biscoPro CAD Interface:- We have developed a unique methodology for extracting usable information from 3D CAD models That is flexible, effective, and efficient. Our experience shows that while CAD applications provide most of the data required to complete downstream processes like estimating or specification generation but not all. As soon as you miss one piece of required information you have a problem that must be solved. A key feature of the biscoPro CAD interface is the ability to append missing data and making it easy for the user to interact with this data while working within the primary CAD authoring application. What we have done is separated the rich functionality of our interface and processing system from the CAD data extraction process. This allows us to invest heavily in our tools and reuse the core functionality when working with the different CAD systems. This makes it feasible for us to support interfaces to many CAD applications. It also means that we can pick up CAD models previously created in the compatible CAD systems and bring it into biscoPro with the minimum fuss.
Our interface system allows us to: - Create multiple building elements from a single CAD element
- Pick the CAD properties that we need
- Translate naming and property definitions into a standard nomenclature
- Converts units of measure
- Mergers additional properties to extend the CAD data as required
Our system works with Graphisoft ArchiCAD, AutoCAD Architecture, Autodesk Revit, standard AutoCAD (though this has limited value as it is does not use 3D modelling) and soon Vectorworks. The trigger points for our interface vary a little depending what access points the CAD API's expose to use. In the best cases our system streams the data from the CAD model in real time, in the worst case as a batch process triggered by the user. Our interface extracts the 3D geometry so that it is available to us to use within our system and to pass out to other external systems that require it. |
