Breaking down the doors to construction modelling...

I stated before, how I believed there were no decent construction modelling software–applications available for the AEC market.

I still stand by this claim and to support it, let me turn to the ‘humble’ door.

When I look at the two modelling programs that claim to be ‘out-of box ready’ for construction and I’m familiar with, what they ‘do’ with doors is not what I’d call a construction focused approach.

Someone early in the development of these tools decided that doors (and windows) should be ‘hosted’ elements, a type of digital parasites, not able to stand on their own.

Fair enough, you might say if you are a designer, this makes sense. Not only will the practice prevent modellers plonking doors down randomly where no walls are there to support them, it is mostly the host’s duty to set the way the joinery item should behave, the way the cladding must wrap around and into it.

For a true BIM-application to function properly, both the door and its host need to be able to stand on their own. A block wall is built well before the doors are hung; the openings are still needed to be provided for.

There are numerous ways construction-modellers can get around these shortcomings, they can and they do.

A little interest and help from the developers would do too.