Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2005

Closely following on the release of AutoCAD 2005, an overview of which I presented in AECbytes Newsletter #6, comes Autodesk Architectural Desktop (ADT) 2005, the new release of Autodesk's architecture-specific modeling solution built on the AutoCAD platform. Those concerned about the near-term future of ADT, following Autodesk's acquisition of Revit two years ago, should find the continuing development and support of ADT reassuring. With regard to how ADT fits into the building information modeling (BIM) vision before the AEC industry, Autodesk is presenting BIM as a specific approach to building design, construction, and management rather than a technology per se, and proposing that ADT's object-based CAD technology can be used with some effort to implement BIM and achieve some of its benefits (see AECbytes Newsletter #2).However, ADT continues to be primarily targeted at architects who are looking for drafting and documentation productivity built on AutoCAD. In essence, Autodesk has reaffirmed its commitment to ADT, and it is likely that ADT will continue to be around as long as AutoCAD is in demand in architectural practice.

We saw what the latest release of Revit has to offer in the inaugural AECbytes review of Autodesk Revit 6; let's look at what the new release of ADT has in store.

Overview of Changes

Just as AutoCAD 2005 did not qualify as a major upgrade of the application compared to its predecessor, AutoCAD 2004, ADT 2005 is also more of an incremental update to ADT 2004 rather than a dramatic one. For one, there is no change in file format, making ADT 2005 fully compatible with the 2004 family of products, including ADT 2004. Also, unlike ADT 2004 that presented a major overhaul of the user interface, there are no interface changes in ADT 2005. This makes ADT 2005 a non-disruptive upgrade. The transition process is also eased by the ability to use both versions of ADT, 2004 and 2005, on the same project.

The "killer" feature in ADT 2005, anticipated to be the key motivation for upgrading, is the new Details module that accelerates the speed with which construction details can be assembled. It includes an extensive library of detail components, automated routines to draw details more quickly, and editing tools to modify detail components as required. Additional features geared towards the faster creation of construction documents include automation of the traditionally time-consuming and error-prone tasks of keynoting and annotating, helping to save time and improve accuracy.

You will recall from AECbytes Newsletter #6 that the most critical new feature in AutoCAD 2005 was the ability to organize, create, and publish multiple drawing layouts into a single sheet set using the new Sheet Set Manager tool. This feature from AutoCAD 2005 appears in ADT 2005 by being integrated into its drawing management system, the Project Navigator, automating the coordination of callouts and annotations in addition to the coordination of plans, elevations, sections, details, and schedules within a sheet set. It also brings in the ability for one-click publishing of the sheet set. The overall benefit is easier and more efficient management of drawing files, and a tighter connection between drawing creation and publishing, which can help reduce errors.

Additionally, ADT 2005 includes many of the enhancements from AutoCAD 2005 such as the ability to create tables with a new table object whose configuration can be defined using a dialog box; more efficient organization and management of layers with a streamlined Layer Properties Manager dialog that also includes layer filters and layer groups; the option for background plotting, which allows you to start a plot or publish job and continue to work on a drawing; the ability to change the display and plotting order of overlapping objects without regenerating the drawing; the use of fields that can be inserted within any text object to display drawing data that is expected to change; and so on.

Other improvements include several Fit and Finish enhancements, improved visualization through the integration of VIZ Render 2005, compliance with current IAI interoperability standards through the availability of a third-party IFC2x translator, availability of additional APIs for third-party development of niche applications in areas such as building performance analyses, and more flexible installation options.

Let's look at some of the key new features in ADT 2005 more closely.

Faster Construction Details

Details, which currently account for a substantial portion of a construction document set, have been fully integrated with the ADT environment for the first time in ADT 2005. An extensive library containing thousands of detail components is provided with the application, along with the ability to access additional detail databases created by manufacturers, third-party vendors, or CAD managers incorporating office or project standards. This library, in the form of a Detail Component Manager, shows the entire hierarchy of components grouped by industry standard categories (see Figure 1-a). A filtering option allows a keyword search to find a particular detail more quickly. A selected detail can be directly inserted into the drawing, or it can be placed in dedicated Detailing Tool Palettes for quick and easy access when required. When a detail is selected for placement, all its parameters such as display, material, and construction properties are shown in the Properties palette, allowing the detail to be configured to exact specifications (see Figure 1-b).

A detail component is inserted into a drawing as a 2D AutoCAD entity and is not a 3D ADT object. However, it retains its design data, seen in the Extended Data tab of the Properties palette, which can be used later for automatic annotations. Because a detail component is a 2D object, it can be easily manipulated using the basic AutoCAD set of Modify tools or the enhanced set of AEC Modify tools and is not restricted to a specific form and shape. In addition to being readily edited, detail components can also be obscured, hidden linework can be created automatically, and repeating details can be easily created. It all translates to increasing the speed and reducing the effort required to create details for construction documents.

Streamlined Annotation and Keynoting

Annotating and keynoting construction documents are traditionally very tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone tasks. New Annotation tools in ADT 2005 replace the earlier convoluted AEC Content routines and allow the creation of basic text, block based, and keynote based annotations. They appear as separate tools in the Document Tool Palettes, as shown in Figure 2. For leader-based animations, the leader type can be spline or straight, and you can set other properties by specifying an AutoCAD leader dimension style. For block based annotations, you can choose the symbol to be inserted and control the angle of attributes, if any, within the block.

The new keynoting system utilizes the AutoCAD 2005 field technology and uses keynotes defined in a Microsoft Access database, ensuring that they are standard notes controlled from a central location. The Reference Keynote tool can be used to quickly annotate 2D sections and elevations, detail components, and AEC objects in accordance with the centrally defined standards (see Figure 2). Additionally, because the keynotes use field codes, their display can be dynamically set to Key only mode, Note only mode, or Key and Note mode, as required for the task at hand. A separate tool is available to create sheet keynotes. Accompanying both kinds of keynoting tools are Legend tools for automatically creating and maintaining keynote legends, based on the new AutoCAD 2005 style-based Table object. You can generate a legend of one sheet or of selected sheets in a project.

Out of the box, ADT 2005 provides a keynoting database in the standard Master Format organization. Databases based on standards in other countries are also scheduled for delivery. Similar to details, the new keynoting system supports multiple databases as well as project specific databases of keynotes. Since the keynotes are managed from databases, modifying a note in the database will result in the automatic coordination of construction documents, since the note will be dynamically updated throughout the project. This eliminates the time-consuming process of manual updating that was unavoidable prior to this release.

Improved Drawing Management with Sheet Sets and Callouts

Starting with version 2004, ADT already had a drawing management system in the form of the Project Navigator. This has been enhanced in ADT 2005 by the integration of the new Sheet Set Manager capability of AutoCAD 2005, giving the Project Navigator the ability to create and manage a fully coordinated and hyperlinked sheet set. Additional capabilities include eTransmit and archiving of the project, one-click publishing, and sheet index creation, as described in the overview of AutoCAD 2005 in AECbytes Newsletter #6.

For a more streamlined process, the Callout tools in ADT 2005 are better integrated with the Sheet Set Manager feature, facilitating the creation of detail, section, and elevation drawings more easily. Figure 3 shows how a Section Callout tool is used to create a new model space view of a building section and locate it in a new view drawing. The view generation process allows you to specify what levels and divisions of the building, as well as what constructs to include in the view. The resultant view drawing is displayed in the Project Navigator, from where it can be later placed on to a sheet. It is also possible to just place a callout symbol and post-link it later to a sheet view or model space view. The view and sheet numbers of the callout will automatically be updated when the view is placed on a sheet. Thus, all coordination between callouts, sheet numbers, and the appropriate view is now automated

Other Key Enhancements

ADT 2005 incorporates several Fit and Finish enhancements designed to improve usability. The grip functionality has been extended for a number of tools. For instance, the location grip for walls now provides the option to retain wall connectivity when a wall is moved—the CTRL key can be used to toggle between the standard "move" behavior and the new "stretch" behavior. The change certainly makes wall objects much more intuitive to work with (see Figure 4). Working in a 3D view is also easier with the new location grip behavior, which allows the use of the CTRL key to toggle between moving an object in its XY, YZ, or ZX planes. It is now easier to modify the profiles on all profile-based objects by manipulating their edge and vertex grips. Mass elements have also been enhanced with new command grips that make it easier to edit-in-place the mass elements in a group.

Other object enhancements include the automated detection of spaces and visual feedback with the Generate Spaces utility, and the ability to generate a stair tower for a multi-story building by specifying the number of levels and the floor-to-floor height. The Content Browser has been enhanced to make the search for items easier, and catalog libraries can be sorted and filtered. VIZ Render, the streamlined and simplified visualization application that came integrated with ADT starting from version 2004, has been updated in ADT 2005 to work on the latest MAX 6 engine from Discreet, affording even better quality visualizations and animations.

Overall Strengths and Limitations

The biggest strength of ADT continues to be its AutoCAD base, offering AutoCAD users a familiar workflow and interface for transitioning from traditional 2D drafting to an object-based CAD approach. ADT benefits from all the features that have made AutoCAD such a dominant player in the CAD industry: a sophisticated and near-complete set of tools needed for creating and modifying drawings, a universally accepted industry-standard file format, a high degree of customizability, advanced scripting and programming capabilities, and ample third-party support in the form of a plethora of plug-ins, add-ons, and integrating applications addressing different needs. ADT's object-level compatibility with Autodesk Building Systems 2005 allows for better collaboration between architects and M/E/P (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) engineers on a design, and the seamless integration of VIZ Render gives it highly advanced visualization and animation capabilities. The ability to publish and distribute non-graphic object data, in addition to geometry, in the DWF format enables intelligent querying of the building model, facilitation design review and collaboration.

The AutoCAD base of ADT, which is currently its key strength, is also its biggest limitation from a long-term perspective. While ADT makes AutoCAD significantly more productive as an architectural tool, the BIM-related benefits it can deliver are necessarily limited by the object-CAD technology it is built on. As the industry moves to replace 2D drafting with vastly superior and more intelligent building information modeling technologies, the benefits of ADT will no longer be as compelling. While the interface enhancements introduced in versions 2004 and 2005 have improved the usability of ADT well beyond earlier releases, ADT remains a daunting software and takes serious effort to learn and master. The process of creating and editing building objects such as walls, slabs, roofs, and so on was significantly improved in ADT 2004, but still remains complex and not very intuitive. For instance, ADT does not even have an option in its Wall tool to directly create a rectangular set of walls, which is such a basic requirement—you still need to create four separate wall segments to accomplish that. And although the new grips capabilities for moving walls while retaining connectivity are certainly a very welcome improvement, no similar relationships exist between other building components to facilitate intelligent interaction with less user intervention.

Another example of ADT's complexity is the Project Navigator capability. Introduced in ADT 2004 for automating and streamlining drawing management, the Project Navigator makes things potentially much easier for existing users of earlier versions of ADT who had to manage their drawings and project files manually, if they choose to use it in place of their current procedures. However, being built to manage a multiple-file object-CAD based environment, it is necessarily a complex beast, with several different aspects for users to consider: levels, divisions, constructs, elements, view drawings, sheets, and sheet sets, all further organized into categories as required. A CAD manager or other IT support would have to put in considerable effort to properly configure the Project Navigator in an organization and train users on how to use it correctly. Only then can the benefits of its automated drawing management capabilities be derived.

Conclusions

As long as the focus of the architectural profession and its end deliverable continues to be a set of construction documents, the AutoCAD-based ADT remains a compelling solution for building design. It is clearly the choice for architects who want to get more drafting and documentation productivity out of AutoCAD, the culmination of a multi-year tradition of architectural overlay products for AutoCAD. The latest release of ADT continues with enhancements related to this core strength. Details, keynoting, annotation, sheet sets, and callouts all improve ADT's ability to create 2D construction documents more accurately and efficiently.

However, as the architectural profession and the building industry as a whole eventually move away from the reliance on 2D drawings to communicate the information in a building information model, and instead rely more on the intelligence of the model itself to yield the required information, a solution like ADT is likely to lose ground, particularly to the more sophisticated BIM offerings in the AEC industry.

About the Author

Lachmi Khemlani is founder and editor of AECbytes. She has a Ph.D. in Architecture from UC Berkeley, specializing in intelligent building modeling, and consults and writes on AEC technology. She can be reached at lachmi@aecbytes.com.

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