I agree with you on principle (if the SAM works then they deviate resourses to develope it which keeps other more pressing issues from ever being solved. If its not widely implemented, which it seems is the case, then they threw one full version down the toilet).
But speaking personally, i would really like my structural engineer (who is very good but also super old school) to implement Archicad in his office. He has seen first hand what we can do with it, so im sure he has given it a thought. Im going to pitch him next week about it. Hey, now that i think about, im goint to pitch him that my office DOES the modeling for him, with over inflated fees for the client of course. Businessy!
So Mr. Kezer, yes, we would actually like a video where you show what can be done with this. For me, the main thing i would want my engineers to understand and visualize by using ARchicad is why they cannot come and overdimension everything so they can confortably sleep at night; they need to sit on their asses and understand the project from our perspective. Then we would need them to model all the main structural elements to match with ours, so that real-time discussion can arise.
So far, as i described in another post, our main workflow is like this (and i can dare to say, of a lot of offices in my country):
-We do the project and the 3d model (ideally at the same time). In an innocent attempt to minimize variation from the engineers´ final dimensions we use some predimensioning based on our own calculations, charts, and early input from the engineer.
-The model and architectural plans are delivered to the engineer who then proceeds to start analyzing the model. A lot of time is spent explaining the project to them.
-They come up with their solutions and a bunch of plans (they never just dimension the main elements as their first submittal, they come back with a semifull set of plans which takes longer for them to do and which will inevitably change).
-We modify our 3d model with the info provided by the engineer to find discordances, correct mistakes and ask for changes. We sent the results to the engineers so they can adjust.
-Fun is systematically eliminated from our lives
-Rinse and repeat.
What i want is to bring down the workflow they use on bigger projects down to smaller projects. I want for everyone to visualize faster the project, and instead of manually changing our model based on the 2d plans from the engineer i want to overlay our structural 3d model (that is Architectural) vs their model. Any element from their model that deviates from a preset dimension from out model (for example, any beam that deviates by 5cm in any direction, its out of axis, etc) gets automatically marked in red, the others can be accepted and even integrated into my model.
The redlined elements are inmediately sent to the engineer to fix or futher analysis until we can reach a solution. That´s what i would like. I definitely dont want to mingle with their analitical model (as in, they do their own model, they can use my model to do theirs, but its not extracted out of mine), i know this would be a doubling of work,but its worth it, so as to avoid mixings of responsibilities and second to let them find their solutions without us being in the way, as sometimes they come up with better solutions.
