Hi,
Do architects, or schools of architecture, include solidworks as a software choice? An architect friend of mine told me that solidworks is a good tool for architects: that it is good for visualization of buildings. Now that I've started using the program, I am doubtful. It seems so geared towards mechanical parts and such. Please let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Tom
A building is a collection of mechanical parts just larger than usual. AutoCAD, SolidWorks, Inventor it is all the same to me.
Bob
Bob
interesting in that it is a 4 year old item- I am inclined to wonder what their experience was/is and how many others have followed suit ?
According to their own webpage
But lates news says they are going for Autodesk Revit
Regards Peter
I use mainly SolidWorks at work, but also little bit ArchiCAD (I'm working with furniture development and we need to model auditoriums etc. and place chairs/tables there). ArchiCAD is great with buildings, but poor with furniture (well, if you know how to program GDL you might think differently). I need both, so I use both...and that works ok. Only real problem is to transfer the furniture to the building (import SW-made stuff to ArchiCAD).
Before we got ArchiCAD I had to use SW, and I managed, but especially patterning chairs and tables was really slow (easily 500 chairs in an auditorium and each chair has around 20...30 parts so you get lots of components there and patterning made it really slow).
So, my opinion: If yoy design furniture, use SW, it's really good. If you are designing buildings, you can use SW, but ArchiCAD is made for buildings so it has really nice features for the job. If you need to build furniture and buildings with furniture, use both.
I use mainly SolidWorks at work, but also little bit ArchiCAD (I'm working with furniture development and we need to model auditoriums etc. and place chairs/tables there). ArchiCAD is great with buildings, but poor with furniture (well, if you know how to program GDL you might think differently). I need both, so I use both...and that works ok. Only real problem is to transfer the furniture to the building (import SW-made stuff to ArchiCAD).
Before we got ArchiCAD I had to use SW, and I managed, but especially patterning chairs and tables was really slow (easily 500 chairs in an auditorium and each chair has around 20...30 parts so you get lots of components there and patterning made it really slow).
So, my opinion: If yoy design furniture, use SW, it's really good. If you are designing buildings, you can use SW, but ArchiCAD is made for buildings so it has really nice features for the job. If you need to build furniture and buildings with furniture, use both.
Would it work out better if you converted the chair to a single solid before conversion, or would that cause rendering problems.
Bob
Any software craps out if you use too much detail where it is not needed.
Bob
SW is very awkward at architecture or Civil Engineering in general. I think the Sears Tower would be difficult to impossible simply because of its size and certainly some of the newer tall buildings. The parts count in a building is astronomical by SW standards. That being said SW can perhaps handle piping in a plant on a limited basis. You would be spending all your time on workarounds and SW wouldn't support you.
That being said, I did see a company develop an add in for SW to allow the design and modeling of buildings made from pre-fabricated, pre-cast concrete panels. They played some tricks to get the assembly size down.
TOP
For an architectural solid model I see no reason that SolidWorks would be worse than any other software.
Bob
And that my friend is why SW has problems with architecture.
Any civil print I have ever seen is filled with symbolism that takes the place of the actual detail needed to build a structure. For example, the carpenter, not the architect, makes the final decision as to the dimension to cut a particular board. The electrician "follows" the print, but the print doesn't necessarily tell the electrician the dimensions to cut a particular wire. The electrician follows practice which may be specified on the print, but is not shown. 3D CAD tends to require all the minute detail to work correctly.
3D CAD simply doesn't have the tools in it to deal with detail symbolism or the vagaries of construction materials.TOP
Reread what I said in the previous post.
TOP
The only thing I would use SolidWorks for is an architectural solid model, I prefer AutoCAD for that though. For mechanical solids I prefer SolidWorks to Inventor. My favorite is whatever someone will pay me to draw with at the time.
Bob
This is about the level of complexity you want to deal with.
AutoCAD 2007, 2008 does a better job of printing.
SolidWorks 2008, You need to make subassemblies from the individual parts. You need to make the final thing from subassemblies, or else it is just too hard to deal with. The same methodology is also preferred in AutoCAD, you use blocks in thata case.
Bob
Those are pretty trivial models compared to an actual building with all the plumbing, wiring, HVAC, plaster, wallboard, tile, doors and fittings, windows and fittings, gas lines, light fixtures, etc., etc.
Having started with SW back in 96 in the RV industry, it would have been hard doing those "houses" with SW even now although some do it.
The precast industry uses multibodies in a single part to represent the rebar. It violates the intersecting body rule, but the effect is small enough to be ignored.
If I was doing the buildings you showed, I would make the windows very simple with the most attention to interface dimensions. If I was doing a stick frame house I would model the studs and then have them precut and delivered on site. Then I would carry a baseball bat around the jobsite until the carpenters learned to read the prints and part numbers and put the proper pieces where they belonged. In other words, probably not practical.
I suppose it would be cool to have SW models direct a roll forming machine to form, punch and mark steel studs so that the electrician and plumber would feed pre-cut pipe and wire through marked holes.
TOP
TOP
This is what I am interested in really doing. It is electromechanical in nature.
Bob
Well, any kind of conversion is pretty much waste of time because ArchiCAD has really poor import capabilities for 3D-stuff. I have to use Rhinoceros to save SW-file as 3D-dwg and open then that in ArchiCAD, but 3D-dwg...well, very slow. So, we have a subcontractor who creates GDL-objects for us and they are extremely cool.
br Markku
Have you ever seen ArchiCAD or similar? It really another world.
br Markku
All that article does is underline the application of SW to mechanical projects, including the steel parts of buildings!
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