If you were offered free tickets to a movie, but you have to
sit on the front row all the way over to the right side of the theater, would
you still want to go? What about the
very top row of a baseball stadium down the third base line? Would you rather watch a musical from the last
row underneath a balcony by the exit or from the front row of the balcony? It’s the same show, but obviously where you are sitting will affect
the experience.
When physically surveying a building, it is better to walk around and get up close observations than to stand at one end of a hallway and
just guess what is there. When constructing
a project, the installer should have the mobility to move around the space to
properly place and connect the components. Why, then, do users of a 3D model not think
that they have to be aware of their location in a building model when exploring
and modeling content?
2D AutoCAD is based in an environment where the user
location is not going to affect the drawing.
The leap into Building Information Modeling through Autodesk Revit
forces a user to now navigate a 3D environment.
However, most beginning users don’t think of the effects that the User
Point Of View (POV) will have on what is seen or created. You are not simply creating drafted lines to
represent the design content, but are actually modeling some 3D representation
of that design content. Where you are
virtually standing will impact the location of the content and how well you are
able to see it.
The most obvious instance of the User POV impact is when
working with Sections. The POV is the
entire Section line as a plane looking in the direction of the section view. Adding to existing model elements will allow
new content to be modeled at the existing point. Add new content and it will be placed on the
Section line, because that is where the user is virtually located.
It is best to work perpendicular to the content being
modeled. Plan views are not as important
as Sections or Elevations. If the Architect
has decided to locate a building wing at 17° from the rest of the building,
then Sections should be rotated 17°, 62°, 107° etc. when developing the
systems.
Since the Model can contain the entire Building, it is also important
to have the appropriate depth of a view.
Views too deep can quickly become dense with content. “The shallower the Section; the deeper the
Content.” Working in an Elevation or Section
requires only seeing what is necessary to know where the content is modelled
and its surrounding environment. Too
shallow and the view won’t show enough.
Too deep and the view shows too much. Basically, when working in a 3D building model, make sure you have the best seat in the house for the show.
-Craig
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