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Are we done yet? - moving the conversation topics away from CAD

I have noticed that the conversation in the CAD industry has migrated toward the higher end tools.  Your conversations may have changed from generic CAD to Inventor, Revit, Bentley Architecture, ArchiCAD, Catia, Pro E, etc.

What I observe is that the conversation on CAD is not yet finished.  What areas do I think still need conversations?  Here are a few...

  • Standards

  • Basic Functions

  • Interoperability

  • File Exchange

  • Standard File Format

The conversation has moved on, but we are not quite done.

Let's take a look at the first one...  more to come in the next few months.

Standards

The National CAD Standard is entering the release 4 phase of development.  The voting has begun on the areas to add, remove or modify.  Not many of the large vendors have included tools that are embedded in the software to make it "beyond easy" to comply with the NCS.  They all have some form of tool, but not many have tools that "just make it happen".  Maybe I am not aware of the tools that some have developed, but it would seem to me that if you had a tool like that you should be shouting about it.  How long do we have to keep thinking about what layer I want to use?

Moving beyond Layer/Level Names opens another can of worms. 

Here is a good thread on the Autodesk site about what is not in compliance in one of the products.

The NCS folks have included a proposed 12-Step NCS Implementation Program on their site.  How many of us are doing all of these? 

  1. Reorganize disciplines in drawing set (UDS Module 01)
  2. Adopt discipline designators/sheet numbering (UDS Module 01)
  3. Adopt sheet coordinate system/drawing identification (UDS Module 02)
  4. Adopt file naming (UDS Module 01)
  5. Adopt sheet title block format (UDS Module 03)
  6. Adopt schedule format (UDS Module 03)
  7. Adopt terms and abbreviations (UDS Module 05)
  8. Adopt CAD Layer Guidelines and Plotting Guidelines
  9. Adopt symbols (UDS Module 06)
  10. Adopt drafting conventions (UDS Module 04)
  11. Adopt code conventions (UDS Module 08)
  12. Adopt notations (UDS Module 07)

Here are a couple of Press Releases

The NCS V4 Amendments Submitted to NCSPC's Vote on March 14, 2007 with this announcement...

The National CAD Standard Version 4 (NCS V4) ballot opened to a vote of the Project Committee members on March 14, 2007. The NCS V4 ballot voting period of 35 calendar days will close on April 18, 2007.

The day before the National Building Information Modeling Standards version 1 was announced (March 13, 2007).  National BIM Standard™ Version 1.0—Part 1: Available for Industry Review until May 21, 2007

So my point is - the conversation has moved on before we have completed the full saturation of the previous topic.  We have not completed all of the tasks that CAD has unearthed.  Has the topic of CAD been discussed and refined completely? Are you totally on the same page with everyone about all of the CAD issues? 

Are we done talking about CAD yet?  I think not.  BIM and other advanced topics have opened up, but let's not totally close the old issues until they are resolved.  Some of us are more than ready to move on.  Others are not.  Some issues may not be attainable in the current 2D CAD formats that have lived for so long.  So should the conversation stop about 2D and now be 3D only.  Should we move away from the old topics and on to new ones.  Let me know your thoughts.

April 2006