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knowledge base
master planning software
While CAD techniques are now universally employed
for detailed architectural design and widely used
for visualisation studies of new buildings, they have
been much less utilised for the master planning stages
of large developments. This is largely because CAD
systems impose a degree of precision on the modelling
process that is inappropriate at a stage of the project
when the detailed design has not commenced.
The aim of this development has been to explore
ways in which a standard CAD environment can be used
by master planners and urban designers without the
huge overheads of training them to be CAD technicians.
The environment chosen for this work was MicroStation
but it is equally appropriate to AutoCAD or other
packages.
The initial brief was to produce a system that would
provide tools for a master planner to produce 2D and
3D presentation materials for a proposed development
with full and interactive reporting on the resulting
floor areas, usages, car parking requirements etc.
The need for a simple and intuitive 3D modelling
system with the automatic production of comprehensive
reports in the form of spreadsheets quickly emerged.
During intense periods of a project such reports change
more rapidly than they can be produced by entering
data manually, and the ability to make a simple change
to a 3D model and then to automatically generate a
new set of reports has been the key to the success
of the software.
The staring point of the software is a simple 2D
layout of the site with polygons representing zones,
plots and buildings. The zones are the major development
phases (on many developments there may be only 1 zone).
Each zone is broken down into 1 or more plots and
each plot contains 1 or more buildings. The zones
and plots are used by the reporting systems; all outputs
can be collated by zone or plot.
Using the tools provided the building outlines can
be extruded into 3D objects by specifying floor height,
number of storeys and the usage. At any level up the
building these parameters can be changed. If the building
is not of uniform floor area, different footprints
can be inserted at any level of the building. These
are all drawn in 2D mode using simple graphics commands.
The initial brief that the user should not need 3D
CAD skills has been rigorously adhered to.
The resulting 3D model can be interrogated for the
total floor areas by usage type and this information
is collated and presented on spreadsheets automatically.
The model can be quickly changed and new reports produced.
While the initial primary objective was to produce
the reports, the graphical output from the system
is equally important. The resulting model provides
a good basis for massing of the development and features
to handle ground terrain and background images have
been included. These are normally aspects of a model
that are only included in a final 3D visualisation
but here have been automated to an extent that allows
them to be included throughout the project. Also, 2D
outputs, often needed for presentation have been provided.
These include colour coded plans showing primary usage,
street level usage and building heights.
Another very exciting aspect of this project is
the use of rapid prototyping to produce a physical
model from the computer data. These techniques have
been used in product design for some years and are
now beginning to be applied to architecture. It is
now possible to produce a model of the proposed development
in a time and cost that allows models to be presented
to clients at any stage of the design. Included in
the software is a direct link to the Z Corp 3D printer.
This software has not only fulfilled its initial objective
of providing an efficient system for master planning
to produce all the information and presentation materials
required with dramatic day savings, but has also remained
true to the initial brief of being simple to operate.
There are now limitless possibilities to extend the
software further and we look forward to working with
many organisations while doing this.
For further details call +44 (0)20 7436 9004 or
enquire online
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