CAD, BIM & 3D

In one of my classes, I showed my students a simple Processing example, where an older exercise from AutoCAD was recreated using the Java-based Processing, an Open Source, cross-platform programming environment for designers, web developers or media artists. In the example, you can navigate around (a bit) using the following shortcuts: Navigate with the mouse: LMB: orbit, MMB: pan, RMB: zoom Navigate with arrows: orbit Toggle the display of objects: x:axis, g:grid, 2:2D, 3:3D Modify some parameters: a/A:aantrede (thread), o/O:optrede (riser), b/B:breedte (width), t/T: amount of threads This browser does not have a Java Plug-in. Get the latest Java Plug-in here. Source code: trapsimpel draw navigatie parametrisatie trap trede Built with Processing

If you go to the BricsCAD documentation pages ( http://www.bricsys.com/nl_BE/bricscad/documentation.jsp ), you can download freely the 144-pages eBook, written by Ralph Grabowski, from upFront.eZine. It gives a good overview of BricsCAD and a thorough comparison with AutoCAD, describing all functions, commands, system variables, aliases and limitations. BricsCAD is a Belgian CAD application, using DWG as its native file format, but at a much lower cost than AutoCAD itself. It is currently a Windows-only application, but as the Bricsys team is rewriting the software, a Linux and OSX version are being prepared.

This is a (largely) academic community discussing ' Design Patterns ' for architectural design and modeling. This explains typical, generic situations that could apply in many situations. The theory, concepts and insights are functional in any system, but the example implementations use Generative Components . http://www.designpatterns.ca/

In a quite surprising move from Bentley, they announced the free availability of Generative Components , their famous generative/procedural modeling system. Originally embedded inside MicroStation and strongly tied to the .NET programming platform from Microsoft, they are decoupling the software from MicroStation and decided to make it freely available, although in a technology preview. It seems to still be tied to the Windows platform. http://www.bentley.com/GetGC

Parama is an Open Source parametric/procedural modeling system, written in Python. You need Python (obviously) and also SLUT (what's in a name) by the same author, which is also freely available. http://parama.sourceforge.net/ Should be as cross-platform as Python itself (meaning: almost any platform is supported)

From the Rhino blogs: Zubin M. Khabazi has updated his book, Generative Algorithms with Grasshopper, which looks at generative algorithms, Grasshopper, design and geometry in architecture. Grasshopper is (still) a Windows-only plugin for Rhino 4.0/5.0, which is freely available and which provides a much more effective interface to modeling with history (introduced in Rhino4). Download it on http://blog.rhino3d.com/2010/04/updated-book-on-grasshopper.html .

As read on the Digital Urban blog : Gephi is an Open Source tool to visualize graphs (networks with relations between objects). As the focus is on the visualization, this will probably appeal to designers and researchers. It is still in alpha/beta, but you can download it and play with it on all major platforms.

At online publisher Lulu, you can download a free PDF ebook on computational design by Rajaa Issa, using Grasshopper. http://www.lulu.com/product/download/essential-mathematics-for-computational-design/6470006 She is also the author of other Grasshopper educational material and has a profile page on http://www.grasshopper3d.com/profile/RajaaIssa .

The new upcoming release of the Adobe CS5 Suite is getting a lot of attention these days. One of the directly appealing features in the Photoshop must be the context-aware fill and eraser . This tool will remove a selection of paint over with samples from the region around it. However, when compared to the existing Spot healing brush, this new version is a lot smarter, as it uses several samples which are merged. However, it seems that you can get a long way using a GIMP " resynthesizer "-plugin as well. For completeness, the following article displays both the (nice) Adobe video demonstration and a recreation of the same procedures using GIMP. Photo-editing is getting better and better. http://www.blender3darchitect.com/2010/03/free-photoshop-cs5-content-aware-fill-with-the-gimp/ Painting out complex items while respecting the rest of the image was never that easy and it will not be perfect with this system either, but it will get you most of the way into perfection. Now yo...