The Future of AEC Technology

From intelligent 3D models to cave automated virtual environments to Windows 2000 Professional-equipped platforms running at 1GHz-plus, developments in architectural design technology over the next five years promise an unsurpassed impact on the industry.

Faster CPUs, better operating systems, more RAM, and fancier graphics engines will drive platform trends. Innovative input and display technologies will leverage the platform with design representations that are qualitatively (not just quantitatively) better. Comparable improvements in communications will link designers' and builders' desktops into more cost-effective business collaborations. Those who successfully navigate these changes will achieve competitive advantage and a growing share of a half-trillion dollar building market in the United States alone.

Platform Trends
As reported at the 1998 Microprocessor Forum, Intel's planned succession of future processors-the 64-bit Merced in 2000, the 1GHz McKinley in 2001 and the even faster Madison of 2002-will boost 3D rendering benchmarks at least 100-fold over today's fastest Pentium II Xeon processor. Further, Intel's market dominance in high-end workstation CPUs will increase as both Hewlett-Packard and Silicon Graphics switch from their proprietary chips to Intel's 64-bit offerings.

In operating systems, a recent CMP Media survey predicts that by 2002, Microsoft's Windows 2000 Professional (the latest name for the OS formerly known as NT 5.0 Workstation) will reign on at least 70 percent of all desktops. For AEC applications this "Win2K" dominance will be even greater. Unlike the MCAD and EDA (electronic design automation) markets, where UNIX is well entrenched, AEC CAD already is a Windows stronghold. Thus, the five-year forecast for Win2K on AEC desktops approaches 95 percent.

Early Win2K betas occupy a nearly 64MB RAM footprint, implying 256MB as a realistic minimum for productive CAD work. Power users will be running 1GB of RAM or better on the desktop within five years. According to Tiburon, CA, research firm John Peddie Associates, graphics controllers, which themselves can carry 8MB-96MB today, will multiply video memory several-fold to accommodate the burgeoning demands of photorealistic rendering and animation. Overall, the typical AEC CAD workstation of 2002-2004 will have a stable (at last) multitasking Microsoft OS running on an Intel CPU 100 times faster than the current best with eight to sixteen times the main memory and video RAM of today's most fully loaded box.

Input/Output Trends
Leading-edge designers, such as Polshek Partnership Architects LLP of New York, will benefit from all the computing power they can get in the next few years. For example, to explore complex spatial relationships in renovating the Oklahoma City Civic Center Music Hall, scheduled for the year 2000, the firm used Bentley Systems' MicroStation (www.bentley.com) to create a series of views such as the one on this month's cover. This project embeds a new sculptural 2,500-seat concert hall within a 1938 Moderne shell, linking old and new with stairs, elevators, ramps and bridges spanning a vast atrium.

Even with software powerful enough for this model, Senior Associate Don Weinreich, AIA, laments that today's tools still "deliver only 20 percent of what we'd like to have." Weinreich argues that "we need to get rid of the keyboard and the mouse, and we need much larger displays with much finer resolution if computers are to become as natural for architects as pencil and paper." In other words, both input and display technologies must leap beyond current commercial standards. Fortunately, the next five years promise considerable progress on both fronts.

 

Figure 1. At the University of Colorado Sundance Lab, researchers draw rough perspective sketches (left), which are analyzed by computer (middle) and automatically turned into 3D models (right).

The Sundance Laboratory (www.wallstreet.colorado.edu) at the University of Colorado's College of Architecture and Planning in Denver, is a leading center for research and development of architectural interface technology. Under the guidance of Dr. Mark Gross, Sundance is "out to invent the future of computer aided design," with tools such as The Digital Cocktail Napkin, for sketch and gesture recognition; Right Tool/Right Time, a context-hypersensitive tool palette; and "Digital Clay," the working title of a research system for deriving computer-generated 3D models from hand-drawn perspective sketches, as shown in Figure 1. Gross believes that "the interface isn't just 'skin deep'. Replacing the mouse and keyboard with the stylus and voice recognition will change the whole way we think about the software and the way we integrate it into our work."

While Gross and his students, such as Ellen Li-Yuen Do and Eric Schweickardt, rely on computer interpretation of sketches and gestures, others are exploring more direct modes of 3D input. Haptics, the sense of touch, provides the basis for force-feedback motion controllers. Driven by immediate applications in simulation and gaming, pioneers such as Haptic Technologies (www.haptech.com) are developing first-generation tools, such as the PenCAT/Pro, that will allow designers to "sculpt" virtual objects by feeling, as well as seeing, their models take shape inside the computer. In a related development, British Telecomm (www.bt.com) has patented the SmartQuill. This pen/ stylus, with on-board "spatial sensing" that tracks users' hand movements, should be commercially available after 2001.

Since most real architecture shares a physical environment with other buildings, the input technologies of the future will need to capture not only the designer's intentions, but the design context as well. One promising approach to 3D digital image capture is the work of San Jose-based Geometrix, Inc. (www.geometrixinc .com). According to marketing manager Myron Rosmarin, Geometrix's SoftScene processes video inputs, captures large-scale environments, and converts them into fully textured 3D models. User-generated CAD models, such as proposed new buildings or alterations, can then be matched and tracked into the scene for an affordable level of photorealistic environmental simulation. Leading edge today, this technology will be part of the AEC mainstream before 2004.

Some input technology, such as the "traditional" goggles-and-glove mode of immersive virtual reality (VR), melds the input and display environments. One example is the Greenspace project at the University of Washington's Human Interface Technology Laboratory (http://hitl. washington.edu). Multiple participants can take a virtual walk through proposed designs while interacting with each other inside the virtual space. Some version of this concept will be commercially viable within five years. Because many people find head-mounted VR displays disorienting, however, the most likely prospect for commercial success is the cave automated virtual environment, or CAVE. Essentially, CAVEs are walk-in displays, in which users wearing active 3D glasses view virtual 3D space projected by the surrounding stereoscopic screens (unlike VR goggles, these 3D glasses do not isolate the viewer). ImmersaDesk, CAVE's tabletop cousin, allows folks wearing the same 3D glasses to view virtual 3D models that sit "on" an ordinary-seeming conference table. The Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois (www.evl.uic.edu/EVL) is a key center of CAVE development, and licenses its technology to Southfield, MI-based Pyramid Systems (www.pyramidsystems.com) for the ImmersaDesk. Inflation-adjusted, the current $150,000 price tag for an ImmersaDesk system is comparable to the per-seat cost of early AEC CAD systems.

Not all future output will be 3D. There is ample opportunity to improve 2D-display technology, again in the view of John Peddie Associates. Flat panel displays will extend their recent steep cost declines, overtaking CRT monitors in large screen sizes for two reasons: lower edge-to-edge distortion on a flat display and a smaller footprint and lower heat generation that saves more in real-estate rent and energy costs than the incremental cost of the flat screen. The next step beyond today's LED (light-emitting diode) display technology will be LEPs (light-emitting polymers). This technology makes larger displays more affordable, and introduces the potential for flexible screens. Imagine D or E size "monitors" that can be rolled up and carried around like sheets of mylar. Of course, a single "sheet" will display an entire set of drawings.

 

Figure 2. Columbia University's School of Architecture Planning & Preservation holds a patent on the InfoCorridor, a spatial interface to complex data.

Increasingly, output from computer models will be directed not just to other representations, such as paper drawings or visual displays, but directly into physical prototypes and fabrications. Direct computer output has been successfully tested by practitioners such as Frank Gehry, FAIA in the US, and by the UK firm of Brookes Stacey Randall. Such rapid prototyping is a growing part of the design curriculum at several leading architecture schools, notably MIT and Columbia. Assistant professor Corey Clarke, of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation's Digital Design Laboratory, or DDL, (www.arch.columbia.edu/DDL) speaks proudly of the school's CNC (computer numerical-controlled) milling machine, with which students can cut material up to 4 feet by 8 feet into parts defined directly from their computer models. Clarke adds, "This is a three-year graduate program preparing students to enter practice in 2002 and beyond. All design work is initiated on the computer, using high-end modeling tools, such as Alias Wavefront (www.aw.sgi.com) and Softimage/3D (www.softimage.com), which support generation of complex forms in a dynamic way." Along with DDL co-founders Eden Muir and Rory O'Neill, the school has developed several original interface technologies, and patented one called InfoCorridor-for spatial organization of complex data, as shown in Figure 2. Four of Columbia's studios are paperless, supported by online review spaces that include chat rooms and browser access for traveling critics.

Communication/Collaboration Trends
AEC projects have always operated somewhat like virtual teams. Internet technology now provides the communications infrastructure to make virtual teaming more of a reality. For all its seeming glitz, the Web has functioned to date primarily as a passive display medium for 2D images. To effectively leverage the forthcoming desktop power and 3D input/output, AEC users will need to transmit and share 3D model files equally well with colleagues across the room or around the world.

Addressing the problem that many 3D model files are too large for convenient downloading, especially to machines less powerful than those that created the models, Adaptive Media (www.adaptivemedia.com) of Sunnyvale, CA, offers Envision3D, a tool that employs compression and other adaptive techniques to stream 100MB or larger files over the Web for real-time 3D collaboration. A smaller-scale streaming 3D file format, called MetaStream, with browser plug-ins, was developed by MetaCreations (www.metastream.com) in Scotts Valley, CA. Web-viewable 3D animations also are available from Immersive Design (www.immdesign.com). Although intended for MCAD, tools such as this surely will migrate to AEC within five years.

 

Figure 3. The browser interface is an integral part of this 3D construction document prototype by NBBJ (left). Call-outs and spec sections are embedded links displayed in separate browser frames (middle). Legibility of witness lines will be further enhanced in 3D dimensioning (right).

Some might argue that AEC designs still depend for implementation on conventional 2D construction drawings. Dace Campbell, a self-styled virtual architect who divides his time between the Seattle office of architectural giant NBBJ and the HITlab at the University of Washington, would disagree. Campbell is developing prototype 3D construction drawings, rethinking all the notations, symbology and dimensioning of 2D drawings for a 3D Web-viewable representation, as shown in Figure 3. While Campbell expects his efforts to be "viable within five years, it will take ten years to become widespread," he says, due to cultural inertia in the construction trade.

That cultural inertia revolves around the volume of non-graphical paperwork that accompanies design and construction projects. Organizing that documentation in neutral, Web-viewable file formats is a key objective of an emergent software category called project Web sites or project extranets. These are private Web addresses set up by one member of an AEC project team as password-protected repositories/clearinghouses for all project documentation and workflow

According to Dan Slavin, President and CEO of Framework Technologies (www.frametech.com) of Burlington, MA, "within five years every project will use these tools. Building owners demand it, designers and builders who use it gain a cost advantage and aggressive adopters want to leverage project data further on in the facility life-cycle." Unlike Framework's ActiveProject, sold as a complete business application, an alternative business model treats project Web sites like the service bureaus of CAD's early days. John Macomber, founder of Boston-based Collaborative Structures, Inc. (www.costructures.com) believes that "the technology is ahead of most firms' ability to digest it. Collaborative Structures provides a service that anticipates technology needs and contract needs without requiring firms to make capital investments in collaboration technology." Although it remains to be seen whether AEC users ultimately will prefer buying or renting their collaborative tools, the tools themselves certainly will become universal.

CAD Class of '04
With advances in platform, input/ output and communication, what will CAD, the defining AEC application, look and act like five years from now? While no vendor will speak for attribution about product plans five months out, let alone five years out, insights from selected industry leaders can be pieced together into a rough outline of the hypothetical future CAD.

Kelly Malone, AEC Marketing Manager for Seattle-based Visio Corp. (www.visio.com), predicts more powerful features at lower prices, consistent with his firm's IntelliCAD product and ArchT bundle. He anticipates the spread of intelligent object technology, prefigured in Visio's parametric smart shapes. Further, Malone expects general business users will need CAD-like technical drawing tools-in much the same way that business users now create PowerPoint slide presentations.

Mark Madura, President of DATACAD LLC (www.datacad.com) in Avon, CT, insists that "you don't get paid until the drawings get done." Madura suspects that 95 percent of his DataCAD user base will not be ready for true 3D production within five years. Even though DataCAD does 3D, Madura continues to stress 2D output, an area where he suggests some of his more vocal 3D competitors need to polish their act.

While some vendors see a data-centric model of CAD emerging-whether by linking graphical entities to attributes in an external database, or by treating drawings and models themselves as a graphical database-Charles N. White, AIA takes a more document-centric view with his ARRIS software. White, CEO/President of Sigma Designs International (www.arriscad.com) in Alexandria, LA, observes that "large corporate users, such as Wal-Mart or The GAP, want concurrent access by many folks, CAD and non-CAD users alike, to interactive documents they can share and mark up for business productivity." In White's view "the drawing becomes the navigation tool to access project information."

At autodessys, Columbus, OH-based makers of solid modeler formZ (www.formz.com) , founder and President Chris Yessios anticipates that "the next three to five years will finally see the implementation of features-such as intelligent entities-that have been researched and touted for the last fifteen years." Part of the lag is attributable to "AEC users' reluctance to be pushed too far too fast by their software vendors," but Yessios remains optimistic about "the new generation of architects who are educated in 3D from the beginning."

Another strong advocate for intelligent 3D solutions is Tamas Hajas, president of San Francisco-based Graphisoft US (www.graphisoft.com) the North American vendor of ArchiCAD. Hajas believes that "building owners' insistence on shaving price and shortening deadlines means that the document-centric paradigm cannot be optimized indefinitely." ArchiCAD's "virtual building" model responds to this issue, and Hajas sees future benefits in "the potential for end-user customization without technical overhead."

At Bentley Systems (www.bentley .com) in Exton, PA, Yoav Etiel, senior vice president, marketing, asserts "3D will replace the cloning of manual methods; design professionals will work with virtual building components rather than drawing entities; and the focus will shift to enterprise collaboration beyond individual desktop productivity." Because the AEC industry entails multiple transactions-envisioning, selecting, specifying, bidding, buying, approving and so on for myriad components-Etiel sees Bentley technology, like the Java-enabled MicroStation/J and the ModelServer family of e-commerce tools, as "helping the industry at large lower these transaction costs."

Speaking for San Rafael, CA-based Autodesk (www.autodesk.com), Andrew Stein, group manager for applications development frameworks, says "the competition is no longer about better, faster, smarter software for designers." Instead, the driving force for next-generation CAD, according to Stein, is "listening to the design client, building owners/end users who want designers to provide designs that improve performance throughout the facility life-cycle-design, build, operate and tear down. The response in AutoCAD has been a steady evolution of object technology, starting internally five years ago and continuing for at least five years to come."

On behalf of the user community, Walter Hainsfurther, AIA, principal of Kurtz Associates in Des Plaines, IL, and 1999 chair of AIA's Advisory Group on Computer-Aided Practice, says "architects want a suite of tools that is preconfigured and easy to use. They want to manage their computing costs-hardware, software and staff-more effectively, and they want collaborative environments that help them offer more and better services. Ultimately, designers want tools that help their clients make better decisions."

Is there a composite view? The ideal CAD of 2004 will combine:

 

• low cost and ease of use;
• easy 2D drawing output;
• navigable documents;
• intuitive solid modeling, seamless 2D/3D integration;
• broad-based standards support;
• intelligent, parametric, interoperable objects;
• lightning speed;
• integrated 3D input/output;
• photo realism;
• every conceivable mode of flyby, drive-through and walkabout;
• plus universal communications
  capability over any type of wire
  or ether known to humanity.

Oh, and this perfect blend has to stay on the market-unchanged-for at least 18 months. After all, I've got a building to design.

Architect and industry analyst Jerry Laiserin is CAD in Practice Editor of ACADIA, the quarterly journal of the Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture. He has chaired the American Institute of Architects' national Computer-Aided Design Committee and is a member of the Executive Board of the Computer Applications Council of IFMA, the International Facility Management Association. He is also a member of CADENCE's Editorial Advisory Board. Reach him at jerry@laiserin.com.

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