SolidWorks for Architectural Work?

Just curious if anyone has used SolidWorks for large architectural
layouts? I'm thinking several acres where you actually have contour /
elevation data.

Thanks in advance for replies.

 

The Autodesk products are more commonly used for that sort of application.

Bob

 

Layout of anything like that ought to be relatively easy, particularly
so with the typical rectangular buildings.

Not familiar with importing a 3D ground plot set of data, but I
remember people talking about it.

The question would be what is the best CAD package or multiple
packages to get your final product done and done well & on time.
SolidWorks obviously is not widely used for architectural
construction, unless maybe it is steel frame industrial buildings.

 

There is no reason you could not but there are other tools which are
more geared toward this.. for instance, SketchUp for free, fast has a
huge online resource can do most of what's needed, and nearly every
modeler is jumping on to support it..
I personally have a full layout out (in SW format) of our house and
yard.
The negative.. for large 1:1 layouts,.. parasolid has a 1km limit.

Rob has written about his needs/wants for this for a while and
recently on his blog...

http://www.robrodriguezblog.com/2008/01/is-solidworks-d.html
http://www.robrodriguezblog.com/2008/02/inventor-for-ar.html

..

 

4 years ago, I did a full model of my church on 5 acres.

I had the construction prints so it was easier to model.

 

What software do the people you have to send the drawing to others to work
on? What software do others use that do some of the drawing? For approval
you need accurately scaled paper prints. For customers you probably want
pretty renderings.Whatever does that with the least effort on your part is
what you need?

Bob

 

Metric software?

 

Parasolid has always imposed a limit to the size of the model space Cliff.
It's gotten larger over the years but is still there.

 

Precision (limits) should be in database units but I'd think but they
probably chose metric (default for limiting factor units) as 1 mm is
smaller than 1".
Then they can convert back & forth but never exceed their chosen
limits in either system.
I'd also think that the real limit is a power of 2 (and is
based/related to floating point word size, IOW 32 bits).
As numbers in computers get larger (or smaller than 1)
the distance between any two numbers that can be represented
grows larger so more error can creep into calculations & results.
There are largest and smallest possible floating point numbers
(absolute value other than zero) as well as integers. The next
smallest number for floats is quite some "distance" from the
largest.
All depends on word size (bits) & where they are using the
decimal point. But these days we mostly use IEEE 32 bit math
(as default) ..

 

It's something like that but in the end, a cap was imposed for memory
management and allocation issues.
This also shows up when you import tessellated data into anything built on
ParaSolid.
Even the PC based version of UG was a real memory leaker in 1999.
UG for Unix, OTOH, was another story completely.

 

I was told by someone @ SolidWorks that the reason for the 1km limit
is to maintain the gap between SolidWorks & CATIA. CATIA, I was told,
has no limit.

 

That might be what you were told. Catia isn't a parasolid based product.
There are also one or two other features that differentiate the two
products.
LOL

 

I was told that it is there because they want to keep the model
geometry accurate enough when using different units...like people do.

br
Markku

 

No matter the absolute size of the number represented by a 32
bit floating point number it has the same number of bits so memory
management and allocation are not issues.

Tessellated data would be a huge number of polygons; another matter
entirely.

A 10 X 10 NURBS surface has the same "size" (in bits) in memory &
in a part database no matter how large (or small) the surface is
in square mm.

The problems would be related to trying to produce a BREP
solid when the values of the numbers become larger. They
have to have "mutual" (computed) edges within a tolearnce of
each other & the gaps between sequential discrete numbers
grows larger as the numbers grow larger.

You can increase the tolerance I suppose (bad) or use
more bits in your words (such as 64 bits).

Using UG as an example ... IIRC It's 32 bit with exactly the
same file format on all operating systems. No translation needed
to move a UG part file from UNIX to MS, etc. & have it still work
& be valid (though you'd probably need to run unix2dos on any ASCII
files). (Dos2unix goes the other way.)

No doubt a MS or compiler issue, if so. Same source code for
the most part.

UG was originally written in a whole bunch of languages. Fortran,
Pascal, ... , later a rewrite/port in C, C++, .... it shows in places if you
know how & where to look.

 

All computers have limits.
CATIA on an IBM mainframe may not be the same as on a
PC ... ?

 

SolidWorks is increasingly being used to design manufactured buidling
products - HVAC equipment, specialty doors and windows, cladding,
etc., - but not so much for actual architectural design.

The biggest challenge would be construction documentation. CDs are
legal documents that are distributed to the wide range of
subcontractors that actually do the work. The symbology used on AEC
CDs is radically different from mechanical detail drawings and it
would be very difficult to produce a full set of CDs in SolidWorks.

SolidWorks also lacks automation of common architectural elements,
such as inserting doors and windows, cleaning up wall intersections,
curtain walls, etc.

 

There is also no doubt much automation used by the downstream
vendors, contractors, applications & etc. which depends on an
expected file format & data set.

 

I tried some years ago. Led to a discussion about tolerances and
limits in SW. Here are some major sticking points for SW whether
architecture or industrial.

1. The 500M radius limit. Can't build parts bigger than this. On a
project built on 14 acres I ran into this.
2. Lack of a contour loft. Was proposed to SW at SWW2000 for dealing
with contours from a CMM. No action. CATIA has it. So does Autodesk.
3. Poor performance with models that have huge number so small
repetitive features. In the industrial world this means grills, PC
boards, etc.
4. Assembly speed. Buildings are notorious for simple highly
repetitive parts. Mating these can be a big job. Stability of the
mates is another thing. This was a major sticking point to
implementation in the RV and manufactured housing industry.
5. SW is sickenly slow when reading the typical architectural/site
drawings from ACAD. Just too many lines.

Some plusess that could really make SW take off in Civil:

1. Solidmodeling does have an application in earthmoving/landscaping
because it is so easy to remove and add solid volumes.
2. Solidmodeling also has application in actually visualizing what a
project will look like before, during and after construction.
3. Solidmodeling can better predict what is going on underground. To
better understand this statement you would have had to have watched a
project at the end of my road where two high lines, a water main, a
sewer, a storm sewer, a high pressure oil pipeline, fiber optics,
telephone and a few other things crossed over in a major intersection.
And this is a country road.

TOP

 

Excellent point about the visualization aspect. That was really one
of the reasons for my inquiry. I'm working with a company that is
laying out building sites in AutoCAD. Everyone is talking about how
important it is to be able to visualize the site in 3 dimensions. "So
why are you using a 2D CAD package?" So there's the visualization,
the ease of use and the fact that Solidworks is parametric while
AutoCAD isn't.

Granted, I've been away from AutoCAD for a long time, but the
unpleasant aspects appear to still be there. It looks terribly
inefficient compared to what can be done in SW.

Thanks.

 

Some CMMs can output such things as VDA files.
From a VDA file to NURBS geometry is pretty simple if you want to write
a small API program.
(And don't make a *stupid* error, as I once did to my neverending shame.)