Datasheet

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c h a p t e r 1: PREPARING DRAWINGS IN CAD OR BIM FOR ENHANCEMENT ■
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Making Drawings Readable by Everyone
Does the average man or woman on the street know what a section drawing is, let
alone how to read a section tag referencing a drawing? What do dashed lines represent
to someone not in the design world? How do centerlines appear, and what do thicker
lines indicate? More important, who cares?
For those working with design principles every day, it might be surprising to
hear that some members of the general public, and maybe even some of your clients,
don’t fully understand 2D computer-aided design (CAD) drawings; they remain an
abstraction for many people and, more important, these people might not verbalize this
fact. After all, although we all inhabit 3D architecture every day of our lives, most of
us do not have to correlate that experience with 2D drawings on a regular basis.
Whether or not you choose to create 3D building information models (BIMs) or
show 3D imagery to your clients, at the end of the day you’re still required to gener-
ate 2D drawings as legal construction documents. This chapter teaches you how to
begin the process of enhancing your drawings, whether you start in CAD or BIM. In
Chapter 2, “Enhancing Drawings in Photoshop,” you’ll learn how to add color, gradi-
ents, textures, and shadows to enrich technical line drawings and render them compre-
hensible by technical and nontechnical people alike.
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