Providing a way to handle modified files and notes coming back and forth from client's and architect's:

Collaboration does not usually require a perfect back and forth translation of drawing files. Often simple viewing and plotting are fine. This is to reduce and eliminate the undesirable aspect of tampering with architect's drawings. One can make incoming files as Xref or external reference files that can be viewed but not edited. Another way of sending files is by email so that the client can view what an architect has in mind and vice versa, or by sending the file to a company FTP site apart from the project site. An important aspect with this system of sending files back and forth is that all files need to be indexed, with old files being purged (or archived away) from the active files and making the most current files available for viewing. Both the remote viewers should have the proper viewing software for this to take place and usually this means a plug-in or helper application for Netscape Navigator or an ActiveX Control for Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Another important aspect to note is that the remote collaborators need to handle the layer schemes, pen widths, fonts and other drawing features so that the remote collaborator does not have difficulty viewing them. Sometimes the clients may end up printing or plotting the files they need and looking at them on paper. The biggest confusion arises in the layering standards. Some architect's will use obscure fonts without regard to whether the receiver has the font.

Asides from publishing files, an architect may want to work with a remote collaborator on the same file at the same time. One solution is provided for by Graphisoft. Multiple users can fence off the areas of a drawing they wish to edit. Each user's fence marks the user's off limits area to others, but adjacent areas can be marked off by other collaborators. The product works on any platform running ArchiCAD, so users can collaborate even if one is using a Windows 95 computer and another is using a Macintosh. The drawing files are downloaded to the user's own machines, so edits can be made quite quickly and the network connection does not have to be continually open. When user's save files back to the original repository (which can be and usually is on one of the user's machines rather a server), each section of the file is updated separately, so an old section doesn't overwrite a new one, and they can continually transmit new updates so that even though user's are far apart, each can see what the other is doing to the drawings. More often, you'll want to have several collaborators mark up a project file without actually changing it, and there are many architect specific redlining packages to do that . One more general solution is Intel's ProShare, which allows collaborators to simultaneously view and mark up the same file. It also has videophone connection, so users can see each other.

Information obtained from article written by Steven S. Ross in the Architectural Record - September 1997 p.135-137.

More About Collaboration Software:

Numerous vendors have come up with a lot more collaboration software which like the one already mentioned above, may provide video connections so that collaborators may view each other. Others do not neccesarily come with video connections but are designed specifically either for audio connections, chat rooms (where collaborators can type their ideas in which the text they type is displayed in a web site designed for such usage) and/or a combination of one or all of these (including video connecting software). To see such a softwate list click here:

previous | next