3D 'Language' Could Revolutionize the Way Industry Collaborates

(constructionr.com - 8/23/00)

By Judy Schriener

The construction industry is in dire need of the contributions of the subcontractors who do the actual construction and installation on jobsites. But currently they have little input early on in the design process, largely because designers explain what they are doing via complicated drawings. Widespread use of 3D becomes a "language" that everyone can understand, says the president of a French firm that hopes to expedite that revolution.

If designers could come up with something other than "truckloads of stupid drawings" that people have to "spend years going to school to read," they could benefit from the input of all participants on projects, says Bernard Charles, president of French software developer Dassault Systemes. "Instead of a drawing, deliver me a game like my kids play with," he says.

"We still have a wall between us and the fabricators, and if we don’t understand how creative these guys are, we’re missing the boat. We have to think in terms of who actually does the work," adds Jim Glymph, partner in Frank O. Gehry & Associates. Gehry and Dessault collaborated on the design and construction of Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

Charles and Glymph were featured speakers at the International Symposium and Innovative Technology Tradeshow 2000 Aug. 14-16 in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Civil Engineering Research Foundation (CERF).

Making the information that is now in drawings accessible to and easily understood by everyone "is the major switch the AEC industry has to do," says Charles. The problem has been that designers and constructors focus on managing the documents instead of the end result. "If you think the product [project] is the document, then you spend time on the product and not the document. The document then becomes an output," he says.

"People think in vertical towers, and they don’t care about the next step. We need to change that," says Dessault. If designers were able to convey in a simple way what they are doing with a tool—one that enables them to incorporate the accumulated knowledge that can be used in the next step—people would be more able and willing to move out of their traditional roles and contribute to the process all along the way, says Dessault. A 3D tool is able to facilitate that, he believes. "There is no ambiguity, and it accelerates how you talk to each other," he says. "People who are doing the job can provide good ideas because [with a 3D model to work with], it’s simple and everybody understands it."

Charles intends to focus on the AEC industry in this country by forming partnerships with software companies in the U.S. that have the knowledge of the industry. Even though his 40-person team that had been dedicated to construction was diverted to shipbuilding, Dassault can create vertical applications quickly and relatively cheaply, he says.

When addressing about a dozen AEC companies’ CEOs at a private luncheon, Charles told them, "Your biggest challenge is moving your customers from cost-based logic to value-based logic. Good luck!"

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