9 years ago, January 2010, I filed the first patent application for hypermodel (the automatic fusion of drawings inside models). That work was commercialized in a CAD/BIM platform in 2012 and since implemented in unique ways by 5 other software companies. That first patent and two others were granted in 2015 and 2016. Links to the patents, and examples of the implementation are here: Earlier Innovations. I mention this for two reasons. 

1) “Drawing” is the act of articulating a closer look, and, the idea (commonly heard these days) that technology will come to obviate the utility of taking a closer look, is absurdity. The sooner abject absurdity is cut out of industry discourse, the sooner innovation that matters will be formulated and carried forward. 

2) substantial innovation in MEDIA itself (digital models of all kinds, and drawings, are MEDIA) comes from fusion, like the fusion of sound into moving picture 100 years ago, and like hypermodel (the automatic fusion of drawings in-situ within models) . Hypermodel, now 9 years old, has gone stale though, because software companies have to date done so little to exploit its potential and so little to develop it beyond its first generation implementation. 

Once drawings arrive in-situ within models — as they have now in at least 6 software platforms developed by 6 different software companies since 2012 (they each did so uniquely and so own their own IP) — then the FORM of “drawing” itself begins to feel a certain pressure, the pressure of greater and greater potential energy being stored up  for next generation developments that should follow. Where there is stasis where movement is inevitable, then a damn is about to burst, with a flood of new innovation when it does. I’m doing everything I can to make the levee break. I’m just one guy though. When I did the earlier (now patented) work I was employed at a corporation (so they own that work).

But I’m employed by nobody now. And I’ve written a book and I’m giving it away for free. The book specifies my newest ideas in detail, a set of instructions for software developers, for what should be called generation 2 of drawing-model fusion. The spec is Chapter 3 of the book. The rest of the book is commentary. Links to download the book from Apple Books, or as PDF, are here: Tangerine Media Innovation Spec 2018 

Any company, new or old, large or small, startup or corporation, is most welcome to take the ideas from the book and put them to use in any way they please.  As specified in the book, generation 2 of drawing-model fusion, is a leapfrogging way beyond the gen1 implementations. And easier to implement too, and will be proven, it seems certain to me, to be more effective, more communicative, far more engaging to users (both authors and viewers) than any expression of drawing has been before, and also will prove instrumental in greatly raising the value and utility of any kind of digital model.

Gen2, when implemented, will drive substantive evolution in the FORM of drawing, in the form of drawing’s expression, an evolution that’s inherently logical now that drawing exists within digital models. I invite everyone who develops software to please take the ideas from the Tangerine Media Innovation Spec 2018 (Chapter 3), and implement them in any way you see fit in the platforms you develop, across desktop, mobile, cloud, VR/AR/MR, within applications built for Planning, Design, Construction, Facilities Operations, and so on.

Just do it.

When these ideas are commercialized then quickly we’ll see the end of rhetoric that implies that drawings are archaic boat anchors holding the industry back, rhetoric in other words that implies that complex digital environments don’t call out, in great need, for precisely the kind of equipment I describe in the book, equipment built into modeled environments that can be used for articulating closer-looks that draw our attention through acts of narrowing focus, to things that must be made clear, and through which — ping-ponging between wide and narrow, environment and focus, model and closer-look — thought happens and understanding grows. 

I’m remiss if I don’t point out: it is at these narrowing acts of articulate focus — also known as “drawing” as we’ve traditionally known them, and will come to know them in drawing’s forthcoming evolving form within models (specified for developers here on Apple Books or here as PDF ) — where clarity rises to a level at which affirmations of the requisite kind may be made. That is, it is at these closer-look-events where one can assert things like:

a) what should be shown here is shown here. b) nothing that matters here is missing. c) I have exercised diligence in declaring a and b and meet my professional standard of care in doing so. d) I affirm this.