Ben and Ally,
I laugh at BIM, which is really just providing quantity estimates for accuracy, which I have done forever, whether manually or now, by CAD. And, IFC is really just a complicated classification system for landscape elements that ignores golf, and I ignore IFC.
Basically agree that CAD is just a tool. Can be good, can be bad. It designs nothing. It's output depends on the operator and the input. It helps a lot of people to visualize in 3D, both architects and clients.
Funny story (I think) but when we first started to use it, one of my guys told me the software was no good. He said everything looked too "pimply." I mean, he was literally offsetting circles to draw mounds at the side slope of a 3 to 1. I made him redraw some mounds using broader slopes. A good looking mound "skyline" top edge as it faces the golfer is generally at least 6 to 1. When redrawn, they looked fine on computer and better when built. It was an example of a visualization helping the design. (That guy never learned and changed his drawing style, and eventually was let go.)
I will say, we have found, like golf game designers, that to show up on a screen, you often have to double the height and slope to show up well, so there are still problems in presenting the kind of subtle green slopes TD prefers.
As to Tom's example, I used to joke about developing my quantities in CAD - Either on target to the millionths of a unit, or off by millions. That said, CAD has gotten better (I wouldn't use it until it allowed me to work like I was thinking) using one old example of bad quantities isn't exactly drawing a logical conclusion, it is just supporting his long held opinion. I can feel his pain. It took a long time to transition over, and yes, part of that was being seen as a modern firm. A few have just gone completely the other way, selling the benefits of not drawing plans, IMHO (but I can't really know) because changing work flows is a long, hard process.
I had to let go a very good designer to make my point, because he always said, "Do you want it done now, or do you want it done in CAD later?" Hmm, I will accept some learning curve, but yeah, I want it done in CAD now, of course.
The problem with subbing it out is that the designer is no longer designing. I get a few calls a year from engineers and CAD guys to do my drainage and grading plans, some from India, who presumably have never played golf. What? To me, grading (and also drainage) is so integral to the design (it really is the design) that I have to do it myself, sometimes by old fashioned hand grading (when there is a lot). I do subcontract CAD, but use the many out of work gca's available who at least understand what I am trying to do. Even then, when it is them tweaking something on the fly, to "make it fit" the results don't always please me. In the end, as I hinted before, the final design always gets tweaked by others -
- The draftsman who puts his own style on it.
- The field guy, whether employed by gca or contractor.
- the owner/owners rep/project supervisor, sometimes a corporate agronomist who wants to fit it to their practices and equipment.
- The shapers who think they know better because they worked for Fazio or Nicklaus on some project.
- The finish graders (who have been taught to smooth everything, when gca's often want subtle bumps.
One old gca once told me, you keep designing until the grass is seeded. Sometimes, that is to keep improving, sometimes it is to get it back closer to what I wanted in the first place, dammit!
