I’m studying for a Diploma (associates) in architectural technology. Not sure which one to dedicate myself to.
I’m also a photographer I use photoshop and Lightroom. Maybe that random info could be used to help dumb it down for me? Lol.
Tia
Edit- I’d basically be a draftsman or a technologist. Not an actual go to school for 6 years architect.
In: Engineering
Think of CAD as a digital version of a drafting table. You draw lines to represent objects (walls, doors, structural elements, plumbing fixtures, etc.) but the software isn’t smart enough to know that one line over here is part of a wall and another over there is a part of a steel beam, much the same way as ink on paper isn’t “smart” enough to know whether it is representing a wall or a beam.
BIM is intelligent in that each element of a building is recognized by the software as a different component. The software knows that a wall is a wall, it knows the height and width of the wall, how many studs are in the wall, what type of studs they are, what the thickness of the drywall is on the wall, etc. It’s the same for any building component, the software knows all the parameters of that particular component. This means you could ask “how many square feet of drywall are in this building” and the software would be able to calculate an answer. This is very powerful as it allows you to do things like quantity takeoffs to estimate material costs for a building.
BIM can also do clash detection. Because all components are placed in 3 dimensions and the software knows what each component is, it would know, for instance, that a beam should not be passing through a ventilation duct. If it sees a clash like that, it can alert you so you can reroute the duct around the beam. This helps reduce the number of changes that have to be done by a contractor in the field because of conflicts.
CAD will go the way of the dinosaurs, BIM is the future for architecture, and most architecture firms already use BIM over CAD
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