garethace
2010-06-05, 11:45 AM
I will start off this thread with some funny stories to set the scene, so bear with me.
I remember previous eras in CAD history when debate about file formats and file standards was 'white hot'. I remember when the old DOS 3DS format was considered a standard for translation between applications. I remember when DXF, drawing exchange format, was considered a standard for 2D CAD translation. DXF was a very painful 'lossy' translation process which many users of CAD applications had to go through, to communicate and collaborate.
Young people nowadays would never believe these stories, but they are true. These are the hard and tough battles or skirmishes that computer aided design ploughed through in order to survive and prosper. Computer aided design has emerged from its bloody history with its reputation intact, and a lot stronger. But not without the battle scars to show.
I remember when MicroStation J version 8.0 was released in 2002 and the big deal was, being able to work on a DWG file from within MicroStation J. Instantly all of my 'black art' knowledge for collaboration between AutoCAD and MicroStation became a valueless commodity. I was left feeling cheated and quite hollow inside.
Such is the life and pain of a CAD manager. You struggle for so long to ring fence a monopoly on a small piece of esoteric knowledge, only to see your prestige evaporate as time and progress marches on. It is never fair when that happens. You have to experience it to know exactly what I mean.
I remember one work flow I participated in, where we used DXF as a three dimensional file translation format. A FormZ 3D solid model was export as an large unwieldy DXF mesh, which contained the 'LAYER' information. That large DXF file could be imported into ArtLantis ray tracing rendering software, and saved in ArtLantis native format, which compressed it back down to manageable proportions. For those of you interested in my views about 'LAYERS' in computer aided design, I encourage you to visit this blog entry.
http://designcomment.blogspot.com/2010/06/thick-old-manuscript.html
In future, I will elaborate further and in more detail about the system employed at that multi-disciplinary organisation. The fact is, LAYERS as a concept had outstanding success in terms of the DXF file format. That is, in the old days when one CAD application had to collaborate with another. The LAYERS information in the DXF file format allowed for basic communication of intelligent information. LAYERS in a DXF file were like an ancient Hebrew text version of what is contained in today's BIM file format.
But inside of an AutoCAD environment, LAYERS were of more limited value than many realised. Especially if you intended to collaborate across disciplines within the same organisation. I have learned that through tough experience.
XREFs did succeed spectacularly well, where LAYERS never did. XREFs were a concept which had been embedded in MicroStation software for a lot longer, than in the AutoDesk equivalent. To this day, the reference file as a concept seems far more native to Bentley than it is to AutoDesk. Even though, both vendors have succeeded in providing the functionality.
Though LAYERS and DXF file format served the CAD industry well in the early years, there were some noteable failures I remember. Disasters which seemed to forewarn of future challenges awaiting the CAD industry. When CAD finally broke through the mountain hill pass and spread down into the fertile valley that is 'building information modelling' and the IPD era.
One funny experience I had over 10 years ago will serve to illustrate the point. We were invited to partake in a prestiguous national competition. A new county hall extension and renovation project for Cork city in Ireland. This story is something that experienced BIM users will probably cringe at, but relate to all the same.
All invitees to the limited competition were issued with a 100MB Iomega Zip disk. Remember those? They usually had a sticker on them to say, please return this disk to so and so. I often wonder how many of those pigeon carriers of the construction industry made the round trip! On the Iomega Zip disk was a set of digital files to enable competitors to work on their entry.
We didn't have a copy of AutoCAD in that workplace, so I proceeded to do the usual. I imported the DWG file from the zip disk. It would always come in as a 2D flattened CAD file, because we had some £500-00 CAD software in those days. From the 2D flattened CAD file, I would bring some kind of cleaned up version into FormZ to work on my model. I spent the next month creating a 3D site model in FormZ, with the existing buildings all carefully mocked up. I was quite pleased with my productivity for that month, until later something else happened.
Having moved to different employment afterwards, I wanted to clean the zip disk and use it for something (maybe I was sending the pigeon back home). Something flashed in the back of my brain, so I decided to open the DWG file in an AutoCAD program. Wow! There in fully modelled 3D site model including existing buildings. The very same as I had worked up from scratch using FormZ. In other words, that work was available to all competition entrants pre-done. I had wasted the entire month for nothing.
That experience sent a cold shiver down my spine. But it was a valuable lesson that I learned very early in my career. I often discussed it afterwards with fellow CAD users and they all agreed, this kind of thing should not happen. But often does.
I remember previous eras in CAD history when debate about file formats and file standards was 'white hot'. I remember when the old DOS 3DS format was considered a standard for translation between applications. I remember when DXF, drawing exchange format, was considered a standard for 2D CAD translation. DXF was a very painful 'lossy' translation process which many users of CAD applications had to go through, to communicate and collaborate.
Young people nowadays would never believe these stories, but they are true. These are the hard and tough battles or skirmishes that computer aided design ploughed through in order to survive and prosper. Computer aided design has emerged from its bloody history with its reputation intact, and a lot stronger. But not without the battle scars to show.
I remember when MicroStation J version 8.0 was released in 2002 and the big deal was, being able to work on a DWG file from within MicroStation J. Instantly all of my 'black art' knowledge for collaboration between AutoCAD and MicroStation became a valueless commodity. I was left feeling cheated and quite hollow inside.
Such is the life and pain of a CAD manager. You struggle for so long to ring fence a monopoly on a small piece of esoteric knowledge, only to see your prestige evaporate as time and progress marches on. It is never fair when that happens. You have to experience it to know exactly what I mean.
I remember one work flow I participated in, where we used DXF as a three dimensional file translation format. A FormZ 3D solid model was export as an large unwieldy DXF mesh, which contained the 'LAYER' information. That large DXF file could be imported into ArtLantis ray tracing rendering software, and saved in ArtLantis native format, which compressed it back down to manageable proportions. For those of you interested in my views about 'LAYERS' in computer aided design, I encourage you to visit this blog entry.
http://designcomment.blogspot.com/2010/06/thick-old-manuscript.html
In future, I will elaborate further and in more detail about the system employed at that multi-disciplinary organisation. The fact is, LAYERS as a concept had outstanding success in terms of the DXF file format. That is, in the old days when one CAD application had to collaborate with another. The LAYERS information in the DXF file format allowed for basic communication of intelligent information. LAYERS in a DXF file were like an ancient Hebrew text version of what is contained in today's BIM file format.
But inside of an AutoCAD environment, LAYERS were of more limited value than many realised. Especially if you intended to collaborate across disciplines within the same organisation. I have learned that through tough experience.
XREFs did succeed spectacularly well, where LAYERS never did. XREFs were a concept which had been embedded in MicroStation software for a lot longer, than in the AutoDesk equivalent. To this day, the reference file as a concept seems far more native to Bentley than it is to AutoDesk. Even though, both vendors have succeeded in providing the functionality.
Though LAYERS and DXF file format served the CAD industry well in the early years, there were some noteable failures I remember. Disasters which seemed to forewarn of future challenges awaiting the CAD industry. When CAD finally broke through the mountain hill pass and spread down into the fertile valley that is 'building information modelling' and the IPD era.
One funny experience I had over 10 years ago will serve to illustrate the point. We were invited to partake in a prestiguous national competition. A new county hall extension and renovation project for Cork city in Ireland. This story is something that experienced BIM users will probably cringe at, but relate to all the same.
All invitees to the limited competition were issued with a 100MB Iomega Zip disk. Remember those? They usually had a sticker on them to say, please return this disk to so and so. I often wonder how many of those pigeon carriers of the construction industry made the round trip! On the Iomega Zip disk was a set of digital files to enable competitors to work on their entry.
We didn't have a copy of AutoCAD in that workplace, so I proceeded to do the usual. I imported the DWG file from the zip disk. It would always come in as a 2D flattened CAD file, because we had some £500-00 CAD software in those days. From the 2D flattened CAD file, I would bring some kind of cleaned up version into FormZ to work on my model. I spent the next month creating a 3D site model in FormZ, with the existing buildings all carefully mocked up. I was quite pleased with my productivity for that month, until later something else happened.
Having moved to different employment afterwards, I wanted to clean the zip disk and use it for something (maybe I was sending the pigeon back home). Something flashed in the back of my brain, so I decided to open the DWG file in an AutoCAD program. Wow! There in fully modelled 3D site model including existing buildings. The very same as I had worked up from scratch using FormZ. In other words, that work was available to all competition entrants pre-done. I had wasted the entire month for nothing.
That experience sent a cold shiver down my spine. But it was a valuable lesson that I learned very early in my career. I often discussed it afterwards with fellow CAD users and they all agreed, this kind of thing should not happen. But often does.