2d vs. 3d

  • From: "Yorik van Havre" <yorik@xxxxxx>
  • To: cad-linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 23:19:44 +0200

Neither am I, unfortunately :)

But I'm glad we have this discussion about 2d/3d, because I think a lot about 
it. Me too, I am working in an office that does everything in autocad, in 2d, 
the conservative way, I would say. That's actually what I mean, that most of 
architects work that way today.

Of course if we are looking for the best possible way to do architecture, 
definitely we need to work in 3d and produce automatic 2d designs or any other 
kind of document. The possibilities of this are far more than just cutting a 
model to obtain a section. For me the best example of this we have today is 
Revit. If you look into all the opensource CAD projects running around, 
certainly many are well aware of how interesting is parametric design. This is 
obviously the way to go.

My biggest problem with that way of doing is that since you cannot model every 
single detail in 3d, it would take you years to do and your models would become 
way too huge, so you always need to export to a 2d app and do some final work 
in 2d. In the Revit case, they tried to incorporate some drafting tools for you 
to do that, but it's a bit weird (hybrid 2d/3d detailing). Also having quickly 
very big unmanagable databases seem to be a problem for them... So, like you 
say yourself, you need to export to some 2d app. So you need a 2d app...

Now you are right that it is probably much easier to solve than the rest. There 
are good format specifications already (svg), and good drawing apps. But if you 
have very big project, I think you'll need something more productive (the 
architectural way, I mean, with dimensionning, referencing, etc...). What I 
find a problem is that when interesting parametric modelling apps develop, we 
still lack a good technical tool to produce the drawings. Maybe it's something 
simple to achieve, like extending funcionality of something else, I don't 
know... 

It's just that in the current state, all those projects focus on 3d, and even 
what for me is the most advanced program for architecture work (Revit, in case 
you didn't guess) still needs another app to do some 2d work (autodesk 
recommends buying an autocad license too when you buy revit... smart guys)... I 
wonder how we'll solve this one day...

-- 
from Yorik van Havre, SÃo Paulo, Brazil, +551194870628,
http://yorik.orgfree.com

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