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Geoffrey Moore Langdon
CADENCE AEC Tech News # 30 (July 24, 2000)
AEC Tech News 7/24/2000
In this Issue :
Naturally Speaking Mobile
PocketCAD
The CAD Program in the Sims
With many of you getting ready for vacations, we have some mobile and recreational CAD software you should take a look at.
Naturally Speaking Mobile
All of you AEC Tech people on the go will certainly appreciate the new Version 4 of Naturally Speaking, which adds even more accuracy and makes training time quicker and easier. The advantage of the Mobile version, which I use, is that you can take the digital recorder that comes with it around with you, using it on the site, in the car, or even on the beach. Plug it into your computer and it will transcribe everything, and put it all into appropriate applications, such as letters in Microsoft Word, to do lists and calendar notes in Outlook, and so on, just like having an executive secretary.
PocketCAD
For those who want to take a CAD system with you on the go, you can now try out PocketCAD for your handheld PocketPC. You can import AutoCAD DWG files and work on them on site, or start new drawings right on the PocketPC, later exporting them to your primary design software. There are add-on interfaces that will add GPS-accurate real-time 3D world positioning to overlay your drawings, essentially making site surveying a snap (literally).
The CAD Program in The Sims
Even the top architectural CAD programs could learn a thing or two from the architectural CAD program within the game "The Sims." In an interview today with Will Wright of the Maxis division of Electronic Arts, creator of The Sims as well as Sim City, Wright told me that he originally planned his CAD program to be an "architectural game." He had noticed that the sales figures for 3D HomeArchitect type software exceeded actual home construction manyfold and concluded that the majority of people out there were actually buying such architectural CAD software simply--to play. "Unfortunately, though, as easy as they are, they keep putting in things that prevent it from being really fun," Will says. So utilizing them as inspiration, he took more of a Legos approach to design his architectural CAD engine. "Eventually, as we found we could develop it, the behavioral aspects of the Sims characters started to dominate what we originally intended as a game to inspire future architects."
Taking a serious look at the CAD engine Wright developed, youíll note intelligent parametric architectural objects, walls, windows, doors, floors, automatic roof and stair generators, editing tools, symbol libraries of furniture, zoom, automatic pan, rotate view, rendering (including shadow effects), and an always-on snap grid (a key to the simplicity).
The library objects are organized into visual catalogs, and each element has an expanded description, price, and comments on how it interacts with other elements.
Itís interesting that of all the classic editing commands--move/copy/mirror/rotate/stretch/erase--developers left out mirror and stretch as they are conceptually tough for neophytes to understand.
Wright has pushed "ease of use" into new territory. Even my wife Cindy, who generally avoids computers, found it easy to create her own houses. Interestingly, the only feature she balked at was how to rotate something.
One very unusual feature is the "wallpaper" tool (something CAD companies interested in interior design should take a look at). This feature allows you to put inside or outside finish materials (shingles, brick, paint schemes with wainscoting) up with a single click. The "unfinished" wall cleverly looks like taped gray bare GWB.
Where this software gets extraordinary is in the automatic intelligence and interactions of the various architectural objects. For example, toilets will automatically flip around to go against a wall, doors automatically swing the right way, and medicine cabinets face out. Wright says that the "constraints are the key to how all these objects interact." Additionally "behind the scenes is a very sophisticated space planning node map to calculate the routing the characters take."
Dozens of related third-party Web sites are now live, each with advice and examples on making buildings ("Floating Houses" is a popular one) as well as hundreds of new wallpaper designs.
Though the current software limits buildings to two stories, Wright says that they successfully did three- and four-story buildings in the prototype, but that in the game, more stories didn't add to the fun.
Ultimately, Wright wants to develop the CAD software so that players can actually do their own house and feels that studying traffic flow (whether urban or just the "kitchen triangle"), land use, and thermal flow should be easy. In the meantime, the company has developed themes (Medieval, Las Vegas, Retro modern) for the game, and a PalmPilot version of just the CAD portion.
A final side note of advice--if you build a swimming pool, be careful to add a ladder, or your Sims will gleefully dive in, but drown and die, which could be very distressing to you and the other Sims.
Have Fun.
Links in this issue:
Naturally Speaking Mobile = http://www.naturallyspeaking.com
PocketCAD = http://www.arcsecond.com
The Sims = http://www.thesims.com
About Geoffrey Moore Langdon, AIA
Prof. Langdon is a registered architect and is the principal of Architectural CADD Consultants, a firm that specializes in helping architectural firms with computing and CADD. He has taught Design, Solar Energy, and Architectural CADD at a number of colleges in the Boston area. He is the author of Architectural CADD: A Resource Guide to Design and Production Software Appropriate for Architects, a guest speaker at many AIA events, and the founder and organizer of the Designers 3D CAD Shootout competition. contact him at aectechnews@architecturalcadd.com, or through his website: http://www.architecturalcadd.com
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