Architosh Staff ([email protected])

4 June 2002

 

Draft: BOA Review

Nader, here is the draft version. Still need to insert images and write summary and rating box info. Note, this will be a feature article and have that format (see last review of VectorWorks) and I will likely have a table of contents page with links to other prominent BOA news.

Please send me critical comments.

Last edit: 4 june 2002 - 11:30am

BOA, by BOA Research of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of the newest kids on the architectural CAD block. Like its more famous fellow-new kid, Revit, by Revit Corporation, BOA too is a "next-gen" all 3D model-centric program. And while this program is only at version 2.x, the true programming underpinnings--coming from the now defunct Architrion--are substantially older and more mature than one might imagine.

In fact, while BOA may represent the future of CAD in the architectural market, it should be pointed out that both Architrion and ArchiCAD (by Graphisoft) shared this vision way back in the 80's while most architects were still pushing pencils.

Nader Family, CEO of BOA Research and the driving force behind BOA, tells a story about model-centric CAD and the forces in the architectural market behind it, as if it was an ancient legend. Truth be told then, the model-centric CAD vision for architects isn't nearly as novel and sensational as the well capitolized and marketed Revit Corporation may make it out to be. As Nader tells it -- as one of the primary software architects behind the venerable Architrion -- BOA takes what was always great about that product, and pushes it towards the future, in BOA.

Learning BOA

When you first start using BOA how easy or hard it will seem will largely depend on your prior experiences with other CAD or 3D software. While this point may seem trivial, it is important to note, that if the program seems complex or difficult to learn, there are two items which will quickly come to your aid. The first of these is the two volume set of tutorials. Unlike many programs, BOA not only comes with a user manual, but comes with an extensive tutorial to get you up and running. The Tower Tutorial walks the user through the entire design and drawing production of a small tower building.

Secondly, for those more acquainted with 2D CAD, some of the 3D CAD aspects of BOA which initially may seem tough to comprehend, will get substantially easier by the time you complete the tutorial. For experienced 3D CAD users, BOA should be a pretty quick study.

Jumping from 2D CAD to 3D CAD

Of all the discussion surrounding 2D versus 3D CAD programs, one thing that comes up often is that with a model-based CAD program you are still provided the valuable plan projection in which to work. And despite the inevitable complexities of "selection" that this view or projection creates, model-based CAD programs learn how to deal with it. In BOA, the "workplane" performs the necessary and sophisticated role of aiding the selection of elements in 3D space whilst working in 2D. How does this work you say?

It does this by allowing the user to quickly place the workplane on the face of or through (cutting through) the elements which you would like to isolate and work with in 2D. This is no easy task, but BOA handles this will a great degree of flexibility and ease-of-use.

BOA's Advantage: The Workplane

What makes BOA so easy to work with in 3D is its excellent Workplane tools (see views below). With the Workplane tool palette you can rapidly select a plane on which to draw your model elements (blocks) and place your 2D symbols and annotations. The button on the bottom far right is of particular value as it allows you to jump or set the work plane in increments which you type in the Set field. Thus, if you wish to start putting in floor joist for the floor above, you simply type in the distance to that elevation in your building and click on the button once. Now the Workplane is where you can begin to put in your joist elements.

Blocks - What Are They?

In BOA all 3D elements are called Blocks regardless of what they are. Walls are blocks, posts are blocks and roof forms are blocks. As in the example above, you can place blocks on any side of the workplane by typing in a negative number for the base. When you place the workplane on a vertical face the x, y and z orientation transfers to this change and thus you have in the program "world" and "screen" coordinate systems. Additionally, and this is very useful in vertical workplane situations, you can activate which side is positive or negative when originally setting the workplane on a vertical plane.

Making Those Walls

Largely the biggest task in CAD is making walls with their respective openings. In BOA you do this in 3D or 2D, which ever you prefer. And what if you prefer both at once? No problem, in BOA you can open up multiple windows on the same or different files. In the former's case, when you make your walls in 3D you seem them instantly in 2D and verify that they are correct. Wall are typically Linked Blocks (second button from the left, see view of palette below). It is easy to make single blocks linked later or unlink blocks.

A very helpful feature is the Pick Parameters block tool which allows you to copy any existing block's attributes into the dimension fields of the Blocks palette. This speeds up the process of placing new blocks in the model.

Making those Openings and Windows

This is one of the more elegant areas of the program. Making openings in walls is very intuitive. You type in the requisite dimensions for the opening in the Openings palette, place the workplane where you need it and then simply place the opening in the wall. For dimensional control you utilize a palette which almost feels secret in the program called Numerical Control palette. To type in the actual distance you hold down the Control key while you place (click) the element in place. The NC appears (see view below) and you type in the right dimensions. Often this is used in reference to a new origin or reference point which you set by hitting the N key while the cursor is snapping to a point.

Placing frames, doors and windows works in a very similar way with some astonishing ease of use. We will cover this in greater detail in the BOA Indepth Article Series (forthcoming). However, what you should know now is that all blocks in BOA, whether they are walls or opening elements, can be associated with geometric dependency so that when one moves the other associated element moves as well. More on this later.

The 'Not Making Drawings' CAD Program

BOA Research goes through great pains to describe BOA as a CAD program which eliminates drafting. While this is an admirable goal, the truth is more like this: instead of making drawings you spend much of the time it would take making drawings instead making the virtual building model. Once the model is made you do get much of what is in the drawing for free, minus the necessary annotation elements (notes, callouts, symbols, et cetera). That brings us to some key questions.

This is clearly the more fascinating aspects of model-based CAD programs. Like ArchiCAD and Revit, to name a few examples, BOA makes drawings by slicing through the building horizontally for plans and vertically for sections. For elevations, including interior elevations, you view the model from the side flat on. In the case of interior views, you get at this side elevation by slicing through the building as well but only view certain blocks a particular way.

To make these slices you move the workplane to a particular point in the model, save that position, and set up or record a series of drawing planes using the Cut Plane palette in the Utilities menu. Drawing planes are parallel to the workplane and you can have multiple planes associated with a particular drawing. Essentially each drawing plane and the space between them acts as a spatial region in which any element found (viewable) in it can be defined to be viewed with particular delineation values (line thickness, color, line type, pat fill, etc.). These attributes of blocks viewed via a drawing setup can override the true colors and line attributes of the model data, hence you can set items to be compatible with Autocad line colors, for instance. (see image below).

Drawing to Model Coordination

The big question that most folks may wonder about is the total amount of time needed to make the model and then set up the drawings. Is it really faster than just making the drawings? This is a really good question. Two things will shape this answer. First is how fast you are at modeling elements in BOA. The second is how adept you are at working with workplanes, setting up drawings using the Drawing Manager and the Cut Delineation tools.

Learning how to model a virtual building in BOA is pretty straight forward so long as the building itself is pretty straight forward. Nader is very fond of reminding folks that most architecture is rectilinear...and not shaped like some Frank Gehry project. That being true, if you work is quite normal this way, BOA can be a powerful and quick modeling tool. If your work is much more complicated, you may run into more difficult or at least time consuming modeling chores.

On the second aspect, setting up drawings can be incredibly quick once you truly master the program. And even if you don't master it quickly, setting up drawings is not as time consuming as you may think. But we'll let you be more of the judge of that when we deal with that almost exclusively in the second Indepth Article on BOA in July.

However, the biggest advantage BOA may have over a traditional drawing-centric CAD program is dealing with design changes which are made after the drawings are created. With BOA drawings and virtual-model have two-way association. Changes in one are reflected in the other. Change a wall position in the model data, and every drawing where that wall (block) is present will reflect that. The same is true for drawing to model changes. While traditional CAD programs try to deal with this with shared layers, view ports, and symbols, all these systems have serious limitations.

Finer Points

As we touched on, BOA is compatible with Autocad through an import/export translation process. Much of today's other CAD programs are. For quick tasks related to Autocad sharing, BOA allows you to setup a drawing without the two-way drawing-to-model association, thus expediting this process a bit.

BOA is an OpenGL CAD application and its implementation is solid. We noticed only a few final hidden line anomalies when it came to the edges of certain planes. BOA 2.4 is also a very solid application. It never crashed during any part of the review. The overall speed of working with a virtual model of a building with complete annotation in 3D (made possible via Apple GX Graphics) was fairly decent. We would be stretching the truth if we said it was rather fast compared to other OpenGL apps on Macintosh; however with small files -- like the tutorial tower, it was plenty fast on a 350MHz G4 tower and even faster on a 500Mhz Titanium PowerBook G4.

Boa's killer feature is its use of the Workplane. One of the coolest things you can do with it is step through your building in section, even in perspective! This presents in interesting way to presenting your project (see images below). It would nice to see this process automated a bit for an OpenGL-rendered QuickTime presentation. BOA itself is not really geared for presentation quality architectural rendering, and lacks sophisticated rendering tools. Instead, BOA provides a way to export your model data into other rendering programs, like FormZ, Art-lantis, Strata or any higher end program with DXF import.

An Architects' Interface

Boa's interface is also particularly nice. Similar in spirit to class Mac applications, its one interesting feature is the way tool palettes not only tear off but expand and then further expand. The use of purple and green in the palette buttons will at first seem strange until you learn why CEO Nader Family believes in this color combination. (See images below for palettes). BOA provides Balloon Help for literally every single item in its tool palettes and items around the windows. That was a real treat to discover.

On the critical side, Boa's interface could benefit from some key improvements. I felt that the Snap and Dependency should be taken out of the Utilities palette and placed in its own Tools Palette, that way I can leave it open and more quickly move from it and to the Workplane tool palette (and back and forth) while I'm working. Another large improvement in Boa's interface would be for the palettes to be "dockable" to each other in a similar manner to Adobe's programs or to be able to save palette screen position combinations.

As mentioned above BOA can open multiple screens on the same file, but these screens don't automatically cascade or organize themselves. This is another area of potential improvement on an otherwise very nice and minimal interface.

Closing Comments

We haven't touched upon geometric dependency. In BOA you can set up dependencies between various blocks. These are ruled by geometric conditions and BOA provides a sophisticated array of options. A simple dependency example would be placing a window in the center of a wall. If the wall grows in length, the window moves with it. This is just scratching the surface. We will cover Dependency in our second InDepth Article on BOA in July.

Regarding printing, BOA prefers to be printed to a PostScript printer. However, you can also write to PDF, export to HPGL2 and Vectorial PICT file format.

As we mentioned above, we will be covering BOA more in a two part InDepth Article series coming up in June and July. In closing though, it should be said that BOA is a very promising CAD application and much more mature than one might imagine a version 2 application to be. We think those considering trying or moving to a model-based CAD program should give BOA some serious consideration. Unlike programs like Revit, Boa's universal "blocks" can at one moment be a wall, and the next be a roof form. Like digital rigid puddy, "blocks" in BOA provide more flexibility while still allowing intelligence for openings, frames and geometric dependencies. This may be one of Boa's best long-term advantages in competing against other model-based CAD programs.