Hey all, we're planning to migrate servers around Monday, so there will be a bit of downtime :) I can be contacted at dion@thinkmoult.com for anything urgent.
New Blender 2.9 = the end of sketchup or BricsCADShape?
I heard it a lot but still I don't know what it is?
Sometimes in the industry some terms become popular but few know what that term is talking about and what's its pros and cons
Blender has its own market, VFX and CG, so in this area some features don't matter
Sketchup, BricsCAD, ..., have another market, CAD, and their own pros and cons too
FreeCAD too, I know a lot of people, mainly from FabLabs, that use or were using FreeCAD, and are not keen with it, and say it has its pros and cons in CAD, CAE and CAM
The 'AEC software industry'' (i personally hate this term for being narrow minded) is well on its way in becoming one big boiling fusion arena. That is good..
Fusion is an idea to build/have a synthetic world bedsides a physical world? But who knows about it? Some few people from Massachusetts and Silicon Valley
@Marcus I'm referring to how CAD programs behave in a certain way to use a reference or base point when performing transformations. Blender wasn't built for CAD guys, and never built the same functions. See: https://developer.blender.org/T45734
Blender, snaps, and reference points needs help. Badly.
Yes, AutoCAD is a brand from Autodesk, it's a CAD system
BIM is a CAD system too, but has some specific rules that distinguish BIM from traditional CAD systems
Ready-to-Use objects (and even materials (which material for me has a specific meaning)) still is a wish in the industry, and there're some companies like BIMobject, but as I mentioned before I work on Rapid and Real-time Information Systems and that solution is somewhat interesting
Returning to the original topic, I believe that, if Blender pretends to take a part of us architects that want to use it to design and present architectural models with it, it has to dwelve into the aspects @Moult refers:
@Moult said:
Native section planes
Native move/rotate/scale with reference points
Also other modelling/drawing tools with accurate inferencing (reference points)
But also, and probably mainly:
2D drawing/documentation system that features:
- Dimensions;
- Labels;
- Hatches;
- Details drawing system connected to the model.
Without knowing it's possible to do that, I'm personally having trouble transitioning.
Other Architectural software started with 2D documentation/presentation and then moves to rendering and blender needs to do the opposite move in order to gather us.
@JQL said:
Returning to the original topic, I believe that, if Blender pretends to take a part of us architects that want to use it to design and present architectural models with it, it has to dwelve into the aspects @Moult refers:
Blender is not pretending to take part of architects. Any architecture workflow feature in Blender will be an external addon develop by others, like BlenderBIM, Archipack, etc.
If a developer wants to focus his development in having Blender as an alternative to the architectural modelling practitioneers out there, that need to present their models in technical ways besides rendering, he/she needs to address 2D documentation.
Blender is already fit for rendering which is a big part of a project, but not key, it's already fit for modelling, though it's not streamlined for accurate modelling, but it still is very much lacking 2D documentation.
If that's a major failing in Blender,
New Blender 2.9 = the end of sketchup or BricsCADShape?
Then I would consider that the above will only happen when there is a seamless bridge from Blender to 2D documentation that allows a Blender Model to be used for generating standard 2D output.
Sketchup has Layout.
BricsCAD shape has BricsCAD products.
What does Blender have?
Creating 2d output is only one step, blender also lack basic things like printer management. At this time you have to rely on svg / pdf exports in order to be able to print.
Absolutely agree with this. I'm sat on the fence itching to get into Blender but without being able to produce reliable 2D drawings I have to stay on the fence....
And 2D drawings are key, because most practices that are adopting 3D modelling are not adopting BIM yet. Even Revit, which is probably the main go to for Architectural 3D modelling, is being used by most users as a 3D modeleler package for arch with 2D and reporting capabilities and not as BIM.
I would say that true BIM is still only viable for a "few" big companies and a "few" big projects while others are still drawing in 2D CAD, some might be transitioning to 3D but even those are still far from BIM. This is the point I am at.
@bitacovir said:
Blender is not pretending to take part of architects. Any architecture workflow feature in Blender will be an external addon develop by others, like BlenderBIM, Archipack, etc.
Correct. Ton has explicitly said this. He support workflows that coordinate with FreeCAD and other CAD systems.
... this is why it's important that we help the different add-on developers work together on an integrated solution. We know that @Moult and @stephen_l coordinate and we probably want to encourage a few others to get involved. All these add-ons are relevant and would benefit from coordination https://wiki.osarch.org/index.php?title=Category:Blender_Add-on
Coordination and complementarity of software packages can be the answer. I know the phrase "get the right tool for the job" and we can get many different tools for each part of our job as architects, however the market has tools that do respond to all the stages of an architect's job.
There is no OS tool that offers that and Blender or FreeCAD have a solid basis to be developed into that (via plugins in Blender's case, probably). Each has it's advantages and disadvantages. I think Blender is closer to be the Jack of all trades than FreeCAD, at this point and looking at architecture from my own perspective of things.
Maybe that's not the aim around here (to have that Jack) but it's what I'd like to see.
Comments
I believe in Fusion, not in 'killers'..
@bitacovir that is a very good feature, to be sure :)
A few others that I am keeping a close eye on, which I think is pretty sad that Blender hasn't got already:
I don't know what's Fusion?
I heard it a lot but still I don't know what it is?
Sometimes in the industry some terms become popular but few know what that term is talking about and what's its pros and cons
Blender has its own market, VFX and CG, so in this area some features don't matter
Sketchup, BricsCAD, ..., have another market, CAD, and their own pros and cons too
FreeCAD too, I know a lot of people, mainly from FabLabs, that use or were using FreeCAD, and are not keen with it, and say it has its pros and cons in CAD, CAE and CAM
Fusion is where thing come to gather to make something new. But it can turn out ugly too, Corona..
The 'AEC software industry'' (i personally hate this term for being narrow minded) is well on its way in becoming one big boiling fusion arena. That is good..
Fusion is an idea to build/have a synthetic world bedsides a physical world? But who knows about it? Some few people from Massachusetts and Silicon Valley
One of them is she: https://www.ted.com/talks/neri_oxman_design_at_the_intersection_of_technology_and_biology
@Moult You mentioned reference points and for seconds I was thinking about snaps point 🤪 C'mon it would be a nice shot
@Marcus we discussed before snap points in Blender, Dion can summarize it with new findings too
@Marcus I'm referring to how CAD programs behave in a certain way to use a reference or base point when performing transformations. Blender wasn't built for CAD guys, and never built the same functions. See: https://developer.blender.org/T45734
Blender, snaps, and reference points needs help. Badly.
@Moult Blender 2016: https://www.blender.org/user-stories/e-interiores-next-generation-interior-design-with-blender
My idea as "ProductPass (Product Passport)" implemented with him in this way: https://youtu.be/djH06ag4HlE
This started as Blender fork and now is an AutoCAD project...
I'm not sure it totally be an AutoCAD project.
The web says "AutoCAD-based Design & Drafting Solutions"
https://www.microvellum.com/solutions/toolbox/
Yes, it is, however, it seems that they mixed some other ideas with that Autocad-based solution
It not "AutoCAD" .. (the dad end Autodesk branch) An entire ecosystem of DWG based solutions ..
Yes, AutoCAD is a brand from Autodesk, it's a CAD system
BIM is a CAD system too, but has some specific rules that distinguish BIM from traditional CAD systems
Ready-to-Use objects (and even materials (which material for me has a specific meaning)) still is a wish in the industry, and there're some companies like BIMobject, but as I mentioned before I work on Rapid and Real-time Information Systems and that solution is somewhat interesting
Returning to the original topic, I believe that, if Blender pretends to take a part of us architects that want to use it to design and present architectural models with it, it has to dwelve into the aspects @Moult refers:
Also other modelling/drawing tools with accurate inferencing (reference points)
But also, and probably mainly:
2D drawing/documentation system that features:
- Dimensions;
- Labels;
- Hatches;
- Details drawing system connected to the model.
Without knowing it's possible to do that, I'm personally having trouble transitioning.
Other Architectural software started with 2D documentation/presentation and then moves to rendering and blender needs to do the opposite move in order to gather us.
Blender is not pretending to take part of architects. Any architecture workflow feature in Blender will be an external addon develop by others, like BlenderBIM, Archipack, etc.
OK. I'll rephrase it then. :)
If a developer wants to focus his development in having Blender as an alternative to the architectural modelling practitioneers out there, that need to present their models in technical ways besides rendering, he/she needs to address 2D documentation.
Blender is already fit for rendering which is a big part of a project, but not key, it's already fit for modelling, though it's not streamlined for accurate modelling, but it still is very much lacking 2D documentation.
If that's a major failing in Blender,
Then I would consider that the above will only happen when there is a seamless bridge from Blender to 2D documentation that allows a Blender Model to be used for generating standard 2D output.
Sketchup has Layout.
BricsCAD shape has BricsCAD products.
What does Blender have?
Creating 2d output is only one step, blender also lack basic things like printer management. At this time you have to rely on svg / pdf exports in order to be able to print.
Absolutely agree with this. I'm sat on the fence itching to get into Blender but without being able to produce reliable 2D drawings I have to stay on the fence....
And 2D drawings are key, because most practices that are adopting 3D modelling are not adopting BIM yet. Even Revit, which is probably the main go to for Architectural 3D modelling, is being used by most users as a 3D modeleler package for arch with 2D and reporting capabilities and not as BIM.
I would say that true BIM is still only viable for a "few" big companies and a "few" big projects while others are still drawing in 2D CAD, some might be transitioning to 3D but even those are still far from BIM. This is the point I am at.
Correct. Ton has explicitly said this. He support workflows that coordinate with FreeCAD and other CAD systems.
... this is why it's important that we help the different add-on developers work together on an integrated solution. We know that @Moult and @stephen_l coordinate and we probably want to encourage a few others to get involved. All these add-ons are relevant and would benefit from coordination https://wiki.osarch.org/index.php?title=Category:Blender_Add-on
Coordination and complementarity of software packages can be the answer. I know the phrase "get the right tool for the job" and we can get many different tools for each part of our job as architects, however the market has tools that do respond to all the stages of an architect's job.
There is no OS tool that offers that and Blender or FreeCAD have a solid basis to be developed into that (via plugins in Blender's case, probably). Each has it's advantages and disadvantages. I think Blender is closer to be the Jack of all trades than FreeCAD, at this point and looking at architecture from my own perspective of things.
Maybe that's not the aim around here (to have that Jack) but it's what I'd like to see.