The odd looking Bay Window and Roll-up Garage Door demonstrate what happens when you attempt to alter the new "custom" window and door styles.  For the Bay Window, I attempted to create a round Bay Window and found that only the wall cut becomes round (I turned off the glazing for this view).  With the Roll-up Garage Door, I attempted to change it into a 3-Way Slider.  The point of this exercise was to demonstrate that though ADT 2.0 offers new "custom" Door and Window solutions, they are quite limited solutions because they do not abide by the same design rules as the original (or non-custom) objects.  Though I don't expect a CAD product to make a round Bay Window, I should have some flexibility on bay roof style, bay angles and mullion configurations but I don't.

In the illustration to the right, I also show that you can now create openings at wall corners with relative ease and even vary the opening sizes from side to side. Of course I am still searching for an easy way to create a corner window with mitered glazing.

Many of the symbols are now multiview blocks that make the transition from 2D to 3D rather rapidly.  The Library of symbols in ADT 2.0 continues to lack the luster of competing CAD programs or even former 3rd party players such as ArchT. Going through the library is rather perplexing when you find, for example, among electrical symbols a single object, such as a wall switch, in 3D while the rest of the symbols in the same category are not only 2D but rather unimpressive in style and variation.  I certainly hope that this area of ADT gets a work over in the near future.

Determining the movie pixel size was the only perplexing problem I encountered and some how I managed to figured out that the size of the file window was the trick; i.e., if you want a small movie just resize the working window before making your AVI file.

Though refinement has taken place with the layering system, it is still quite a daunting task to comprehend and control.  I have had numerous discussions with colleagues about how the various options should be used "correctly" and I still feel that only numerous experiments with actual jobs of different sizes will be needed to find a viable solution that works for everyone in an office.  As with Softdesk's AutoArchitect, auto-layering worked for those who understood it but for many, layering became a hodgepodge of automated layers and on-the-spot creativity.  The basic structure in ADT 2.0's layering system should work for most but the debates arise when Walls need to be classified as Interior or Demolished or when multiple floor information is desired in one file.  Look for more on this topic in future ARCHIdigm Publications.

For more information, go to Architectural Desktop

For information about working with objects created on ADT when you don't have ADT go to Autodesk - AEC Object Enabler - Product Overview

For a review of the Object Enabler and more go to our Lounge and look under Tips + Tricks.