Software in the architectural presentation and design of buildings: State-of-the-art

Abstract

Since in the recent years the architecture software have completely changed the work of architects, today, the architects begin to use software to achieve every kind of design that they are working for from the very beginning until the end. As presented in this paper, the choice of architectural software depends on the specific needs of the designs ranging from two-dimensional design to three-dimensional or BIM technologies. Since some architects prefer to use different software specific for the design that they are working on and they combine the results to produce the intended ultimate result, while some prefer only one software for the entire work, in this paper, it has been attempted to cover both cases.The main aim of this paper is to introduce the most used architectural and building design software from two-dimensional to BIM technologies to cover the needs of architects in the presentation and design of buildings. Twelve architectural and building design software were selected and classified depending on the purpose of their application. The selected software have been analyzed according to the BIM levels, and most commonly used software in every BIM level and their advantages and disadvantages are presented. Two software from BIM level 0, three software from BIM level 1, and four software from BIM level 2, together with 3 software for the design of buildings, a total of twelve software have been selected and technically described by giving the technical specifications, characteristics, application domains, limitation, technical popularity and capabilities that can be a complete guideline for architects and building designers to choose the suitable software to be applied in architectural and building design professions. Finally for the architectural presentation the software of BIM level 0 (AutoCAD LT and DraftSight), BIM level 1 (AutoCAD Architecture, Chief Architect and TurboCAD), BIM level 2 (ArchiCAD, Revit, Vectorworks Architect and Allplan Architecture), and for the buildings design the CSI software packages (SAP 2000, ETABS and SAFE) and STAAD.PRO software are recommended to be employed.