Posted by Robert Sandkam on March 11, 2004 at 17:26:55:In Reply to: Re: PowerCADD and SketchUp posted by Iain Stewart on March 11, 2004 at 09:52:37:
Iain,
Used correctly, ArchiCAD and SketchUp are actually very different tools.
SketchUp is a design development tool.
ArchiCAD's strengths are as a working drawings tool (you can do design development with it, but not nearly as easily as with SketchUp).
The best way to undertsand ArchiCAD is to just read this page:All surfaces in SketchUp are planar (no NURBS), but the rendering can "smooth" out those planar surfaces to look curved.
This is not a SketchUp trick. It is actually a very common way of dealing with curved surfaces in planar modelling packages.
Nonetheless, I am consistently surprised by the complexity of the objects that can be achieved in SketchUp.I would say that SketchUp is definitely compatible with PowerCADD's ability to "draw the world."
You might not get photorealistic renderings, but SketchUp can definitely "model the world."
And more importantly, SketchUp is easy enough to use that anyone can model the world.SketchUp does have its limits, but I use it in combination with AutoDesSys form•Z, which is almost unlimited in its modelling capabilities.
(anyone is free to email me for tips on how to seemlesly move models from SketchUp to formZ).b0b.
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Robert B. Sandkam
Computing Instruction Support
College of Architecture
UNC Charlotte
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