Question for Interior Designers out there

[jegray7]

Hello all,
I am an interior design student in her first AutoCAD class. We have been asked to do some research on how Interior designers are using CAD in the real world. As someone new to the program, after taking a traditional drafting course, I am finding it slightly frustrating and also hard to imagine what my CAD responsibilities would be as a designer. I understand fully how useful this program can be in terms of creating construction drawings, but besides showing elevations and helping to develop plans for the interior layout, what does a designer use this program for on a daily basis?

Thanks so much for your help!
Jen

[.chad]

my limited experience with interior designers has been about what you described. they did elevations, one or two soffit details and an RCP - all of which i ended up having to correct anyways. i think one of the best ways to find out would be to either get an intern job with a design firm, or just call them and explain that you are a student and that you are not sure exactly what use cad plays in the profession. your school will have contacts in the field that could help you out.

and welcome to augi

[Brian Myers]

Material take-offs can be pretty big. In programs like Revit they allow you to schedule virtually anything in the space, allowing for quick and easy take-offs of virtually everything from seating counts in auditoriums to scheduling material finishes in every space. Point being, CAD programs may be used much for the "artistic" parts of this, but they also can be much more dynamic than creating CD's. Even without Revit, you can have attributes inside AutoCAD that can aid in this process if used properly.

In short: most Interior Designers I know use CAD not just in general design documention, but as part of the process to figure cost, specify products, schedule quantities/materials, and develop accurate spacial relationships to varify if their designs will meet code, etc. (Which happens to be another thing I've seen designers use Revit for, using collision detection to find when interior design elements infringe on local codes.)

[westcad]

We do retail fitout and use AutoCAD to produce concept plans that are then rendered in 3d for client approval. These concept plans are then used to create construction documents for shopping centre approval including shopfront and internal elevations. The model is sent to lighting consultant who runs a program that adjusts lighting levels. The 3d fixtures (xrefed into original concept plan) are used to create construction documents for manufacture. All elevations and sections are generated from the 3d models. Examples can be found on our website...www.westcad.com.au
Hope this helps

[designservicesco]

I have a bachelor degree in interior design, but my chosen field of work is house plan design (designing and drawing construction plans). I use ACA daily. The thing with the interior design program is that there are many field of work to go into. Kitchen designers use CAD programs for their layouts, material takeoffs, etc. Commercial designers will use CAD for space planning, material takeoffs, etc. However, if an interior designer is more in the field of residential decorating - furniture placement and specs, window treatments, etc. CAD may not be as important,. Although CAD is better and more efficient than manual drafting for furniture plans, perspectives, elevations, and interior architectural details.If the chosen field of work is retail sales or manuf. sales rep., CAD may not be used much but the understanding of construction docs. is very important. A good way of understanding the construction docs. is by learning to create them with the most common method - CAD.

[Arnel Aguel]

There is one sofware intended for interior designer it's called intericad
this has been around for quite sometime we were introduced to it by a reseller who went to our office for a demo and I would say it's really impressive even the rendering is really protorealistic. The developer is from china and seems to be a very small company.

My guess is that this program has not penetrated the us market yet or they just lack a marketing strategy to go worldwide.