I was wondering why most architects use high end visualization software designed for the film and gaming industry like 3ds max, Maya, cd4, primarily to model? Isn't 3d software like Rhino, Solidworks, Formz that have a higher accuracy level and where you have the possibility to extract 2d geometry from 3d models for production, more suitable for architecture?
Maya is popular for its highly controllable NURBS surfaces. Yes, Rhino and other programs have NURBS, but not with the same level of control. For example History in Maya is quite useful for managing the precision of your surfaces. You can maintain the original curves used to build surfaces and manipulate surfaces remotely with these curves.
Maya is used more for design than accuracy, though there are people out there who would argue that Maya is just as accurate. All depends on where you place your priorities when discussing accuracy. As far as production, which is an entirely different conversation, again it depends on what and how you are producing.
Maya and Max certainly weren't made to be accurate.
The reasons people use them:
1. Lynn and gang made Maya popular. But if firms and students had to actually 'pay' for a copy, it'd never have gotten off the ground. It will fade in popularity as the blobs fade, imho.
2. Max has been the most powerful renderer/animator for ages, at least as far as architecture is concerned. Viz helps, too.
I think both will fade in their use in architecture as the plugins (Final Render, VRay, etc.) offer standalones that can be used with anything and more accurate programs, like FormZ and Rhino and possibly Sketchup offer better animation. Then there will be no reason to use the mega buck programs.
garpike that's what I meant. you couldn't extract 2-d stuff from my 3-d stuff even tho the software was set up that way, it just didn't work. i didn't use any of the above software tho.
"Maya and Max certainly weren't made to be accurate."
I can be as accurate as I need to be in Max. It's all in the users. Max doesn't have accuracy to the eighth decimal place, but I've never met a construction worker who gave a crap beyond the 1/8 of an inch anyway... and I can go to the 1/32 in Max.
Just sayin'.
Also, nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is building from renderings. Even Hernan's stuff is loosely based on the 2D line drawings they pulled from the model.
Maya is another story. I've heard people talk the talk about being accurate, but I have yet to see a full project (even in a studio level, not professional) completed with the degree of accuracy you'd want to eventually build from.
PS1 doesn't count, considering how not-precise those on-site bend tubes had to be. Still interesting work, and the "CDs" are fantastically interesting, but more or less just as guidelines.
The inherent problem with accuracy in Maya is built into its two greatest strengths: NURBS and SubDs. The smoothing of SubDs all but rule out the ability of the design to specify a specific dimension (for example, you move the polygon face 1/2", but that distance will change/distort based on the smoothing). In NURBS, what makes them so very easy to work with (the history, smoothed curves, lattices etc) breed innacuracy. Move the CV of a lattice one unit, and your surface may adjust itself by anywhere from .25 units to .75 units based on the weight of the CVs.
MMatt, as far as the "accuracy" you describe, that is just a matter of using the right tool for the job. Bezier curves were not designed to allow for a 1-unit tug on a cv to result in a curve manipulation with some part of the curve equivalent to the 1-unit movement. The Bezier curve was developed to streamline (no pun intended) complex curve-making - not make them easily measurable or reduce them to whole units. They are complex. One should never try to manage these numbers in their heads. For that I recommend you reverse the process and design exact profiles in CAD and trun them into 3d shapes after they are designed.
TSCOMG - Gehry uses Catia, which is a completely different beast than Max or Maya. There are programs, like Solidworks and others that are made to be highly accurate, usually for industrial design and engineering.
Sorry. That was vague. What I mean is the interface allows you to model like Maya and Rhino. You can model as accurately or as sloppily as your own general practices allow.
could be, i don't know. it was more trouble than it was worth with our software. 3-D had far too much info and was too hard to edit.
different topic, but doesn't that mean that gehry's contractors and fabricators are more talented than he?
there is a book- digital gehry by bruce lindsey- that does a pretty good job of explaining the history of gehry's practice, vis-a-vis catia and computer modeling/construction/fabrication documentation in general. its interesting whether have any particular regard for fog or not- as the seminal work done by his office with computers has obviously impacted the rest of the profession.
gehry's contractors and fabricators would never design what he does. they ain't got the skills, so no they aren't better. they are just the same as the high end finishing carpenter who does the furniture in most offices, but with a different skill set. i don't like all of gehry's work by any means but sure do have to admit he deserves his rep.
as to the question...i sure wish i had the opportunity to use catia or the like. the one wavy curvy building i did with a direct computer-to-fabricator process was not so easy. we started with nurbs and had to switch to regular geometry and drop the double curves to get it built. in the end we drafted it in regular 2d cad. looked ok, but boy catia would have done the trick. wasn't available back then where i was though...
I used to be an acad to max user. I would create all 2d geometry in acad and import to max for extrusion. I would work like this. This could be sometimes very time consuming, because I would have to make all closed poly lines in acad or join and weld in 3ds max. 2d really sucks in max so I would be going back and for between the two programs. Other times, I would make a design in max, but would not be able to import it to acad to extract 2d drawings. My aim is not to have an exact dimension of the building, but more an outline especially around complex curves. So, it was I kind of mystery to me why architects, especially those like Lynn, moss, hadid, that work a lot from 3d to 2d, would want to use modelers like max.
Btw, is maya that much better than rhino. I have both trail versions and rhino really impresses me. It’s really fast, intuitive and far more less steps to get something done than in max. But if Maya is better modeler than rhino, I would not mind to invest a little bit more time to learn it.
Someone up there posted about things being as accurate as your personal/office preference might be. I think as long as you take the time to set up your Maya file before modeling like crazy, and ensure your origin is synced up with your 2D files, and ensure the units are set right, and ensure "z is up" and so on, it can be suitably accurate.
(A trick I learned in keeping Maya happy was to always create new objects at the default 1x1x1 creation size. Then you can accurately adjust the size using the scaling attributes.)
To get 2D out of Maya, .iges format into Rhino works well, where you can easily and quickly take topo slices or section slices to generate all varieties of 2D drawings. At least during the earlier stages of design. I'm just a student, so when it comes to CDs, if your computer model hasn't received the due attention to detail since day one, it will probably end up useless.
Further, I think having a feedback loop is also important. Once you've exported out to 2D, it's helpful to analyze there, tweak some things or identify problem areas, and then make changes to the 3D model (or even import 2D DXFs back into the 3D model). You get different information back from each of 2D and 3D.
i heard that people like rogers and fosters are trying to get to the point where they only send a very detailed 3d model out for tender, rather than a bunch of 2d cd.
i guess that would save a lot of the amazonian forest, but it wil take construction managers with balls the size of a basketball, and it would be hard to manage for small practices...
and they all use microstation, mind!
if i could get rid of 2d altogether , i personally think i would. it's just a matter of getting used to reading 3d rather than 2d.
What about ArchiCAD? My models ARE my CDs. One file for the model, one for the sheets, no problem. Sadly no nurbs, but who really wants to design something that looks like a bloated walrus anyway...?
friends of mine have made construction drawings by tracing 2D sections taken from FormZ models. I've never done this in production, but certainly have done it to make sections out of. If it is built correctly in 3D, it should easily translate into 2D. You have to trace the section, but spatially, it's correct.
If you want to eliminate 2D, start looking at Benley's Building COmponents that MOrphosis has tested (don't know where that ended up) or Rivet. Paramatric modeling is what this is all about, although it's got a ways to go, it will get there.
I think you mean Revit. But yes, also good. Haven't used it, but Autodesk were so sh1t scared of the company takign their business that they bought it outright....
we use microstation in our office, and it can be accurate in everyway. you can take sections and plans right off of your 3d model and they are accurate. we seem to only use our viz copies when we need a rendering.
at home, if i want to be accurate to the n'th degree, i'll use max or microsation, all dependent on how i think i would build the model the quickest.
Revit 8.1 has this new feature to import nurbs. Has anyone tried it?
Archicad has also a plugin or ad-on (maxonform) that alows you to deform entities into complex shapes.
Can you imagine making a complete bilbao or disney concert hall in revit or archicad? Come to think of it, wasn't city hall in london made on microstations.
I read a quote by a Autodesk rep that said he ADT is not going away and may outlive Revit (yeah, I think it sounds better as Rivet!).
Anyone actually use Building Components? Is that part of Microstation? As I understood it was like the difference between ADT and Autocad?
I've never used any of them, but it'd be good stuff to learn. Even for just playing around, it would seem that if you can learn to design in BIM, then the rest will be easier. Then again, I know I've tried to work with a BIM model for rendering, and it was useless (and the firm abandoned the BIM stuff half way through the project - it was ADT).
Why use high end 3d software for archictcure?
I was wondering why most architects use high end visualization software designed for the film and gaming industry like 3ds max, Maya, cd4, primarily to model? Isn't 3d software like Rhino, Solidworks, Formz that have a higher accuracy level and where you have the possibility to extract 2d geometry from 3d models for production, more suitable for architecture?
Maya is popular for its highly controllable NURBS surfaces. Yes, Rhino and other programs have NURBS, but not with the same level of control. For example History in Maya is quite useful for managing the precision of your surfaces. You can maintain the original curves used to build surfaces and manipulate surfaces remotely with these curves.
Maya is used more for design than accuracy, though there are people out there who would argue that Maya is just as accurate. All depends on where you place your priorities when discussing accuracy. As far as production, which is an entirely different conversation, again it depends on what and how you are producing.
Maya and Max certainly weren't made to be accurate.
The reasons people use them:
1. Lynn and gang made Maya popular. But if firms and students had to actually 'pay' for a copy, it'd never have gotten off the ground. It will fade in popularity as the blobs fade, imho.
2. Max has been the most powerful renderer/animator for ages, at least as far as architecture is concerned. Viz helps, too.
I think both will fade in their use in architecture as the plugins (Final Render, VRay, etc.) offer standalones that can be used with anything and more accurate programs, like FormZ and Rhino and possibly Sketchup offer better animation. Then there will be no reason to use the mega buck programs.
I use Maya to animate Gollum dancing around in my buildings.
Using 3-d drawings for 2-d doesn't work, as in making CD's out of 3-d renderings, even if they are highly accurate.
Who makes CD's out of renderings?
You can extract 2d information from 3d models. I hope no one is making CD's out of renderings.
garpike that's what I meant. you couldn't extract 2-d stuff from my 3-d stuff even tho the software was set up that way, it just didn't work. i didn't use any of the above software tho.
i guess I equate renderings with models b/c we did a model to render and that is it. called them renderings, never models.
i hear gehry makes 3D models accurately enough to extract the CD info directly from them. i guess this has worked out ok for him.
"Maya and Max certainly weren't made to be accurate."
I can be as accurate as I need to be in Max. It's all in the users. Max doesn't have accuracy to the eighth decimal place, but I've never met a construction worker who gave a crap beyond the 1/8 of an inch anyway... and I can go to the 1/32 in Max.
Just sayin'.
Also, nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is building from renderings. Even Hernan's stuff is loosely based on the 2D line drawings they pulled from the model.
.mm
Maya is another story. I've heard people talk the talk about being accurate, but I have yet to see a full project (even in a studio level, not professional) completed with the degree of accuracy you'd want to eventually build from.
PS1 doesn't count, considering how not-precise those on-site bend tubes had to be. Still interesting work, and the "CDs" are fantastically interesting, but more or less just as guidelines.
The inherent problem with accuracy in Maya is built into its two greatest strengths: NURBS and SubDs. The smoothing of SubDs all but rule out the ability of the design to specify a specific dimension (for example, you move the polygon face 1/2", but that distance will change/distort based on the smoothing). In NURBS, what makes them so very easy to work with (the history, smoothed curves, lattices etc) breed innacuracy. Move the CV of a lattice one unit, and your surface may adjust itself by anywhere from .25 units to .75 units based on the weight of the CVs.
Please, somebody prove me wrong.
.mm
Gehry contractors need only the model.
what do you mean by the model? the computer file?
MMatt, as far as the "accuracy" you describe, that is just a matter of using the right tool for the job. Bezier curves were not designed to allow for a 1-unit tug on a cv to result in a curve manipulation with some part of the curve equivalent to the 1-unit movement. The Bezier curve was developed to streamline (no pun intended) complex curve-making - not make them easily measurable or reduce them to whole units. They are complex. One should never try to manage these numbers in their heads. For that I recommend you reverse the process and design exact profiles in CAD and trun them into 3d shapes after they are designed.
Apples and oranges.
TSCOMG - Gehry uses Catia, which is a completely different beast than Max or Maya. There are programs, like Solidworks and others that are made to be highly accurate, usually for industrial design and engineering.
Strawbeary, yes model = computer file, yes. That was confusing given Gehry's office is ridiculously physical model driven. Sorry about that.
My experience with CATIA is that it can be like Rhino and Maya if you allow.
Sorry. That was vague. What I mean is the interface allows you to model like Maya and Rhino. You can model as accurately or as sloppily as your own general practices allow.
strawbeary, i know for a fact that SHoP architects create construction drawings for at least parts of their projects directly from 3d models.
could be, i don't know. it was more trouble than it was worth with our software. 3-D had far too much info and was too hard to edit.
different topic, but doesn't that mean that gehry's contractors and fabricators are more talented than he?
there is a book- digital gehry by bruce lindsey- that does a pretty good job of explaining the history of gehry's practice, vis-a-vis catia and computer modeling/construction/fabrication documentation in general. its interesting whether have any particular regard for fog or not- as the seminal work done by his office with computers has obviously impacted the rest of the profession.
gehry's contractors and fabricators would never design what he does. they ain't got the skills, so no they aren't better. they are just the same as the high end finishing carpenter who does the furniture in most offices, but with a different skill set. i don't like all of gehry's work by any means but sure do have to admit he deserves his rep.
as to the question...i sure wish i had the opportunity to use catia or the like. the one wavy curvy building i did with a direct computer-to-fabricator process was not so easy. we started with nurbs and had to switch to regular geometry and drop the double curves to get it built. in the end we drafted it in regular 2d cad. looked ok, but boy catia would have done the trick. wasn't available back then where i was though...
I used to be an acad to max user. I would create all 2d geometry in acad and import to max for extrusion. I would work like this. This could be sometimes very time consuming, because I would have to make all closed poly lines in acad or join and weld in 3ds max. 2d really sucks in max so I would be going back and for between the two programs. Other times, I would make a design in max, but would not be able to import it to acad to extract 2d drawings. My aim is not to have an exact dimension of the building, but more an outline especially around complex curves. So, it was I kind of mystery to me why architects, especially those like Lynn, moss, hadid, that work a lot from 3d to 2d, would want to use modelers like max.
Btw, is maya that much better than rhino. I have both trail versions and rhino really impresses me. It’s really fast, intuitive and far more less steps to get something done than in max. But if Maya is better modeler than rhino, I would not mind to invest a little bit more time to learn it.
Someone up there posted about things being as accurate as your personal/office preference might be. I think as long as you take the time to set up your Maya file before modeling like crazy, and ensure your origin is synced up with your 2D files, and ensure the units are set right, and ensure "z is up" and so on, it can be suitably accurate.
(A trick I learned in keeping Maya happy was to always create new objects at the default 1x1x1 creation size. Then you can accurately adjust the size using the scaling attributes.)
To get 2D out of Maya, .iges format into Rhino works well, where you can easily and quickly take topo slices or section slices to generate all varieties of 2D drawings. At least during the earlier stages of design. I'm just a student, so when it comes to CDs, if your computer model hasn't received the due attention to detail since day one, it will probably end up useless.
Further, I think having a feedback loop is also important. Once you've exported out to 2D, it's helpful to analyze there, tweak some things or identify problem areas, and then make changes to the 3D model (or even import 2D DXFs back into the 3D model). You get different information back from each of 2D and 3D.
we cant even get past autocad 2000. i live in a different world i guess.
i heard that people like rogers and fosters are trying to get to the point where they only send a very detailed 3d model out for tender, rather than a bunch of 2d cd.
i guess that would save a lot of the amazonian forest, but it wil take construction managers with balls the size of a basketball, and it would be hard to manage for small practices...
and they all use microstation, mind!
if i could get rid of 2d altogether , i personally think i would. it's just a matter of getting used to reading 3d rather than 2d.
What about ArchiCAD? My models ARE my CDs. One file for the model, one for the sheets, no problem. Sadly no nurbs, but who really wants to design something that looks like a bloated walrus anyway...?
me! i want to!
:)
friends of mine have made construction drawings by tracing 2D sections taken from FormZ models. I've never done this in production, but certainly have done it to make sections out of. If it is built correctly in 3D, it should easily translate into 2D. You have to trace the section, but spatially, it's correct.
If you want to eliminate 2D, start looking at Benley's Building COmponents that MOrphosis has tested (don't know where that ended up) or Rivet. Paramatric modeling is what this is all about, although it's got a ways to go, it will get there.
I think you mean Revit. But yes, also good. Haven't used it, but Autodesk were so sh1t scared of the company takign their business that they bought it outright....
trace, yes, that's why i mentioned the fact that those practices use microstation.
i had an intro yesterday to the software,a and the interface is, to say the least, scary.
trace, yes, that's why i mentioned the fact that those practices use microstation.
i had an intro yesterday to the software,a and the interface is, to say the least, scary.
Hell yea, antipod! BIMs for life!
we use microstation in our office, and it can be accurate in everyway. you can take sections and plans right off of your 3d model and they are accurate. we seem to only use our viz copies when we need a rendering.
at home, if i want to be accurate to the n'th degree, i'll use max or microsation, all dependent on how i think i would build the model the quickest.
Revit 8.1 has this new feature to import nurbs. Has anyone tried it?
Archicad has also a plugin or ad-on (maxonform) that alows you to deform entities into complex shapes.
Can you imagine making a complete bilbao or disney concert hall in revit or archicad? Come to think of it, wasn't city hall in london made on microstations.
I read a quote by a Autodesk rep that said he ADT is not going away and may outlive Revit (yeah, I think it sounds better as Rivet!).
Anyone actually use Building Components? Is that part of Microstation? As I understood it was like the difference between ADT and Autocad?
I've never used any of them, but it'd be good stuff to learn. Even for just playing around, it would seem that if you can learn to design in BIM, then the rest will be easier. Then again, I know I've tried to work with a BIM model for rendering, and it was useless (and the firm abandoned the BIM stuff half way through the project - it was ADT).
Blah blah blah blah dead horse
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