Higharc is a fully integrated platform with Studio being only one of five fully-integrated products. Higharc Studio is the home development environment, where homes are programmed using the centralized data model in tandem with parametric logic.
The Centralized Data Model, or CDM.
The CDM is the master control center to manage the information and building components required to produce the homes. The CDM allows the Builder the ability to:
Extract much more information downstream in the process - for sales, purchasing, etc.
Manage catalogs of components, system elements & setting definitions for a large set of parameters.
Rapidly draft customer homes in record time since rules, options and components are already defined in the Central Data Model.
Example: A rear porch contains the builder’s standards and best practices - including header depth & width, column configuration, lighting, etc.
The Central Data Model is where various parameters are referenced from a single source of truth where they can be updated as needed and the changes will permeate throughout the entire plan offering.
Instead of starting with a blank file, each plan begins with inheritance from the CDM, with the potential of close to 1000 data-driven parameters, similar to a real home.
It is recommended for builders to centralize as much of their data as possible - catalogs of components and systems, building elements, rooms & blocks of rooms, options, elevation styles, etc, so that the inheritance model can be programmed to its highest degree.
Drawing Homes vs. Programming Homes
The biggest difference you will find between Higharc and traditional CAD or BIM systems is the level of drawing vs. programming to represent buildings.
One of the biggest shifts migrating from CAD or BIM to Higharc is the way it defines the dimensions of rooms. It represents the spaces by their centerlines. This is to ensure that the spaces and their layouts can be reusable throughout your business.
Building Model Hierarchy
Every aspect of our building model belongs to one of these five categories (ordered by hierarchy):
Datums - Invisible planes that define locations in space. This includes, but is not limited to, top of (T.O.) plate height, outside face (O.F.)of sheathing, bottom of B.O. soffit and window head height.
Spatial Relationships - Room Types have built-in characteristics and spatial awareness, which introduces the possibility of design automation. That automation can be tailored based on a builder’s design standards. For example, when a Kitchen, Living Room and Dining Room are placed adjacent to each other, the following spatial relationships will occur:
The walls disappear between rooms.
The Kitchen populates with casework and appliances.
The Dining room and Living Room populate with furniture
Assemblies - Collections of layered physical entities to make a wall, floor, roof etc. This includes, but is not limited to, foundation, wall, floor and roof assemblies.
Entities - Individual physical elements in a building are referred to as Entities in Higharc. This includes, but is not limited to, doors, faucets, wall sheathing and trim.
*Note: Both Assemblies and Entities can be found and added in the Explorer.
Annotations - 2D identifications and overlays of information onto a Building Model, Sheet or Drawing. This includes, but is not limited to, dimensions, elevation datums, notes and sheets.
Automatic dimensioning system, along with the ability to host annotations directly to assemblies and entities at the source, drastically decreases the amount of time needed to produce drawing sets.
Building Model Summary
The parent-child framework of the building model, coupled with the ability to condition each of the listed categories, whether individually or collectively, allows the builder to account for any variations in construction needs in an intelligent and scalable way, no matter if the variations are regional, community, and/or lot specific.