AntiCAD User´s Manual

Stuart MunroSergio Irigoyen

[email protected] http://sirigoyen.wordpress.com/

AntiCADSoftware for a post digital era

User’s manual

Project report word count > 5.510

Digital Architecture has been a constant in architecture for the last 20 years, it has been the materialization of the so called digital revolution; a revolution based on technological improvements and proliferation of software and hardware. In architectural practice this revolution has been es-pecially significant due to the adoption of design software and CAM1 technologies that opened a huge field for exploration in spatial propositions. Architects borrowed design tools from engineers to first produce 2D drawings, then resolve complex 3D surfaces and finally to explore the possi-bilities of rapid prototyping. We are now immersed in a post-digital revolution era and all these techniques have become natural in architectural practice and those innovative digital designs have started to look even familiar and repetitive.

This project attempts to describe how these tools have created an architectonic style or language based on the mechanics of the tools itself, how design tools have changed the way of generating architecture, especially in aesthetics, and how different tools produce different styles, based on the original field of application of the software such as industrial or aeronautic design.

Moreover the project aims to present the next step in digital tools for spatial creation, videogames and games engines2 as easily customizable software. This software offers architects a wide range of possibilities in visualization and generation of space added to the narrative possibilities of cinema.

01 INTRODUCCION

Architecture has always been linked to production and construction systems. The creation of space is dependent on the architect’s capacity to conceive it and define it, and the constructor’s capacity to achieve it.

Improvements in engineering and use of new materials have always been a key factor for space quality throughout history.

The industrial revolution offered architects new fields for exploration in space design using engineering constructions as a reference. Subse-quently, the digital revolution created a new field for design, which led architects to consider engineering production systems more exten-sively to achieve their ideas.

From 1950, when first vector graphics started to be generated with SKETCHPAD3 , to the late 80s both software and videogames formed the basis of what would be the digital revolution.

In the early 80s construction systems and materials, such as concrete, steel and glass, had reached their limit; most architects were still working with the traditions of the modern movement, dictated 60years before.

At the same time, in universities and research environments the first computer-aided design (CAD) tools were being created. These were soon applied in industrial design and engineering.

In the late 80s CAD systems started to be more common in architecture studios and replace traditional systems, (viz. pencil and paper) but doing the same work and the same kind of design. Furthermore, in the early 90s, CAM systems were also being used to generate space and shapes. Architects such as Lars Spuybroek or Frank Ghery started to experiment with the true potential of CAD-CAM tools.

The use of these tools to resolve unconventional shapes thus opened an immense field for experimentation in architecture. As shapes and forms became more intricate the tools became more sophisticated but easier to use.

In the beginning, those tools were used to refine traditionally conceived ideas by hand drawings and physical models, but slowly they have been recognised as tools for generating ideas themselves. A clear example is parametricism4 , whose most prominent advocate is Patrick Schumacher.

A new style in architecture was hence created, digital architecture. This was determined not by common elements in quality of space or use of materials, but by the method of resolving the complexity of their shapes. Therefore the buildings created with these tools took shapes and aesthetics dictated by the tools.

02 HISTORICAL CONTEXTIndustrial and digital revolution

“Modding is a slang expression that is derived from the verb “modify”. Modding refers to the act of modifying a piece ofhardwareorsoftwareoranythingelseforthatmatter,toperformafunctionnotoriginallyconceivedorintended by the designer.” Architects like Lars Spuybroek , Zaha Hadid or Frank Ghery have made use of design software to define their style by modifying and inter-preting it, or creating their own software. Other more intrepid architects like Novak have developed not just the software, but also the hardware and even the building to contain them both. An early example of poor use of the technology is the Water Pavilion of the H2O expo by Lars Spuybroek (NOX). The final shape of the building was dictated by the tools available at that moment, but without any modification, as the architect himself recognised:

“WethenworkedinAutocad11,aprogramthatcouldonlydefineellipsesbycirclesegments: completely wrong, but fortunately so; because the machines rolling the steel profiles could only work with circles” (Spuybroek ,2004) One of the first architects to apply modding in architecture was Frank Ghery. He found in CATIA5 a tool to make his ideas possible.CATIA was developed in 1977 for aeronautic industry and in 1989, after relinquishing different software( e.g Alias) Ghery choose for the design of the fish sculpture for the Villa Olímpica in Barcelona CATIA.The fish was the first Ghery´s creations of big formal complexity and also the first with aeronautic shapes. From this point on he would start to create these kind of geometries extensively and CATIA for resolving them.

Later on Ghery created a company, Ghery Technologies, to produce software based on CATIA called Digital Project, which focused more on the building industry instead of the aeronautic industry. The software applies the modding procedure, common in film and videoga-me companies that frequently choose a design tool and then rearrange it according to their production needs, adapting it for each de-partment for example: animation, illumination, texturing.

Moreover Ghery´s modification of CATIA in Digital Project can be equated with Minh Le and Jess Cliffe modification of “Half Life6 ” in “Counter Strike” the biggest and most important modification of a game; that became even more successful than the original one.

Digital Project is being used by Mark Berry in the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona for reverse engineering Gaudi´s complex geo-metries, modding like this an already modified software. However, Mark Berry has been using CATIA and other CAD-CAM tools, such as Rhino, since 1989 to finish the cathedral.

03 PRECEDENTSModding software and videogames in architecture

An extreme example of modding is Cosm7 , a tool for spatial experimentation developed by Marcos Novak. In this case, the architect went beyond modifying Max/MSP to produce an architectonic design; he developed a complete set of tools, hardware for the use of these tools and a building for containing both and experimenting with them; The Allosphere.With Cosm Marcos Novak challenges the concept of the use of software in architectonic design creating a navigable environment where the space is both programmed and experienced in real time, which is the same result that this project is trying to achieve.

In “Space Fighter, the evolutionary City Game”, a videogame developed by MVRDV in collaboration with the Berlage Institute, MIT and cThrough, the creators make use of videogame technologies to explore urban planning as an evolutionary process. The process is affec-ted by “chains of action reactions” between different modules of the game that represent real world events. This project does not modify any existing software or videogame, but the concept of urban planning is looked from the perspective of gaming and game technologies. Additionally, it addresses the concept of chains of actions and reaction between different modules.

An example of architects modding a game engine is HKS, the big American architectural firm, that in 2007 purchased Unreal Engine 3 ,a videogame engine by Epic Games, for the design and visualization of the Dallas Cowboys Stadium. “The Cowboys Organization credited the Unreal engine for producing an exciting, explorable and most importantly, reconfigura ble 3D model of the stadium.” (Hill,2008)This example is extremely important since it represents the next step in the use of tools borrowed from a different field for architectonic design. First the use of CAD technologies to draw bi-dimensional and tri-dimensional drawings and complex surfaces, then the use of CAM systems and rapid prototyping for designing and building more complex geometries and, finally, the use of game engines not just for visualizing but also for designing complex and four-dimensional architectures, which are key in the development of this project .

Modding software and videogames in architecture 03 PRECEDENTS

Parametric design is not exactly modding, but a side effect of design tools and videogames. Every element in a design software is parame-tric and/or a parameter, a simple line can be the generator of a complex parametric design and/or a parametric element generated out of a set of rules with points as generators. Zaha Hadid Architects is the principle firm applying parametric concepts with Patrick Schumacher heading this movement:

“Wepursuetheparametricdesignparadigmalltheway,penetratingintoallcornersofthediscipline.Systematic, adaptivevariation,continuousdifferentiation(ratherthanmerevariety),anddynamic,parametricfiguration concerns all design tasks from urbanism to the level of tectonic detail, interior furnishings and the world of products.” (Schumacher ,2008)

Patrick Schumacher declares in his writings, interviews and software advertisements their exciting and challenging methodologies through the use and modification of software as Maya, a 3D package created for special effects in the film industry. Maya is today one of the main tools for experimenting with parametric design due to its powerful and easy to learn internal programming language, MEL.

Other influential software for Zaha Hadid Architects - and in the digital revolution in general -is Rhinoceros 3D (Rhino), which is a NURBS8

modelling tool for product design that Zaha Hadid’s team use extensively for a wide range of designs from shoes, furniture and buildings to even entire cities (e.g. One North Singapore ).

Unlike Maya, in Rhino the modding for parametricism is not done by the user but by a company that provide an add-on or plug-in called Grasshopper, a node-based tool for parametrizing the design process.

Rhino is key to the parametric design scene and is also the standard software for working with NURBS. Working with Rhino the designer is pushed to create soft surfaces due to the very nature of the NURBS curves, the possibility of rectifying and unwrapping for later cons-truction, and the direct connection between the software and prototyping machines have done of Rhino an architectonic tool; but also a unifier in styles. As Schumacher declared in “LandscapeinMotion”, modelling tools are “neverneutralandexternaltothework”.

“Indeedthechoiceofarepresentational/designmediumhasahugeimpactonthecharacterofthedesignresults. Themediumisneverneutralandexternaltothework.Itconstitutesandlimitsthedesignissuestreatedandtheuniverseof possibilitiesforeffectivedesignspeculation.Designthinkingisboundtotherepresentationalmediumanditsscopecanbe expandedbytheexpansionofferedbythenewdigitaldesigntools.” (Schumacher ,2004)

The Mobile Art Pavilion for Chanel by Thomas Vietzke & Jens Borstelmann from Zaha Hadid Architects is a design product purely NURBS , because of that is used as example by Robert McNeel , company developer of Rhino to advertise their software.


From this review of the modding systems in the architecture field, two aspects can be highlighted as key elements for this project.First, the act of modifying or even developing completely new tools to fit the needs of the new architectonic paradigms. Second, the direct relationship between specific design software and the aesthetics produced with it.

Moreover, this project aims to, on the one hand, recognize those studios’ and firms’ achievements as crucial in this century’s design and in the history of architecture; and, on the other hand, to present the problems that have appeared due to this digital revolution. These problems are the results of aiming for an aesthetical style to become a trend where everyone begins to create the same kind of shapes. As a result, the aesthetic is being imitated, but not the concepts, that is, designers do not take into account all the process behind the shapes and forms generated nor the decades of investigation that challenged established architectonic concepts.

This problem was widespread in architecture schools and has been fostered by a prosperous economic system and wealthy clients that wanted to have the avant-garde of luxury products, a signed iconic building.

In this project, although one of the purposes is to produce an architectural proposition based on those iconic architectural firms’ aesthe-tics, every tool has been programmed to apply almost literally the metaphors and concepts that they claim as basis of their architectures. The tools have embedded some of the architectonical questions of the digital revolution, thus a design created with these tools should be following a movement rather than copying an aesthetical form. These tools are AntiCad.


04 METHODOLOGYAntiCAD - User´s manual

CONTENTS

1/ F.A.Q. (Frequently asked questions) 1.1/ WHAT ? 1.2/ WHY ? 1.3/ HOW ? 2/ CAMERAS

3/ TERRAIN EDITOR

4/ INTERFACE

4.1 /CURSOR 4.2 /COLOUR PICKER 4.3 /GRAFITTI TOOL

5/ PRIMITIVE OBJECTS

6/ EXTRUSION

7/ LINES

F.A.Q. (Frequently asked questions)

WHAT ?

AntiCad is a project that explores interactive methods of architectonic design and visualization through modding game engines, and claim videogames as the next step in architectural design in the post-digital era.

Moreover it exposes why designers and architects should be able to program their own tools or at least modify the existing ones to fit their own needs as the pioneers in the field, such as Frank Ghery with digital Project and Novak With Cosm, have done.

By programming a very specific design software with a small range of tools the project demonstrates how designers are constrained by the software even when it seems to give them freedom in design. Terzidis points out in “Algoritmic architecture”.

“Inthislight,therearemanydesignersclaimingtousethecomputertodesign.Butaretheyreallycreatinganewdesign?Or aretheyjustre-arrangingexistinginformationwithinadomainsetbytheprogrammer?Ifitistheprogrammerwhoisasking firstallthequestions,whoisreallysettingtheparametersandtheoutcomeofagooddesign?” (Terzidis, 2006)

AntiCAD is an anti design software that takes concepts from videogames in order to make the design process a playful experience allowing novice users to create sophisticated designs, but under the rules dictated by the programmer and therefore for producing designs with established aesthetics.

AntiCAD is an anti-tool designed to produce infinite variations of the same design ,from combinations of other building typologies that have their aesthetics based on other design softwares.

AntiCAD takes the mechanics from common videogame styles, such as city-builders (eg Sim City9) or first-person shooters (eg Unreal Tournament10 ) and from most common design software as 3D Max or Maya .


WHY?

In the last 15 years, big architectural firms have been designing iconic buildings all over the world. Every single city had the necessity to be placed on the world stage. Having an iconic building designed by a celebrity was an expensive but productive way to be recognised. This trend created an architectural star-system.

However this system and the economic crisis have actually made the architect and the system itself redundant, since the clients demanded so many iconic buildings created in the same way that iconic became common. Clients were looking for an aesthetically recognizable icon and rarely for a spatially functional building , then the architecture became an economic product, an attraction, another add-on of a system that was not related to the building.

In this problem is not just the system but also digital architecture to be blamed, as Saggio points out we are giving priority to “... appearance over existence,whatisseenoverwhatis”( Saggio, 1999).

The client had the necessity to hire a celebrity to design “something” iconic, a museum, winery , stadium, but it had to be overall recognizable and signed rather than useful or truly needed.

But now there are already too many similar buildings to be iconic enough and architects fees are way too expensive for a period of economical crisis.AntiCAD is, therefore, a software that pretends to eradicate the role of the architect, giving the client a tool for producing iconic-like buildings without the need to hire a celebrity or knowing anything about space, just focusing on the aesthetical qualities of the final product.AntiCAD contains the aesthetical components of the main iconic styles generated during the digital revolution , and the tools for creating those geometries have implicit meaning that excuse the use of those aesthetics, making AntiCAD an ethic software, since it is not cloning iconic buildings but following a legacy.

Moreover the client does not need to be worried about the idea behind the design, since the architectural concepts generators of space are already within the tools that creates the geometries of the architectural proposition.


HOW?

The project is being developed as a set of individual tools ; every one of them with a different meaning and particular way of working , and every one of them add a different aesthetical component to the whole.

However the general visual and aesthetical inspirations are, on the one hand, a mix of old vector graphics style with the latest shading technologies like real time ambient occlusion, shadows and normal mapping, in order to show the evolution of real time graphics.

On the other hand, the project has been developed to produce architectures that imitates the aesthetics of the digital revolution buildings, such as the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Jewish Museum in Berlin or The art pavilion for Channel.

Moreover some films have been inspiration for concepts of avatar and software representation such as Matrix, Tron or Nirvana , where software and human beings are represented in similar ways.


CAMERAS

The theoretical context of this tool is based on Bruno Zevi´s “Howtolookatarchitecture” and the ways we conceive and visualize architecture apart from direct experience.Zevi explains in “Representing Space” the purpose, advantages and disadvantages of all the techniques that were available for representing architecture in 1948; drawings , physical models, photography and video(Zevi, 1948)For him, apart from direct experience video was the optimum way for spatial experience, since it adds the fourth dimension to the representation of space; however, as he points out, it is impossible to show every part and point of view of a building in a film as well as to do it in a objective way since the very nature of recording images is a subjective act.

This project wants to continue with Zevi´s classification of how to look at architecture by adding videogames to the list of optimum ways of experiencing a space and even putting them in first place for their unique capacity to not just visualize space, but modify or create it interactively.

Although AntiCAD is a design software, the mechanics are derived from videogames; interactivity, real time creation of scenarios and landscapes, reaction between components and first or third-person views are key elements in the construction of the tool. In the same way as “Love” by Quelsolaar or “Flower” by Thatgamecompany, every component of the game reacts with each other in runtime; and the act of playing makes the design process a dynamic system that produces an unlimited variability in the architecture created.

“Games are not about story. They are about interaction.” (Steenburg,2008) “Like in the real world, everything you pick up causes the environment to change.” (Chen, 2009)

There are just a few games like Love, where the player can create and experince/play his/her creations. Other games like Sim City are based on creation and management of cities, but the player is constrained to the ortographic aerial view of the creator, that is, the spaces or cities created can´t be expererinced in first or third-person views.

In AntiCAD there are no orthographic views, everything is rendered from the user’s perspective and focuses on the final aspect of the building, but overall it aims to maintain the user constantly immersed in the designed scene to realise the consequences of every design decision as in “Dark Chronicle” by Level 5, where “town-building simulator and role-playing game are combined”( Chan , 2007).Even though creation and navigation mode are blended in AntiCAD, the user can be helped by a secondary element (cursor)that gives the opportunity to look from an aerial view, emulating city builder videogames styles, nevertheless this view is also a perspective, never an axonometric view.


In AntiCAD is not possible to create new cameras, however the whole scenario is dynamic, which means that the user can modify the terrain under himself if a higher point of view is desired or to build a staircase to go to the roof of a building. Like in “Katamari Damacy” by Namco, the user´s view is a dynamic component that changes indirectly with the reaction with another component, like modifying the terrain, and these changes in the views provokes a new chain of reactions in creating geometry, which boosts the dynamicity of the system.

Katamari Damacy challenges the notion of user´s view and scale. The game makes the player roll a ball, called Katamari, in order to pick-up everything they find in their way, which makes the size of the ball increase as more things are added and the view of the user changes constantly, e.g. from a tiny character that rolls up paper clips under a table, to roll up the table and later even the house where the table was, going from a ground level view to an aerial view as the Katamari grows up.

Aerial view thrid person perspective/Screenshoot 01 Aerial view secondary cursor perspective /Screenshoot 02 Ground view thrid person perspective /Screenshoot 03



TERRAIN EDITOR/SITE

In today´s architecture, the genius loci is not important anymore, everything can be built anywhere due to the general character of our cities. As Rem Koolhas points out in “The generic city”, everything is global and every city is the same, therefore a site is not needed to constraint or give local characteristics or a narrative meaning to a building design; quite the opposite, the new design will bring some new rules for the future of that place.The terrain editor tool makes use of this concept to allow the user to build a site/terrain/landscape where the architecture will be located, but see-king for an aesthetic and poetic boundary, rather than a geographic one, in the same way that Bill Viola does in his videogame “Thenightjourney”, where the essence of the game is the act of travelling in a “ ...trip along a path of enlightenment ...” (Viola,2009)The terrain editor tool allows the user to create and modify in real time a landscape by painting on a top view overlapped with the rest of the scene and navigate through it, and, collisions with the terrain update with every change which allows to navigate and interact making the rest of components to change.

This tool is based on Digital Elevation Maps11 , but the user is not allowed to load data from a real landscape, instead they can paint an imaginary one that will be the basis for the rest of the architectures created.The landscape can be modified in real time. This changes the user´s view and modifies the rest of the architecture as well, since all the geometry is linked to the landscape where it is created. This feature generates a system in constant change that potentiates the dynamic qualities of the building.

In “Fracture” by Lucas Arts the user is able by means of tectonic weapons to modify the terrain in order to take advantage of it in battle, this provide the player with a dynamic and interactive experience, that makes unique every time the game is played.

In a similar way, AntiCAD explores this dynamicity through the interactive creation of a dream landscape that evokes the mirage of a generic environ-ment that never existed, but yet is present everywhere.

Terrain editor interface


Terrain editor Interface and terrain /Screenshoot 04


Render mode

Scale X/Y axis

Scale Z axisMove/Scale switch

Colour picker

Frames per second Colour in use

Secondary cursor

Main Cursor

Area of influence

Primitive object selector

Extrusion section

Move gizmo

Measuring tape

Morph

Primitive object selected

INTERFACE

“Inthefieldofcomputerscience,aninterfacereferstoapointofinteractionbetweencomponents...”

In design software the interfaces are made by toolbars, ribbons, icons, etc. to help the user easily access commands. In AntiCAD the interface is a dynamic element that changes overtime depending on the user actions, building properties and number of tools in use. Unlike traditional software, where the interface is a neutral component, in AntiCAD the interface becomes part of the design in a similar way as “The Path” by Tale of Tales, which changes at the same time that the design itself changes. This represents an interactive element that connects together the user, the software and the object to be designed.

CURSOR/AVATAR

“TheliteralmeaningoftheoriginalLatinwordcursorexpressestheideaofsomeoneorsomethingthatruns.Cursores‘runners’,itwas thenameofcertainfunctions,originallymessengers.Acursorisamovingplacementorpointerthatindicatesaposition”

Inside AntiCAD the cursor is the representation and position of the user in the virtual world, the avatar. This avatar follows the simulated physical rules of a real environment such as gravity, speed and collision, to be able by means of moving to create geometries and architectures, translating the message from the user to the design.But in AntiCAD, however unlike in traditional software, there is more than one cursor.The main cursor, the avatar is represented as a person to give a notion of scale during the design process , however the user can decide if this process is represented from a first-person or third-person view.The user´s avatar is followed by a second avatar, the representation of the software itself, this secondary cursor is free of movements and is the actual creator of geometry, it is also the one that stores information and does calculations for the user. This secondary cursor/avatar acts as a extension of the user´s avatar in the virtual world performing most of the actions .Those concepts and aesthetics are derived from three movies; Matrix, Tron and Nirvana; in the three of them, software and human beings are represen-ted equally as persons inside the software, however human beings are limited in actions whereas the software capacity is unlimited.The aesthetics of the secondary avatars are derived from first videogames vector graphics such as “Spacewar!” or “Asteroids”, where the spaceships where represented by a triangle.

COLOUR PICKER

The use of colour in AntiCAD is determined by coloured objects that users will find either in or around the building. In order to use a colour, the user needs to approach an object and pick the colour from there.Different objects have different colours, which makes the interface to change them as subjective process provoked by the user’s decisions.


Terrain Editor Interface and Terrain /Screenshot 04

Secondary cursor/avatar

Primmary cursor/avatar

Measuring tape


Colour picker and coloured object inside the scene/Screenshoot 05

PRIMITIVE OBJECTS

Primitive objects inside a design software are always referred to as the plato-nic solids and derivations of these,and are often used as base object to create other ones more complex than the primitive ones.

The new primitive objects in the digital revolution were splines, NURBS , nodes, etc; In a post digital revolution software like AntiCAD the primitives are neither platonic solids nor splines or NURBS, but stereotyped geometries derived from iconic and representative buildings from the digital revolution (e.g the Guggheim museum in Bilbao or the Jewish museum in Berlin).

Those primitives objects are the core language of the building and the main tool for creating the architecture. The user will choose them according to the style they want to emulate.In addition to primitives the morph tool is a modifier that controls the level of stereotype of the different primitives objects.

The use of primitives is based on city builders videogames (e.g Sim City, Civi-lization, Utopia...) where the player have a set of buildings of different typo-logies , houses, factories, civil buildings... and have to create a city with them and manage it, but can never experience the creation, AntiCAD however eliminate that constraint encouraging the spatial exploration under first and third-person perspectives.

GRAFFITI TOOL

The graffiti tool is a decoration command; the user can paint the facades by shooting paint or images at the buildings.This tool must be used in combination with the colour tool or the line tool; if the user wants to paint with colour , first need to find the colour, if wants to paint an image first the image has to be created with the line tool.

This tool is inspired in “Little Big Planet” by Sony, a game where the player have to decorate the environment placing stickers or changing the object´s material, bur first those new materials have to be found.

The act of shooting is a tribute to first person shooters since it has been the most influential genre in videogame industry and the biggest booster of 3D graphics, as we can see in two of the best game engines; Unreal Engine from Unreal Tournament and Cry Engine from Far Cry.


Primitive object selector

Sterotype level 3

Diferent levels of of stereotyped geometries / primitive selector interface

Sterotype level 2

Sterotype level 2

Primitive object type

EXTRUSION TOOL / ARCHITECURE OF MOVEMENT

Movement, speed, fluidity ,continuity... are some of the paradigms of the architecture of digital revolution, and all of them have their basis in motion. The the concept of an architecture of motion has been studied before from many different approaches trough history, such as The futu-rist Sant´Elia and the movement of machines(1914), Le Corbusier in Villa Savoye (1929) with the promenade architectural , Mark Web in Temple Island (1966) with architecture under the perspective of speed of light and many others; and by many more during this digital revolution, such as Eissenman in Max Reinhardt House ( 1992) with the succession of sections along a 3 dimensional path, FOA in the Virtual House (1997) with their Moebious strip or Frank Ghery and Zaha Hadid in almost all their new buildings.

The extrusion tool tries to apply literally these concepts to test the validity of statements like the ones used as basis of today´s architecture.

“Isthereanalternativetradition,analternativeparadigmofspaceoratleastthetheoreticalpossibilityofdefiningspacethroughmove mentalone,withoutanindependentandpriorsystemofreference?HowdoIdesignasystemofcirculationwithoutpresupposingpoints tobeconnected?Asystemofconnectionthatdefinesitspointsofdestinyfromwithinitself?” (Schumacher,1996)

The extrusion tool has two components, the section of the shape to be extruded and the path where the section will be extruded along. The section itself can be modified by the user at any time since it appears as part of the interface, and the path is created by the user movement in the environment.This tool aims are to encourage the user to create complex shapes beyond primitive objects and realize the consequences of these creations.


Screenshoot 07 Screenshoot 08 Screenshoot 09

Extruded geometries / rectangular section, variable section, triangular section.

LINE TOOL / PARAMETERS AND ALGORITHMS

The line tool is based in parametricism and algorithmic architecture; the basis for creating geometries with this tools is the position of the user in the space as first parameter, and the user´s movement as second parameter.The user´s movement in space create the initial shape that will be the basis of the parametric design.The rest of parameters will be controlled by the user through the interface according to the style that needs to be imitated.


Parametrical variations of spheres along a path, performace test.

Parametrical distribution of a path as basis for a facade

Screenshoot 10 Screenshoot 11 Screenshoot 12 Screenshoot 13

Screenshoot 14 Screenshoot 15

05 CONCLUSIONS

AntiCAD is at the moment in beta version, for obtaining definitive conclusions AntiCAD must be tested in other user´s different than the author/developer as any other software in beta state. However the main questions of this study have been clarified.

Design software constraint and dictate the aesthetics of buildings, as the main architects user of software recognize themselves.

Different software produce different aesthetics. Approaching the same problem with different design software produce totally different results , however approaching different problems with the same software produce very similar results.

Game engines are the next tool in architectonic design since the gather together all the techniques for visualizing and producing architectural space .

Design software does not resolve architectonic paradigms but become paradigms on themselves, as parametric design or the so called digital architecture.

Therefore and taking those conclusions as basis, this study states that programming or modding a specific tool for every design should be the common practice for the architecture of the post digital era,

BIBLIOGRAPHY

-Brent ,B. Graafland ,A. Pinilla ,C. Bilsen ,.A (2007)“Spacefighter: The Evolutionary City(Game:)” Actar-Chan,D.(2007) “Space Time Play: Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism - the Next Level” Birkhauser Verlag AG. pp 190-Koolhaas,R.(2006) “The Generic City”, Gustavo Gili - Schodek,D. Bechthold,M. Griggs,J.Kao,K. Steinberg,M. (2005)“ Digital Design and Manufacturing”, John Wiley & Sons-Schumacher,M.(2004) “Digital Hadid: Landscapes in Motion” , Birkhauser Verlag AG. pp5- Spuybroek, L. ( 2004) “NOX: Machining Architecture”, Thames & Hudson. pp22 -Terzidis,K.(2006) “Algorithmic Architecture” , Architectural Press. pp 153-Zevi,B.(1948) “Architecture as space: How to look at architecture” Horizon Press.

WEB

-Chen,J.(2009)”Flower”, Thatgamecompany Available at :http://thatgamecompany.com/games/flower/[ Accessed : 02-06-2010]-Cursor- Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursor [ Accessed : 02-06-2010]-Hill,J. (2008) Videogames for architects. Available at:http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/id12934.htm [Accessed : 13-06-2010]-Interface- Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface(computer_science) [ Accessed : 02-06-2010]-Modding - Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modding[Accessed : 14-06-2010]-Schumacher,M.(2008)“Parametricism as Style”Available at:http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/Parametricism%20as%20Style.htm [Accessed : 13-06-2010] - Steenburg,E .(2008) “Love”, Queelsolar Available at :http://www.quelsolaar.com/love/index.html[ Accessed : 02-06-2010]-Viola,B.(2009) “The night journey”Available at :http://www.thenightjourney.com/statement.htm/ [ Accessed : 02-06-2010]

06 REFERENCES

VIDEOGAMES

-Steenburg,E .(2008) “Love”, Queelsolar -Chen,J.(2009)”Flower”, Thatgamecompany- Takahasi,K.(2004)“Katamari Damacy”, Namco-Level-5(2006) “Dark Chronicle” , Sony-Wright,W. (1989) “Sim City”, Maxis-Viola,B.(2009) “The night journey”- Day 1 Studios(2008) “Fracture”, LucasArts-Harvey,A. Samyn.M,Raines,L. (2009)“The Path”, Tale of Tales-Healey,M. Smith,D.(2008) “Little Big Planet” Sony

07 GLOSARY

1/ CAM- computer aided manufacturing

2/ Game engine- a program code that runs all aspects of the game such as graphics, physics, sound ...Available at: http://www.gamedev.net/dict/ [Accessed : 13-06-2010]

3/ SKETCHPAD- computer program written by Ivan Sutherland in 1963 considered to be the ancestor of modern computer-aided drafting

4/ Parametricism- refers to the inclusion of parametric data embedded within 3D objects (i.e., all the parameters, such a s height, depth, thicknesses, weight, and even attributes such as model numbers and materials).

5/ CATIA- Computer Aided Three-dimensional Interactive Application – leading software in aeronautic and product design industry.

6/ Half Life- science fiction first-person shooter videogame developed by Valve Software Available at: http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/hl/[Accessed : 13-06-2010]

7/ Cosm- “Cosm is an integrated collection of externals and abstractions to assist the construction of navigable, sonified virtual worlds using Max/MSP/Jitter”Available at: http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/cosm/ [Accessed : 13-06-2010]

8/ NURBS- Non-uniform rational basis spline . Is a mathematical model commonly used in computer graphics for generating and representing curves and surfaces.Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-uniform_rational_B-spline[Accessed : 13-06-2010]

9/ Sim City- city-builder simulation in axonometric view part of a series of games created by Will Wright.

10/ Unreal Tournament- first-person shooter relevant for its powerful render engine Unreal Engine.

11/ Digital elevation maps- gray scale images that store height information, being black 0 meter high and white the maximum height.

12/ Quest 3D- render engine by Act 3D mainly used for serious games as flight simulators .

13/ Shader FX- is a full-featured real-time shader editor for 3ds MaxAvailable at :www.lumonix.net/shaderfx.html [Accessed : 15-06-2010]

14/ Shader-set of software instructions used primarily to calculate rendering effects , can operate per pixel , per vertex or per object.

15/ Ambien occlusion- shading technique based on distance of objects and attenuation of light due to occlusion.

-The project is being developed with Quest 3D12 as game engine, and Shader FX13 for shader14 programming; the 3D models, animation and texture baking were done with 3D Studio Max.

-Real time ambient occlusion15 shader is an implementation from the free source code by Viktor Kuropyatnik. Available at: http://forum.quest3d.com/index.php?topic=66659.0 [ Accesed: 16-05-2010]

08 TECHNICAL DETAILS

AntiCAD User´s Manual

Documents

Transcript of AntiCAD User´s Manual