July 31, 2024
3D is not the evolution of 2D
Yeah, actually, no, 3D is not the evolution of 2D. Although, yes, the pull-quote below is a key concept we’ve all had in mind the last 20 years in architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC).
3D is the evolution of 2D.
2D is a primitive representation of the 3D reality. Many people can not read or understand drawings.
Not everyone buys into that idea.
Many do understand what’s wrong with it. But a whole software industry has more or less cultivated this idea without giving it serious thought. I mean, it turns out that although it’s pervasive as a kind of slogan, if you look into it with some seriousness, you find little or no load-bearing thought supporting it.
Let’s scrutinize it here.
While many people aren’t skilled at understanding technical drawings, Is it not more accurate to say that things like the design and construction of buildings are complex enough that understanding them beyond superficially, is simply difficult no matter what? No matter whether you’re looking at them in 2D or 3D?
I’d say, yes. And that there is no easy way to understand the complexities without concentrated effort. And without a lot of skill. And a knowledgebase built up through a lot of experience.
We can fly around in a model, and from that, form general impressions of a complex project. But general impressions are not enough and if we want to go beyond superficial understanding, then it takes more effort.
And how about this idea?
Is it not more on target to say, that digital models (3D) are an evolution not of drawings (2D), but rather, that:
digital models (3D) are an evolution of mental models (also 3D, in imaginary space)
Is that not really more accurate?
Then what can we say about 2D, about drawings?
Can we not clarify this question, and its answer, by starting by asking, what are drawings?
What are they for?
Can we not say that drawings are an attention-focusing – device– that help us engage in clear thinking about models?
I talk about that here:
Your Models are Fuzzy – TANGERINE FOCUS
Models are fuzzy, mentally, (see the story in the post above), and that’s true in more ways than one, even for digital models, which after all mean nothing to anyone without adequate mental model formation.
Setting the perceptive mind in motion, the catalyzing of adequate mental model formation requires effort.
But what kind of effort?
It requires getting ourselves well and truly engaged with models.
And for that we rely on certain, devices for facilitating, structuring, ordering, and strengthening the necessary visual engagement with models. And again, we’re talking about models, (mental and digital), of complex things.
Technical drawing in its traditional form well and truly embodies this function. It acts as a -device- for facilitating and strengthening our concentrated visual engagement with models, mental and digital, for interpretive and generative purposes.
Here’s a short video from last year, 2023, of me talking a bit more about this, and the interpretive and generative aspects involved. There is an attempt at some humor throughout. I hope you see it that way:
TGN 2023 SERIOUS ENGAGEMENT
So, if 3D evolved, from mental model to digital model, can we not also talk about evolution of this -device- for visual engagement with those models? Meaning, evolution in the form of expression of technical drawing?
I think we can. And we must.
First of all, why does the device for concentrated visual engagement with the model have to remain externalized only from the digital model, as it had been for all the centuries and millennia predating digital computing, now that models are both mental and digital?
Even in past centuries before digital computing and software, drawings were instantiated in-situ at true orientation within mental models. That’s what people do when they read drawings. They imagine each drawing where it really is, in the model, in their mind…, in the mental model that’s put into formation, as they read the drawings.
There is more going on too.
There are, at least these 4 things going on, that I mention on this page ( V1.0):
Drawings in Models V1.0 – TANGERINE FOCUS
Here are the 4 things, after (0). Initiation.
V1.0 (always)
Drawings belong in models. It’s where they’ve always been. For good reason. From the first time anyone scratched out a drawing in sand, in stone, on papyrus, they instantiated that graphic in-situ where it really is, in the mental model in formation in their minds. An interplay was underway.
(0). Initiation:
A mental model of the project starts to form ( more here). It’s fuzzy, fluid. A mist, really. The fog lifts though. The sun comes out and makes things clearer.
(1) Visual Close Study (VCS) of models
Any single technical drawing is an expression of the act of looking somewhere specific within a model mental, digital, or physical.
A drawing is the act of visual close study (VCS), there, at that location, and the articulate expression of this close study.
(2) Physical evaluation
There at that location, we evaluate, is everything that should be shown, there, actually shown there? Is anything that matters, there, missing?
The main idea hinted at here in step (2) has to do with evaluation, of a particular kind.
(3) Affirmation
Finally at some point after the long work of model development and review, someone with authority (experience, knowledge) to do so, AFFIRMS the status of the questions in (2).
(4) INTERPLAY: the engine of thought
Along the way (0, 1, 2, 3…) an INTERPLAY is engaged, in our minds, between:
- a set of expressions of visual close study (VCS) at various locations of narrowed attentive visual focus within a model
and
- the wider expanse of the whole of the modeled project environment.
In the interplay, thought happens and understanding grows.
Fuzzy initial ideas are sorted and judged. Selected stronger concepts are thought through, clarified along the way, and ultimately, thought through all the way through so they can be carried to fruition.
0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 are the higher order work of AEC professions, done by binding up, stitching together model and drawing
That list is not complete though. There are some other functions in play. I’ll add another one here, call it item 5.
(5) drawing attention to make clear what’s critically important
Item 5 is about having the courtesy (to oneself and to others) to draw attention to critical aspects of a model. You may have a model that is of excellent quality throughout, but even so, people using that model are going to appreciate it if you draw their attention to particular things that are not to be missed.
The non-assist from the digital model leaves the digital model underutilized, under-useful, sub-coherent, sub-participatory in making intelligible what must be understood when doing complex tasks in complex environments.
So these are vital functions, essential.
1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are not to be dismissed. And not to be dismissed lightly without serious thought put into the consequences, after which, the conclusion certainly will come that dismissal was not a good idea, and that it’s the idea of the dismissal of drawing that ought to be dismissed, not drawing.
Modeling evolved, from mental to digital model. Drawing can evolve too.
V2.0 (2012)
With the popularization of digital modeling by the 1990s, technical drawing continued as before in it’s usual role, while instantiation into the model continued as it always had, unaltered from V1.0, as mental exercise only. Until I invented the automated fusion of drawings in digital models in 2012.
Drawing in Models V2.0 (2012) – TANGERINE FOCUS
But that’s 12 years old now and logically it’s time to move forward.
It’s logical for a couple reasons.
- The function of drawing, the 5 functions discussed above, are essential for work in AEC. So the vehicle carrying those functions should improve to carry out the 5 functions in the most effective way possible, powering the engine of thought, and supplying the necessary clarity, and affirmation.
A second reason has to do with the fertility of the ground in which drawings reside now.
- Now that drawings reside – for 12 years in now 9 different softwares – where they really are, automatically at true orientation within digital models, where they’ve always resided within mental models, it is logical that they should evolve in their form of expression, because the ground of the digital model is different than the ground of the mental model.
So what would that new form look like?
A new form that better expresses the 5 essential functions described above.