Multi user CAD software is it an advantage?

[SteveE]

A question for the forum, we are in the process of final design for the release of MicroGDS 11, which will be our first venture into the world of BIM. We had a meeting to discuss the abilities of MicroGDS 10 and it’s ease of use in some of our large customers where a number of CAD users can work with ease on the same project at once.

Whilst this today is at a layer level, we could enhance that to object level, with intelligent objects in 11. My question is 1) Do many Architecture Practices typically have a number of CAD users working on the same project at once? 2) Is the ability to easily work as a team on one project at the same time an advantage, especially from multiple locations?

Thanks

Steve

[john.warburton]

Hi Steve

1) Any large project will typically have a team of designers and technichians working on the project simultaneously. The size of the team may vary during the lifetime of the project, but it would be normal for several to require access to the CAD data for the purposes of creating or editing data.

Even smaller jobs where a single CAD user is normally working on the project will require a boost in the number working on the project at key points - typically prior to completing planning applications or tender drawing sets for example.

As a MicroGDS user I can confirm that even the ability to have just two people working in the same project data set at the same time has been of tremendous value and a huge time saver.

2) The ability to work as a team on one project at one time is definitely a major advantage - and an essential requirement for BIM I would suggest.

I have experienced situations where data has been split across several CAD files so that different people can work on different sections of the project, but this is limiting and no substitute for true multi-user functionality. Worse, finding that you need to alter the way that the data is split because several people need to work on the same CAD file can be a nightmare to handle if not caught early enough in the project.

Providing multi-user functionality at the finest level of detail (e.g. object instead of layer) would only improve this situation further.

Data ownership (e.g. architect/structural engineer/M&E engineer/etc) and access is easy to control on a layer basis, though and this issue will need to be addressed for object ownership too.

[James McClymont]

Hi Steve,
I think John has just about hit the nail on the head!