The Importance of CAD in the age of BIM
For decades the AEC professionals have used CAD programs to efficiently produce 2D Drawings and 3D models of buildings. CAD was a strategic imperative throughout the construction companies looking to construct buildings. However, today CAD is gradually being overtaken by Building Information Modeling. BIM is an integrated workflow which provides coordinated and accurate information about a project right from designing to planning through construction and management. BIM Services provided certain advantages as compared to CAD like conflict prevention, ability for different multi-disciplinary teams to work on the same model, enhanced visualization etc. However, that being said CAD is in no ways redundant.
In the current article we will specify how CAD is still relevant even though BIM is gradually taking the center stage in the construction sector.
CAD is comfortable:
A lot of industry professionals find CAD to be more easy to operate on as they have been using it for a long period of time. Their experience means that they can use CAD effortlessly, in quick time and with minimum errors. It might be more time consuming for them to learn BIM and initial period of transaction might also mean more errors and monetary investment which is not possible for them. Their familiarity in CAD on the other hand allows them to complete the project in quick turnaround time and with precision.
CAD is ideal for beginners:
BIM is more complicated, difficult and time consuming to learn as compared to CAD. For young graduates in the field of architecture and engineering, CAD Services is a good starting point as they can learn it with a little more ease. CAD has various tools like copy, paste, cut, delete etc. that one would find on a computer. It also ensures standardization by allowing to creating set standards and codes which can be used throughout the project.
More cost-effective for small projects and during conceptual planning:
When it comes to large projects with various multi-disciplinary teams BIM Services might end up being more beneficial. CAD on the other hand can be more cost-effective for projects with a smaller scale. CAD requires small investment, less training and when profit margins are small this could end up being more beneficial. Moreover, in the initial stage of the project when the idea is to simply get the scale of the projects for presentations, preliminary meets etc. BIM could be very time-consuming. CAD on the other hand could be faster and cost-effective.
Thus, it can be concluded from the above points that CAD is no ways redundant in the construction sector. Even though BIM might be becoming more and more prevalent in the construction industry CAD is here to stay for at least the foreseeable future.