Three Dimensional CAD Use in Interior Design Education and Practice.pdf

three dimensional cad use in interior design education and practice michelle mcconnell mfa and lisa waxman ms florida state university objective the primary objective of the project was to compare the current use of three dimensional 3d computer aided design cad by practicing interior designers with what is being taught in interior design programs in colleges and universities information on the current state of computer use by both groups also was gathered research design a survey of interior design educators and practitioners was completed using two questionnaires the first was mailed to 300 interior design educators council idec corporate members the second was mailed to 300 international interior design association iida members a response rate of 34 and 40 respectively was achieved analysis frequencies of responses were compared to determine similarities between the two groups key findings educators responded that 96 of their students used two dimensional 2d cad software to com plete all or part of their assigned projects while 70 of practitioners responded that they regularly used 2d software sixty five percent of educators taught students how to produce 3d objects and wireframe perspectives using cad software while 49 of practitioners created 3d wireframes forty percent of educators and 35 of practitioners created computer rendered scenes that included the addition of materials and lights eighty three percent of educators and 78 of practitioners believed that computer rendered perspectives were an important communication tool between inte rior designers and clients eighty nine percent of educators and 74 of practitioners felt that experience with 3d cad made students more marketable within the profession conclusion the majority of students appear to be adequately prepared in 2d cad educators should contin ue educating in 3d cad software as it appears to be a design tool valued by practitioners as well as educators the computer has become an important communication tool between interior designers and clients and is now considered essential in many design firms curry shroyer curry shroyer 2 findings on the types of computer hardware most commonly used within interior design education idec and practice iida 3 findings on cad software used within interior design education idec and practice iida 4 findings on the methods of teaching cad within interior design education idec 5 findings on the attitudes toward 3d cad within interior design education idec and practice iida 6 additional findings and other comments from respondents cad usage within interior design education and practice interior design education idec ninety six percent of all surveyed interior design educators had students who used some form of cad software to complete part or all of their assigned projects eighty five percent of the educators had a program requirement that their students take a course that taught some aspect of cad sixty five percent of the respondents taught their students how to produce 3d objects and wireframe per spectives with cad software forty one percent of respondents instructed their students how to create fully rendered modeled objects and scenes in cad which includ ed the assignment of materials placement of light and shadow and adjustment of views table 1 interior design practice iida sixty eight percent of interior designers had employees in their firm who frequently used cad software to create volume 25 number 1 1999 i 20 journal of interior design three dimensional cad use mcconnell and waxman table 1 table 2 cad use in education and practice education practice n 103 n 120 2d cad use 96 68 3d wireframe use 65 49 full 3d renderings 41 35 animation 38 25 more than one response was possible their 2d design work such as space planning floor plans elevations and details forty nine percent of practition ers had employees in their firm who created wireframe perspectives for their clients thirty five percent of those surveyed had employees who used 3d software to create fully rendered scenes for their clients hardware commonly used within interior design seventy three percent of educator respondents used cad software packages on dosnindows platforms and 47 used macintosh table 2 of these respondents 20 were using both dos windows and macintosh computers according to respondents there appeared to be a trend requiring students to purchase their own computer only 6 of the interior design educator respondents required students to purchase their own computer but 34 planned to do so findings from the practitioner respondents indicated that 81 used dosnctindows based personal computers loaded with cad software packages and 12 used a macintosh computer six percent stated that they used both dosi windows and macintosh based computers within their firm cad software commonly used within interior design educators although the primary reason for this survey was to assess 3d cad use a few questions also were asked regarding 2d cad use autocad appeared to be the software of choice by educators 80 for the instruction of students minicad was used by 10 of interior design educators seven percent hardware and software use education practice hardware n 103 n 1 20 dos windows based 73 81 macintosh 47 12 both dos windows 20 6 education practice 2d software n 103 n 120 autocad 8 0 5 8 minicad 1 0 3 cadvance 3 8 microstation 7 7 arch icad 5 0 generic cad 4 3 other 15 20 education practice 3d cad software n 103 n 59 autocad 41 46 3d studio 3 0 34 form z 1 7 7 microstation 7 7 7 7 more than one response was possible there were many other packages chosen but percentages were small and 5 of educators used microstation and archicad respectively more than a dozen other 2 d cad software packages were used by a small number of respondents educator respondents preferred two autodesk software packages for 3d cad usage autocad and 3d studio dos windows based autocad ranked as the most com monly used 41 autocad by itself is not capable of producing fully rendered scenes with textures and bitmaps however it was used for wireframes solid modeling and journal of interior design i 21 volume 25 number 1 1999 three dimensional cad use mcconnell and waxman seventy four percent of practitioners were of the opinion that an interior design student trained in 3 0 cad software had a greater chance of being hired over a student who had no knowledge in 3 0 cad table 3 table 4 aititudes toward 3d cad use education practice n 103 n 59 reasons for not using 3d cad education practice n 55 n 52 3d cad use is on important communication tool 32 78 believed students with 3d cad skills are more marketable 89 74 limited color 3d studio used by 30 of the respondents provides options for textures colors lighting bitmaps and animation other software packages included form z with 17 of respondents and microstation used by 7 of the respondents respondents listed more than a dozen other packages but the percentages were very small practitioners fifty eight percent of surveyed practitioners stated that employees of their firm used autocad software for their 2d cad work 8 used cadvance and 7 used microstation a number of other software programs were identified but resulted in very small percentages for 3d cad use dos and windows based autodesk soft ware packages which were used extensively by educators also were used widely by practitioners forty six percent of interior design firms who generate 3d drawings created their 3d models and perspectives using autocad software and 34 used 3d studio both form z and microstation were used by 7 of the respondents methods of teaching cad in recent years cad educators have discussed the integra tion of cad into design studio classes since cad programs have been established at many universities for five to ten years examining their level and methods of integration can be useful to design educators teaching computer aided design in a course specializing exclusively in cad was selected by 39 of the respondents six percent of respon dents stated that their interior design programs totally integrated cad into studio courses the majority 52 of interior design programs had both specific cad courses and cad integration into studio courses lock of money 60 36 lack of time 47 45 lock of knowledge 11 30 curriculum chollenges 7 n a clients not requesting n a 54 more than one response wos possible attitudes toward 3d cad educators it was noted earlier that 65 of surveyed idec members taught their students how to produce 3d wireframe per spectives using cad software forty one percent educated their students in cad software that had rendering capa bilities educators 82 x0 believed that a cad rendered space was an important communication tool between the interior designer and client eighty nine percent of the educators were of the opinion that education in 3d cad made students more marketable within the interior design profession table 3 of the educators not currently teaching students 3d cad software 38 plan to incorporate it into their curriculum in the near future the reasons given by interior design programs for not teaching 3d cad included lack of money to invest in 3d cad software 6o lack of time to learn the new 3d cad software 47 and lack of knowledge as to what cad software to purchase 11 table 4 practitioners as stated earlier 49 of responding practitioners worked in a firm where employees used cad 3d software to cre ate wireframe perspectives for their clients the majority of practicing designers 78 felt that 3d rendered spaces were an important communication tool between designers and clients seventy four percent of practitioners were of the opinion that an interior design student trained in 3d volume 25 number 1 1999 i 22 journal of interior design three dimensional cad use mcconnell and waxman cad software had a greater chance of being hired over a student who had no knowledge in 3d cad table 3 there were many reasons given by responding firms for not currently using 3d software although 39 planned to purchase 3d software and train their employees in the near future the primary reason selected by 45 of respon dents for not using 3d cad software was lack of time to learn the new software packages fifty four percent of respondents stated that their clients did not ask for 3d models or wireframe perspectives thirty six percent of members did not use 3d cad software because of lack of money to invest in purchasing and learning new 3d packages lack of knowledge was reported by 30 with 15 of the interior designers reporting a lack of under standing of computers in general and 15 lacking knowledge of what software to purchase production of animations and or walk throughs thirty eight percent of the educators taught students how to create animations and or walk throughs of a 3d scene constructed with cad table 4 twenty five percent of the practitioners had employees who created animations or walk throughs using cad software in order to show their clients how the spaces would look to the visitor eighteen percent of the practitioners hired outside experts to create animations or walk throughs for their clients fifteen per cent of practitioners had clients who specifically requested a computer rendered perspective and a walk through of the proposed space discussion of the findings the survey noted that almost all educators 96 were using 2d cad software packages in addition the major ity of the practitioners 68 were using cad software to produce plans elevations and detail drawings these results put education in a very favorable light with so many programs meeting the needs of their students in preparing them for the profession and helping the profession meet its need for computer literate designers these findings would also indicate that the small number of schools that have not yet begun to include cad in their curriculum should do so as soon as possible it appears that this knowl edge is no longer a luxury but a necessity the research showed that nearly half 49 of the practi tioners use 3d cad software to produce wireframe perspectives for their clients and 65 of the educators teach it these findings would indicate that it is also nec essary to include 3d cad in the interior design curriculum with the percentage of students using 3d exceeding that of practitioners it seems as if interior design programs are adequately preparing students in this area however inte rior design programs not currently teaching 3d cad may want to include it so their students can have the best prepa ration possible educators found several problems when they attempted to include 3d cad in their curriculum seven percent of the respondents listed curriculum challenges including lack of room in the current curriculum as a reason for not imple menting the program a number of programs have already experimented with incorporating cad into existing cours es only 6 of the respondents stated that they taught cad only in existing studio based courses however 52 said that their programs used a combination of the cad only coursesalong with cad integration into other courses these results suggest that some integration is possible and could solve the space problem for some programs a combination of specific cad courses with studio and cad integrated courses could have many benefits students may obtain a good general understanding of cad and learn a variety of necessary commands that enable them to draw plans elevations and details in a specific cad course in addition the student may learn various presentation techniques in a graphically oriented course that may include both hand rendering and computer rendering other design oriented courses may incorporate 3d computer drawings of objects and spaces in order to help students understand and visualize volume how objects work and how they interact with each other not only would stu dents learn from computer generated examples but they also could see other applications the findings showed that the cost of implementing 3d cad education into an interior design program was a deterrent for some programs it may be necessary that interior design programs with budgetary constraints consider requiring students to purchase their own computers another solu tion may be for departments to require the purchase of 23 journal of interior design volume 25 number 1 1999 three dimensional cad use mcconnell and waxman to make full use of 3 0 cad animation some education in this area may be considered important to give students an extra edge within the profession laptop computers by students while providing a lab in which the students could plug in their own laptops it may be nec essary to steer students away from purchasing a large amount of hand drafting equipment such as a drafting table and all of the equipment that goes along with it in lieu of a computer computers are an investment which will not be wasted and many students arrive at school with their own system departments may find that requiring each person to purchase a computer may allow students to request loans for which they normally would not be eligible a number of respondents felt they did not know which 3d cad software to purchase or what should or could be taught wireframe images and the production of simple 3d objects are the basic skills used in the creation of 3d cad drawings fortunately many of the commonly used cad packages that are used for 2d drafting and design also have powerful 3d capabilities it is interesting to note that the findings on the use of 2d and 3d software show many similarities in software selection with autocad and microstation commonly used for both types of drawing therefore students with a powerful 2d software pack age have the option of producing very sophisticated 3d wireframe drawings without additional software however the production of fully rendered scenes may require the purchase of additional packages with added cost since most respondents believed that rendered perspectives cre ated on the computer are excellent communication tools between interior designer and client it would be an advan tage for students to have the opportunity to create computer generated renderings implications computer use in the creation of perspective drawings is becoming more widespread one option used by students and practitioners is to use the computer to construct 3d spaces adding major architectural elements and using gen eralized shapes and objects to represent furniture and other interior objects then the details of the drawing can be added by hand this replaces the use of a perspective grid in the process and gives the designer many options for changing the camera angle or the view of the space this is often a fast way to create a 3d image and requires rela tively little time when compared to a full computer generated rendering for these users the computer is a perfect per spective tool that coincides nicely with hand rendering this method also is easier and faster to learn than hand drawn perspective and could work well in programs where the curriculum already is tight or the instructors are still in the learning process regarding 3d cad for students and practitioners who elect to create fully rendered views on the computer new developments in technology should increase their options the ability to scan materials and fabrics or use libraries of materials cre ated by various manufacturers can enhance the ability to put realistic materials on surfaces wallcovering fabric flooring paint and furniture manufacturers who do not have computer accessible materials available to designers may find themselves left behind as those products are sought and designers become more computer savvy animation and walk throughs allow the designer and client to better understand the space that is being created and are wonderful visualization tools to make full use of 3d cad animation some education in this area may be con sidered important to give stude