More student work from Vanier CAD AEC Program

Some more work from the Vanier CAD AEC Program. I think that Chris Zsofcsin was partially obsessed by Star Wars. Good work Chris...

Student work from Vanier CAD AEC Program

Hi All, I thought I would continue posting some of the student work from Vanier College's AEC CAD program. This week it's some work from Dario Silva. Who worked on a small theater building during his project courses. Here are some of the final images he produced.

And here is an image he produced after the course in Luminon.

Student work from Vanier CAD AEC Program

Lately, I've been teaching in the Vanier CAD AEC program to Adult learners. The program is getting more interesting as we integrate teaching 3ds Max into the program. In our last group of students who graduated in September 2014, we had a number of really interesting projects. I thought I would feature them one at a time on these pages. The first one I would like to feature is Sonila Thaka. She worked on 2D drawings and a 3D model and renderings for a 2 story cottage. Pictured below are her exterior and interior renderings. Awesome..!

Standards, Standards, Standards

I'm starting today a topic in my class which I have always believed is the single most important thing in a CAD environment, standards. Why is it so important? Because it gives us all a common basis to understand drawings and models. If we don't have standards we don't have a common language. While it is true that we have many languages in the world, we also have many people who speak the same language. So when I say Exterior Wall, most people who speak English know what I'm talking about. If I was to show you a drawing with a layer called A-WALL-EXT, most people who work in the building industry with computers should know what that layer is used for. If we don't have standards in our work group, then we don't have a common language. Imagine what would happen in a team of people working on architectural drawings if the CAD operators were each using a different layer for the exterior walls of a building. Standards, once you have learned the basics, this is the next step.

Update to Window AutoLisp

I've noticed that many people have been downloading the window lisp routing I created for AutoCAD. I hope that those people are finding it useful. I decided to add a few new features that will make the windows more attractive.

To download the new updated command click here

The original window is described on the following page:

Before getting started, as with the original window, you must place the UCS to be parallel to the face of the wall, positive x pointing to the right, and positive y pointing up, positive z pointing away from the screen.

First, a routine called mullion to add horizontal and vertical mullions to the outside of the window. Once a window is created, you can type Mullion at the command prompt, and you will be prompted for a lower left corner, then upper right corner of the window. These should be placed on the part of the frame just outside of the glass.

Then when prompted indicate the number of horizontal and vertical mullions.

The second new feature is to create an open curtain inside the window. This works much the same way as previous commands. simply pick 2 points to indicate the lower left, then upper right. In this case the points should be on the inside of the window frame.

The end result should look as follows.

Rendering of Office Building

It's been a while, but I've had this image that a friend and former coworker made of a building I designed for my CAD courses. She did a great job on the rendering. Image credit: Audrey Filion, Design Credit: Roger Cusson (me..! :-) )

Vanier College - New FieldTurf Artificial turf field.

I'm now working at Vanier College, teaching CAD. At the same time one of the companies I have helped with their AutoCAD installation has a project going on right next to the sports complex building on campus. Here is a pic of the preparations for the artificial turf field designed and manufactured by FieldTurf.

BTW, FieldTurf does all its designs using AutoCAD.

Telecommuting

Recently a Silicon Valley giant announced that it was going to recind all agreements with employees who have been allowed to telecommute. Normally my mostly technical posts in this space required me to take some time to note this giant step backwards.

Computer companies have helped enable telecommuting. It is through the possibilities of the internet that workers can collaborate whever they are located. Whether this be across town or across the world. Bringing workers to a central location on a daily basis, leads to longer days due to the amount of time spent in commuting. Commuting can easily take between 2 to 4 hours out of your day.

Corporate leaders, please ask yourself, are your employees ready to work hard and in a good collaborative mood after a two hour commute battling increasingly bad traffic? If workers are lucky to have a good public transit system does it get them to work in a reasonable amount of time? My own personal commute goes from 2 to 4 hours when I switch from automobile to public transit.

I keep hearing that public tranit is the solution, and that government must pour billions and trillions of dollars into it to make it work properly. Well whenever I take public transit, even in a city like mine, which is known for it's relatively good transit system, the experience is often lacking. The systems are setup to move people into the center of the city. More and more people are living and working in the perifery of the city. Commuting in from far away from the center of the city, to no where near the city. Some from south of the city to north of the city. What are the public transit options for these people. Practically non-existant.

So people use cars, and our roads get further jamed up everyday. So why not let employees telecommute one or two days per week. Result, less traffic, happier employees, less gasoline consumed. Sounds good to me.

Basic Pivot Door for Revit

Subsequent to creating an AutoLISP routine for creating a basic pivot door for AutoCAD I created a Revit family to do the same thing. I'm careful to create objects so it will allow for proper application of materials once you get to 3ds Max. Give it a try, If I see there is some interest I'll make some improvements to the door.

Click here to download the Revit Family.

Here is the link if that does not work:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/d5dm1b7y7e3bvtv/Pivot_Door.rfa

Enjoy

New AutoLisp for 3D Pivot Door

I've been working on a simple pivot door script to use in AutoCAD. You can download the file here.

Here is how the script works.

Command: sd 
Chose the wall to insert the door: (Select the 3D Solid that represents the wall)
Select objects: 1 found
Select objects: (press enter to finish the selection) 
Pick lower left corner of door: (pick location on the hinge side of the door)
Pick upper left corner of door: (pick a perpendicular point on the other side of the wall) 
Indicate width of door: 36 
Indicate height of door: 80

Enjoy..

Amazing House in an Immersive Visit

Check out this house in an immersive visit. It's really incredible, click here to launch the visit.

AutoCAD Lisp Command to Draw Windows

Although there are a number of ways to create architectural 3D CAD Models, AutoCAD still remains as a major modeling tool in my day to day work. The problem remains that AutoCAD does not contain the modeling capabilities of Revit Architecture. So I have spent a fair amount of my down time at my job developing tools to accelerating 3D modeling within (vanilla) AutoCAD. I thought I would share with you some of my experience, and develop some new commands that you can have fun with, and hopefully help you with some of your AutoCAD modeling projects.

Here is a command which will create a simple window based on selecting 2 points on an opening which has been created in the facade of building.

The UCS should be oriented parallel to the face of the building. Then you would select the lower left corner followed by the upper right corner. The window is then created automatically.

The window command creates 2 layers for the window frame and glass, and places those objects on those layers automatically. In the above illustration, I've recessed the objects by moving them after the fact to improve the illustration.

You can download the Lisp routine here. 

Or use the following URL: http://www.mediafire.com/download/pav98m98q418r9q/Window.lsp

Have a good one, cheers

Update to Window.lsp click here

Wall Unit Revit Family

I thought I would share another one of the Revit families I created in the past. This one was created to solve the problem of a flexible wall unit which could accept various sized flat screen televisions. In addition, more flexibility was designed into the unit as well. Let me know how you like it.

You can download it here.

Alternatively, here is the URL:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/siks4ni0l6p875x/Wall%20Unit.rfa

Have fun and let me know how you like it, cheers.