where is the freedom tower picture?

[sjsl]

I saw it today and now I cannot find it. Sopmeone gave us a picture of the top of the tower.
I want to show this to our staff.

Thanks!

[Steve_Stafford]

I think you were thinking of this THREAD

[Marek Brandstatter]

http://www.som.com/press_release/

[Chad Smith]

They are some truely great images for a great project.

[Marek Brandstatter]

googling

http://www.detnews.com/2004/business...c02-233273.htm

Freedom Tower architects work in 3-D
Software shortens time needed for standard drafting
By Alex Frangos / Wall Street Journal

NEW YORK — It will be almost two years before steel rises even to ground level in construction of the iconic Freedom Tower, whose cornerstone was laid at Ground Zero in an emotional ceremony in June. But a few blocks away — and far removed from public view — a group of architects designing the tower are stretching design technology in ways that will change how buildings are created.

Architects at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, the firm hired by private developer Larry Silverstein to complete Daniel Libeskind’s vision for the signature skyscraper, are using an innovative kit of software-design tools for the first time on such a massive project. Among the equipment: a three-dimensional drawing program that’s part of an industry-wide revolution altering how architects transfer ideas from their brains to paper.

The $1 billion-plus Freedom Tower will house offices, stores and restaurants and will have a 72-story twisting body, a cable skin, a concrete and steel core, and a 600-foot latticework cage on the top that will house broadcast antennas and wind turbines.

The tangled guts will be equally complex and difficult to keep straight. The architects predict the job will require 3,000 official construction documents — as many as a large airport. Close to 50 Skidmore staff are on the project; their drawings will be done in batches and won’t be completed until the first quarter of 2006.

On a recent morning in Skidmore’s 23rd floor Freedom Tower project room, David Yanks, a staff architect, used a 3-D design program called Revit to grab the massive sides of the tower on his computer and twist them from side to side. In so doing, each floor adjusts its size according to Yanks’s moves, something that would take weeks with standard two-dimensional drafting programs. “I’d have to make different floors” in the regular program, he says. Using Revit, a product of Autodesk Inc., San Rafael, Calif., he says, “we have one template with two ‘knives’ on the each side that cut the floors to the right shape.”

The shape of the Freedom Tower, a parallelogram that twists as it rises, is particularly suited for the new software. Yanks enjoys using it so much, his colleagues rib him that his wife will be upset about the “Revit” tattoo he might get.

The revolution Yanks is experiencing now — from 2-D to 3-D — is in many ways a logical next step to the emergence of computer-aided design software in the early 1970s. In its day, CAD, as it’s known, transformed architecture by digitizing drafting, sending the blueprint production process into warp speed. (Skidmore was one of the first firms to use CAD; it developed its own version.)

From a creative perspective, however, CAD wasn’t a huge leap. Like its manual predecessors, the T-square and compass, CAD is a tool to make a set of abstract drawings — basically instructions to the construction crew — of what the building should be. A wall is represented by a set of lines, rather than by an actual picture of a wall.

The first 3-D programs emerged 20 years ago. They were good for flashy presentations but not powerful enough to actually design whole buildings with. The latest generation of 3-D programs changes the game.

“In the past, architects carried in their head what the three-dimensional conception of the building was and mentally translated that into two-dimensional drawings,” says Charles Eastman, an architecture professor at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Now, they create on the screen exactly what they envision in their mind’s eye.

Instead of drafting abstract instructions, the 3-D modeling has the architect design what the building actually looks like, and then spits out the old fashioned drawings for the contractor to use as a result. “Drawings become the byproduct of the model,” says Michael Jarosz, a tech expert at Skidmore. “A staircase is a staircase, not just a set of lines.”

[roy.70844]

http://www.som.com/press_release/

Some nice renderings, but I downloaded the night time animation and it must have been a REAL dark night. All I got was 11mb of animated blackness. The daytime animations worked ok, maybe there was some sort of power outage.....

Top class project and a bit of extra kudos for Revit.

Roy

[MikeJarosz]

Sorry everyone, the press kit drawings were not done in Revit.

On a brighter note, we now have the entire building, top to bottom, inside and out, drawn in Revit. An entire team is very, very busy on this effort. There have been a few hiccups, but we are delighted with the results, especially the cable structure top.

We have received comments from consultants that our latest issue was thorough and well coordinated despite the fast track scheduling, no doubt due to the efficiencies of 3D modeling.

I had to do an Acad drawing the other day, and I drew a complete blank. I couldn't remember a thing. I hope I never have to go back.

Eventually more images will become available.

Stay tuned.

[MikeJarosz]

By the way, the WSJ article Marek posted was abridged. The complete article can be found:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...112&id=3782380

[Wes Macaulay]

Mike, Chris Zoog mentioned that some formulae were used to develop the geometry of the building. Could you describe a bit how the building is built -- particularly the twisting stuff? I get the sense that there are some families you've created that are a vital part of the model, and that these families respond to input data in particular ways. I love seeing how geometric equations are used in Revit.

(People always tell me I shouldn't cosine alone... )

[MikeJarosz]

Mike, Chris Zoog mentioned that some formulae were used to develop the geometry of the building. Could you describe a bit how the building is built -- particularly the twisting stuff? I get the sense that there are some families you've created that are a vital part of the model, and that these families respond to input data in particular ways. I love seeing how geometric equations are used in Revit.

(People always tell me I shouldn't cosine alone... )

Actually, it's an arctangent, and I honestly do not understand it myself. Someone else on our team is doing that job. You need to be a Russian PhD mathematician.