In the seamingly endless stream of advertisements for Computer Aided Design and Drafting (CADD or CAD) products that cross my desk, about a year ago one product by Virtus caught my eye, ConceptCAD. This product was different for the construction industry because it was not intended to be used to create Contract Drawings. ConceptCAD’s sole purpose is for fast and easy creation and presentation of three dimensional ideas. Where products such as AutoCAD and MicroStation can produce impressive 3D scenes, ConceptCAD’s strength rests in terms of budget and practicality. ConceptCAD is a bargain at $150, and the time needed to create 3D presentations with ConceptCAD is a fraction of the time that would be expended with traditional industry tools.
ConceptCAD was easy to learn. Prior to using ConceptCAD I had been using various CAD programs for about 12 years. The great thing about most of the CAD programs we see today is that the operation of each is quite similar. For example, if you know how to draw a box in one program, you have a pretty good idea of how to draw a box in the other program. Thus, with somewhere between 20 and 40 hours of practice time, I was creating 3D prototypes for projects of various sorts. I would not consider the images that ConceptCAD creates to be photo-realistic, but all things considering the images generated through this product suit their purpose.
The first project that we used ConceptCAD on was for the survey of an existing property. The lot was heavily wooded, which tends to use up the budget for surveying in a hurry. This was a relatively small project, so we were trying to keep expenses to a minimum. The cost of the survey crew was $900 per day, and after two days of surveying they had not had time to record but two opposite corners of the oddly shaped existing home. However, with the help of an assistant, a tape measure, and a laptop computer loaded with ConceptCAD, we were able to finish the job without the expense of an additional day of surveying. The measurements were taken using a regular 25 and 100 foot tapes, and sketched out accurately and directly into ConceptCAD. We were able to immediately view a 3D representation of the existing structure we were documenting. Once finished with the data input, a DXF file was easily exported from ConceptCAD and saved onto a 3.5 in. floppy disk. The next day, we handed the disk over to the lead surveyor, who was in the process of generating an AutoCAD drawing from the electronic data that had been collected by his survey equipment. Our surveyor did not have any problem importing the ConceptCAD DXF file into AutoCAD. The project was complete, and we had saved $900 worth of surveying expenses in exchange for about $200 worth of hand measuring and CAD drafting time ($900 - $200 = $700 net savings). ConceptCAD had paid for itself in its first use.
The second opportunity we used ConceptCAD on was a Make or Buy decision. On this project our client was living in a 200 year old farm house, which had various additions attached to it through its life. The client was not sure if they wanted to again modify this beautiful old home to gain additional space, or if they wanted to move to a new home. They were not sure how a new addition to this home would look, or even what configuration or size this proposed addition would take. In a total of about eight manhours we were able to take rough measurements of the existing structure, sketch the existing structure into ConceptCAD, and provide the client with three different sets of 3D renderings that illustrated possible configurations for the proposed addition. Although the client still was not sure whether they want to construct the new addition, or simply move to a larger home, they liked the ConceptCAD renderings so much they elected to continue with the generation of the construction documents. The idea being that if they did decide to move to a larger home rather than add on to their existing home, the prepared and approved construction documents in conjunction with the ConceptCAD 3D presentation would add value to their existing home whether or not the addition was actually constructed.
The third time I had the opportunity to use ConceptCAD was for a completely different type of project. A contractor that had constructed a United States Embassy overseas had filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the U.S. Foreign Buildings Office shortly after project completion. Working under the authority of the Department of Justice in defense of this claim, it was my responsibility to evaluate the contractors claim, and provide an objective analysis and accompanying presentation to be used in settlement negotiations and ultimately in trial. Using ConceptCAD I created a three dimensional representation of the embassy in less than eight hours. I then exported a series of bitmap (BMP) images from ConceptCAD, that were essentially a series of slides that recreated critical portions of the construction sequence as if it were time lapse photography. These BMP images imported smoothly into a non-linear video editing software package called Adobe Premiere, where transitions were added between the different BMP images. The end result was an effective representation of the as-built construction process that a layman could easily understand. All of this work was accomplished in under 50 hours time.
In summary, I have found Virtus ConceptCAD to be a cost-effective tool for quickly generating and presenting 3D concepts in a format that a layman can understand. I have not seen another product on the market that can accomplish these tasks as quickly, and for as low a cost. If your sole intent is the generation of construction documents, this product is not intended to satisfy all of needs. However, ConceptCAD is a valuable tool that allows the export of conceptual 3D data into other industry standard CAD programs. ConceptCAD can save time and money, in moving from the conceptual design phase to the construction document generation phase.
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