In 2007, after building well detailed digital models of buildings since 1998 and automating every construction drawing from the model (see below), I thought:
the model-automated drawings and their embellishing graphics should be visible where they are in the 3D model, automatically:
a fusion.
I got lucky.
The owner/developer of a software corporation, Bentley Systems, agreed. He hired me to lead the development team (with him as lead developer) to build that fusion into their software platform: MicroStation.
That was completed and released in 2012.
You can see the outcome in the videos below.
Since then 9 different software companies have built their version of the same:
- Bentley MicroStation (2012)
- Graphisoft (in BIMx Docs, mobile) (2013)
- Dalux
- Revizto
- working together: Morpholio and
- Shapr3D
- Solidworks (since 2015)
- Tekla
- Autodesk Docs (2022)
It might interest some to see the full set of construction drawings the way I did them back then (1998 – 2008). All the drawing graphics that represent physical reality are automated from the digital model, along with all the graphic stylization, and most of the labels and symbols likewise automated from the model. Notations were added manually. You can see the model here (with the drawing fusion tech we added later at Bentley in 2012, retrofit back into the old project model from 2008):
Here are the automated drawings, from 2008. Click the links to view full size PDFs of each sheet:
Exterior Shell work, drawings:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BZckPOyYCyGFgoVIDUEO69_zEjBqVxdI?usp=sharing McKay Snyder Architects, Jim McKay, Architect
Click the link above to view full size PDFs of each sheet.
Interior Renovation work, drawings:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1564qx1FAvD5mCFucBGtB5O_0IKQ5LJCw?usp=sharing McKay Snyder Architects, Jim McKay, Architect
Click the link above to view full size PDFs of each sheet.
I was doing that kind of modeling since 1998. Here is a collection of projects I worked on from 2004-2008, modeling, rendering, and automating drawing.
V1.0 drawing-model fusion is drawing fusion within mental models. That’s what we’ve always had. For thousands of years, we’ve done the mental work of imagining where a drawing is, in-situ within the mental model. And we look at the drawing there. We orbit around it a bit, seeing it spatially in our mind’s eye. That’s fusion V1.0
Since early 2012, V2.0 assisted that fusion by doing the same thing in the digital model. What we imagined mentally, we can now see, digitally. V2.0 automatically displayed CAD drawings (and hand drawn drawings) at true orientation within digital models, within BIMs, point clouds, and hybrids of these. The V2.0 automated drawing-model fusion was referred to commercially as “hypermodel” by Bentley Systems in marketing their software products, including the 2D and 3D CAD application, MicroStation:
Below are some examples from back then, of V2.0 drawing-model fusion in the MicroStation CAD application since May 2012. There is also a longer playlist on my YouTube channel with more examples. The fusion was done automatically by the software with no user effort. As long as the normal drawing automation procedure was used to generate and iterate the drawings, their graphics would appear at the same time in drawing views, on drawing sheets, and in the model as shown here:
There is a longer playlist on my YouTube channel with more examples.
V2.0 Fusion (2012) originality:
The following patents were granted for the fusion mechanism shown above. In my opinion these patents have no bearing on the new V3.0 open source development.
TGN obviates the old patents because TGN is a completely different mechanism and a completely different form.
INTEGRATED ASSEMBLAGE OF 3D BUILDING MODELS AND 2D CONSTRUCTION DRAWINGS
Patent date
Issued Nov 3, 2015
Patent issuer and number
us 9177085
Multi-dimensional artifact assemblage for infrastructure and other assets with interface node mediators
Patent date
Issued Jul 5, 2016
Patent issuer and number
us 9384308
Hypermodel-Based Panorama Augmentation
Patent date
Issued Oct 4, 2016
Patent issuer and number
us 9460561
Patent description: Integrated Assemblage of 2D Drawings and Panoramic Images
All of the above is a baby step.
A progression is underway
V1.0 Drawings in Mental Models
Drawing is the vehicle for looking with intent — at models mental, physical, and digital — and showing that you did.
From the first time anyone scratched out a drawing on a cave wall, they instantiated the graphic where it is in-situ within the mental model in formation in their mind. An interplay was underway.
V2.0 Drawing-Model Fusion (2012)
I invented the automatic fusion of drawings in digital models in 2012. See the story here: Drawing-Model Fusion 2012
Fusion, …like recorded sound in (formerly) silent film.
With the popularization of digital modeling by the 1990s, technical drawing continued in its usual role while instantiation into the model remained unaltered since the time of cave painting (V1.0), mental exercise alone, unassisted by the digital model.
(OPEN VCS) V3.0
Using digital models to evolve the form
of expression, of the vehicle for looking with intent — at models mental, physical, and digital — and showing that you did.
Not only a fusion, but an evolution in form that surfaces the best of both media (model and drawing), in a new form of expression greater than the sum of its parts.
TANGERINE FOCUS 