Yeah, actually, no, 3D is not the evolution of 2D. Although, yes, the pull-quote below is a key concept we’ve all had in mind the last 20 years in architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC).
3D is the evolution of 2D.
2D is a primitive representation of the 3D reality. Many people can not read or understand drawings.
Not everyone buys into that idea.
Many do understand what’s wrong with it. But a whole software industry has more or less cultivated this idea without giving it serious thought. I mean, it turns out that although it’s pervasive as a kind of slogan, if you look into it with some seriousness, you find little or no load-bearing thought supporting it.
Let’s scrutinize it here.
While many people aren’t skilled at understanding technical drawings, Is it not more accurate to say that things like the design and construction of buildings are complex enough that understanding them beyond superficially, is simply difficult no matter what? No matter whether you’re looking at them in 2D or 3D?
I’d say, yes. And that there is no easy way to understand the complexities without concentrated effort. And without a lot of skill. And a knowledgebase built up through a lot of experience.
We can fly around in a model, and from that, form general impressions of a complex project. But general impressions are not enough and if we want to go beyond superficial understanding, then it takes more effort.
And how about this idea?
Is it not more on target to say, that digital models (3D) are an evolution not of drawings (2D), but rather, that:
digital models (3D) are an evolution of mental models (also 3D, in imaginary space)
Is that not really more accurate?
Then what can we say about 2D, about drawings?
Can we not clarify this question, and its answer, by starting by asking, what are drawings?
What are they for?
Can we not say that drawings are an attention-focusing –device– that help us engage in clear thinking about models?
I talk about that here:
Models are fuzzy, mentally, (see the story in the post above), and that’s true in more ways than one, even for digital models, which after all mean nothing to anyone without adequate mental model formation.
Setting the perceptive mind in motion, the catalyzing of adequate mental model formation requires effort.
But what kind of effort?
It requires getting ourselves well and truly engaged with models.
And for that we rely on certain, devices for facilitating, structuring, ordering, and strengthening the necessary visual engagement with models. And again, we’re talking about models, (mental and digital), of complex things.
Technical drawing in its traditional form well and truly embodies this function. It acts as a -device- for facilitating and strengthening our concentrated visual engagement with models, mental and digital, for interpretive and generative purposes.
Here’s a short video from last year, 2023, of me talking a bit more about this, and the interpretive and generative aspects involved. There is an attempt at some humor throughout. I hope you see it that way:
So, if 3D evolved, from mental model to digital model, can we not also talk about evolution of this -device- for visual engagement with those models? Meaning, evolution in the form of expression of technical drawing?
I think we can. And we must.
First of all, why does the device for concentrated visual engagement with the model have to remain externalized only from the digital model, as it had been for all the centuries and millennia predating digital computing, now that models are both mental and digital?
Even in past centuries before digital computing and software, drawings were instantiated in-situ at true orientation within mental models. That’s what people do when they read drawings. They imagine each drawing where it really is, in the model, in their mind…, in the mental model that’s put into formation, as they read the drawings.
There is more going on too.
There are, at least these 4 things going on, that I mention on this page (V1.0):
Here are the 4 things, after (0). Initiation.
V1.0 (always)
Drawings belong in models. It’s where they’ve always been. For good reason. From the first time anyone scratched out a drawing in sand, in stone, on papyrus, they instantiated that graphic in-situ where it really is, in the mental model in formation in their minds. An interplay was underway.
There is more to say about this. Let’s break it into parts: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4…
(0). Initiation:
A mental model of the project starts to form (more here). It’s fuzzy, fluid. A mist, really. The fog lifts though. The sun comes out and makes things clearer.
It’s iterative.
Sometimes a model that’s becoming clear then gets shrouded again in fog, maybe because that model should dissipate to make way for better ideas, for better things to become clear.
(1) Visual Close Study (VCS) of models
Any single technical drawing is an expression of the act of looking somewhere specific within a model mental, digital, or physical.
A drawing is the act of visual close study (VCS), there, at that location, and the articulate expression of this close study.
(2) Physical evaluation
There at that location, we evaluate, is everything that should be shown, there, actually shown there? Is anything that matters, there, missing?
The main idea hinted at here in step (2) has to do with evaluation, of a particular kind.
It’s not primarily about classification, or conformance with classification standards. Classification is there but it’s secondary.
The evaluation in step (2) is primarily about physicality.
It’s about the evaluation of putting things together, assembling an assemblage. It’s a check against omission, of physical things. It’s a check on how complex physical systems are fit together, and how we affirm (step 3, below) system quality in terms of whether or not any of the physical pieces that are necessary are missing, and whether or not all the pieces needed fit together well or not.
Good fit involves many sub-evaluations, like:
economy, firmness, and delight
(Vitruvius)
Is it fit for purpose, including ‘doing the job’ and meeting the budget?
Is it durable, stable, reliable?
Does it stir something in us?
(3) Affirmation
Finally at some point after the long work of model development and review, someone with authority (experience, knowledge) to do so, AFFIRMS the status of the questions in (2).
(4) INTERPLAY: the engine of thought
Along the way (0, 1, 2, 3…) an INTERPLAY is engaged, in our minds, between:
- a set of expressions of visual close study (VCS) at various locations of narrowed attentive visual focus within a model
and
- the wider expanse of the whole of the modeled project environment.
In the interplay, thought happens and understanding grows.
Fuzzy initial ideas are sorted and judged. Selected stronger concepts are thought through, clarified along the way, and ultimately, thought through all the way through so they can be carried to fruition.
0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 are the higher order work of AEC professions, done by binding up, stitching together model and drawing
That list is not complete though. There are some other functions in play. I’ll add another one here, call it item 5.
(5) drawing attention to make clear what’s critically important
Item 5 is about having the courtesy (to oneself and to others) to draw attention to critical aspects of a model. You may have a model that is of excellent quality throughout, but even so, people using that model are going to appreciate it if you draw their attention to particular things that are not to be missed. I describe a case of that in a little project of my own here. Please take a look. It’s a fun story, I think:
So these are vital functions, essential.
1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are not to be dismissed. And not to be dismissed lightly without serious thought put into the consequences, after which, the conclusion certainly will come that dismissal was not a good idea, and that it’s the idea of the dismissal of drawing that ought to be dismissed, not drawing.
We can also dismiss the idea of keeping drawing locked permanently in the same form of expression by which we’ve known it in all the centuries before digital computing and software.
Modeling evolved, from mental to digital model. Drawing can evolve too.
First thing to notice is that as drawing has always been instantiated, by mental exercise, in the mental model, so in the digital model drawing should be instantiated too, digitally, automatically. This is about automated drawing-model fusion.
I invented that. it’s documented on the V2.0 page on my website. That was my earlier work. Variations of it are in 9 softwares since we did it first in 2012.
V2.0 (2012)
With the popularization of digital modeling by the 1990s, technical drawing continued as before in it’s usual role, while instantiation into the model continued as it always had, unaltered from V1.0, as mental exercise only. Until I invented the automated fusion of drawings in digital models in 2012.
But that’s 12 years old now and logically it’s time to move forward.
It’s logical for a couple reasons.
- The function of drawing, the 5 functions discussed above, are essential for work in AEC. So the vehicle carrying those functions should improve to carry out the 5 functions in the most effective way possible, powering the engine of thought, and supplying the necessary clarity, and affirmation.
A second reason has to do with the fertility of the ground in which drawings reside now.
- Now that drawings reside – for 12 years in now 9 different softwares – where they really are, automatically at true orientation within digital models, where they’ve always resided within mental models, it is logical that they should evolve in their form of expression, because the ground of the digital model is different than the ground of the mental model.
Not only on flat pieces of paper, or on screen equivalents of paper, drawings are planted in new ground now. The ground of the digital model. Because of that they can grow into something new. Or they can bear new fruit, like TanGeriNes 🍊 (TGN),
A new form that better expresses the 5 essential functions described above.
So what would that new form look like?
We can start to answer that by thinking about what a drawing looks like when we see it in our mind’s eye, in-situ within the mental model. We wobble back and forth in an arc around it, in context within the fuzzy mental model when visualizing it there. Maybe you notice your eyes sort of look downward (it’s true for me anyway) when we visualize this mentally. Try it and notice what you’re doing the next time you’re in that flow state fully engaged with this kind of visualization.
So that’s a starting point.
Another starting point is the kind of capabilities that exist within any typical digital modeling environment. We have cameras. We have camera paths and controls for cameras in motion. We have model filtering controls. We have a model clipping or scope box/volume. We have graphical styles. We have extra graphics like various kinds of annotations, labels, dimensions, and sometimes clarifying additional (non-model) line, curve, and shape graphics and the like.
And we have the clear demand for portability, so that these expressions can be authored in one modeling app, and shared to others who may be using other modeling apps, formats, and platforms.
So, putting these ideas together and envisioning a coherent formal evolution of the functions embodied by the medium of drawing, is what I’ve been doing.
On the V3.0 page at my website https://tangerinefocus.com I put my thoughts down on paper, so to speak.
Here is the proposal page for V3.0:
On the V3.0 page I write:
- in brief outline form, a list of 8 core features of TGN that represent the minimum set of functions that packaged together will evolve drawing’s form of expression enough to make a positive difference in carrying out the 5 essential functions of the medium of technical drawing.
- I also write a long form functional specification for software developers. There are download links to the spec on the V3.0 page.
- There are also 2 mockup videos partially showing what TGN can look and feel like when in use by TGN rig authors and viewers alike. These demo’s are OK. I kind of like them. But they’re not quite there. Some aspects are missing and the representation comes up a bit short. But combined with the outline text and the longer spec, you get an idea of some of the possibilities we intend to show in real software and a real codebase for TGN OPEN CODE. On the way. Coming soon. Of course, the first iterations will not be polished and will come up short too. But we will get better and better and better.
V3.0 (2024)
The functions of drawing are described on this page, above. Each has a number, a name, and a short description. Together they add up to something.
Those envisioning the future of software/tech in the AEC industry must account for the necessity of these functions by each AEC discipline as they develop their discipline models, and the continued use of drawings, and things that are functionally like drawings, all the way through the design > fabricate > supply > construct > and use and maintain chain
There is no future in which the essential functions of drawing are not expressed as they must be, either in traditional form, or in new forms of expression of the same functions within digital models.
There is no future in which the functions are abandoned.
TGN is an evolution in FORM. The form of expression, of technical drawing, now that it resides in digital models, should evolve. Because it can. And must.
TGN stitches together technical drawing and digital modeling. Not only a fusion, but also an evolution in form that surfaces the best of both media, in a new form of expression greater than the sum of its parts.
It is proposed to enter the market through an open source set of core features to be developed, shared, and promoted to existing and new software companies and relevant standards organizations (e.g., Open USD), with myriad business opportunities for software companies for extending beyond the open core.
V3.0 is a leap forward and evolution in the form of expression of attention-focusing devices (for interpretive and generative purposes, (i.e., drawings) that reside already for 12 years in 9 different softwares IN digital models, automatically.
Development has started
We have now 3 developers volunteering on this TGN open source project so far and 2 more just now joining. We’re getting our codebase house in order, to make it easier to open the doors and invite everyone who’s interested, into the project.
We’ll announce our GitHub and Discord server later in August (2024).
Post Script:
Simon Dilhas commented on this post before I edited to include his comment:
2d is the evolution of 3d. We were looking for ways to reduce the complexity of reality, so that we could manage it better.
Exactly so. Some details on why Simon is right are in this post, with implications for software development.
OPEN VCS, a lens for looking at models 