Autodesk Building Systems 2004: stand-alone product takes building modeling to the next level - cadalyst labs review - Software Review - Product/Service Evaluation

CADalyst, Dec, 2003 by Michael Dakan

Autodesk Building Systems 2004, the fourth major release in Autodesk's building engineering modeling and drawing production series, contains applications for HVAC ducts and piping, plumbing, and electrical engineering. Like its predecessor, it's a stand-alone application, not an add-on to other Autodesk software. Autodesk Building Systems 2004 is developed on the object-based technology used in

Architectural Desktop and is designed to meet the needs of the MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) engineering industry.

Autodesk Building Systems 2004 contains the complete functionality of AutoCAD 2004, on which it's based. It also includes Autodesk VIZ Render, a 3D rendering application used to create photorealistic, rendered perspective drawings.

Autodesk Building Systems 2004 benefits greatly from being based on the same technology as Architectural Desktop 2004 and its much-improved user interface and features. It also offers a seamless extension to Architectural Desktop's building information model for the building services engineering disciplines.

Combined with Architectural Desktop 2004, Building Systems 2004 makes Autodesk's BIM (building information modeling) solutions unmatched in the industry in terms of virtually modeling more of a complete building.

We didn't rate Building Systems 2004--the star ratings tend to be a way to compare similar products, and so far there aren't really any to compare it to. Many features can still be added to Building Systems 2004, but for those ready to work with BIM models for engineering, the product is highly useful.

Autodesk Building Systems 2004 costs $5,995. The annual subscription of $695 is mandatory the first year and covers all upgrades and new releases of the software, plus any interim releases and product extensions. Users can let the subscription lapse after a year, but then they aren't eligible for new releases and extensions.

COMMON AREAS

Autodesk Building Systems 2004 uses the tool palettes menu interface system introduced with Architectural Desktop. The customizable tool palette provide access to the extensive design content objects, blocks, and annotation tools as well as application placement routines and editing tools. You can devise and manage your own palettes in a central location so that everyone in your office or on a project team can use the same tools, standards, and design content.

You can dock palettes at the sides of your editing window and set them to auto-hide or roll-up to get them out of your way. When you scroll the cursor over them, they expand.

Another tool that Building Systems shares with Architectural Desktop is the display system that controls visibility, color, and linetype properties of building objects (figure 1). You no longer rely on layers to manipulate object properties. In fact, you don't pay much attention to them at all because they're automatically under program control. You can forget about layers once you set them up according to office and project standards.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The display system establishes how objects appear in different view directions and types of plan views, based on the built-in characteristics of the intelligent objects that you create. The Drawing Management feature crosses over from Architectural Desktop as the Drawing Manager and Browser, that you use to set up and manage the design of a project as well as project sheets and xreferences.

DESIGN CONTENT

Building engineering depends heavily on catalogs of standard parts and equipment, and Autodesk Building Systems provides extensive collections of predefined AEC design objects, with more on the way (figure 2). You can use i-drop technology to download design content from the Web directly into a model. Some manufacturers have made i-drop catalogs available at their sites. Autodesk Building Systems 2004's first Extension, recently released, augments the mechanical design content.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

The software includes a great amount of design content, including specialty duct fittings, mechanical MvParts, and metric 3D plumbing fittings. As comprehensive as the design content built into the software is, there will never be every possible type and variation of all the fittings and equipment used in building engineering. To solve this problem, Autodesk provides a nice set of tools to make new objects and modify existing objects to create new custom fittings and sizes of parts and equipment. The Content Builder eases the burden of filling in any gaps you find in the design content.

COMMON DESIGN TOOLS

All the tools and design content in Autodesk Building Systems 2004 are compatible with Architectural Desktop's AEC objects, and the building model is therefore fully interactive with the building model created in Architectural Desktop. Tools such as interference detection analyze architectural and engineering objects in a model and flag any problems, such as conflicts between ducts and structural elements and electrical conduit and piping.

Engineering elements that are crossed by similar elements at a higher elevation are shown with dashed lines in the overlap area. Because this behavior is part of the run-time display system and not based on layers or explicit line properties, the dashed area automatically moves and updates when you change the model (figure 3), saving you time.