MDP 2011: Major Design Problem

MDP 2011: Notes

You see a disproportion between the vertical scale and the horizontal scale in most design schemes. In other words, most of the schemes look visually distorted. This visual disproportion is clearly evident in schemes with more than two floor levels and schemes that are dealing with double height or multiple height spaces.

What’s going on here?

At present most design schemes are drafted using CAD software using desktop computers or laptops. Here, all drafting is viewed through wide computer screens with different aspect ratios. The screen aspect ratio is the proportion between the screen height to its width.

At present you see screens that are with differing aspect ratios 4:3, 5:3, 16:9 and many more. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_display_standard )These are based on various standards in the computer industry.

For me the root of the problem seems to lie here.

When the drafting is viewed without ‘correcting’ the aspect ratio of the screen to give 1:1, the drawing content and everything that is viewed will naturally be with a definite visual distortion. In other words, if you draw a square, it will appear as a ‘rectangle’ and a rectangle standing up will appear as a ‘square’, a circle will be a ‘ellipse’ because the ‘visual height’ is reduced due to screen aspect ratio.

Often this visual impediment will go unnoticed at drafting stage because;

Students are unaware of the issue with the screen aspect ratio.

Often the drafting is done by someone other than the designer. Hence errors go undetected.

The final set of printouts are often the first time the designer gets to ‘see’ the ‘correct’ image without any distortion. It would be simply ‘too late’ to change anything at that stage due to deadlines and cost issues

The CAD drafted drawings go through a process of Photoshop image rendering and other presentation processes. Therefore, it would be practically impossible to make any changes once you have manipulated the drafted image for presentation.

Architecturally this is huge design problem. A series of final year design projects clearly shows a serious fault in their spatial and visual proportions.

The solution would be a simple one. That is to adjust your screen aspect ratio to give the images or drafted content, equal height: width visual ratio. In other words, adjust the screen so that the the user can see the ‘correct’ image as and when drafting is done.