[wang_li]

Why does the workflow lie at the level of a real or virtual piece of paper and not in the metadata from the applications used to create that piece of paper? Seems like a CAD tool would allow you to identify each element of the drawing, assigning metadata as required.

[jsidney]

Only a small set of construction stakeholders participate in the CAD ecosystem (e.g., architects, large GCs) while a broader set of stakeholders (subcontractors, trades, smaller GCs/CMs) do not receive BIM files and work with PDFs. CAD/BIM is a wonderful aspiration but for many the reality is PDFs.

[instig007]

Re. "CAD/BIM", technically speaking CAD doesn't imply BIM, and the industry's promotion of BIM is akin to AI promotion among software engineering teams - the benefits aren't clear upon detailed review of the advertised capabilities. The CAD part, on the other hand, is generally recognized as the essential tooling for the profession and I'm surprised to hear that it just is a "wonderful aspiration".

[eMPee584]

"The profession" actually is a wide variety of trades, not just architects and contractors. Electricians, plumbers etc. where CAD is not yet widely spread. Which hopefully will change in the near future, with open source BIM tool chains, boosted by generative/agentic AI.. Finally, a huge source of confusion and execution hiccups will be overcome.

[wcisco17]

Until then pdf rules!!!

[cyanydeez]

Oh you sweet summer child. These draws are anywhere from 0 to 120 years old and might just be something pulled out of a floppy disk from 1970 to scanned in coffee ridden pieces of paper sitting in a desk folded a hundred times.

The world in which metadata is a common thing attached to any file doesn't exist, and probably never will, no matter how much you try to improve CAD work flow.

[siriusfeynman]

> Oh you sweet summer child

I know you're just repeating a phrase from a TV show but do you know how incredibly condescending this comes across to most people?