First let me say congratulations to everyone in my class for surviving another harrowing experience in our juries. For anyone who has no idea what i mean.. well its the hardest part of an architecture degree, making your teachers agree with you.
This is a very much delayed post on a topic i was going to just touch briefly.
Its obvious to everyone that we’re moving into an age of computers, the acceptance and diversity as to how computers have become an aspect of life is astounding. They’re an amazing tool and integral for anything a person will choose to do in the future. As such sometimes its necessary to take a step back and look to see how to maximize your performance. Theres no such thing as useless knowledge i would say, although that doesnt mean i condone crazy pointless classes, but sometimes a chance piece of info can be useful who knows when.
A strange digression, but i wanted to talk about open source software.. i.e. in common parlance.. free stuff.. or i should say legal free stuff. Everyone would be aware of Autocad, Revit, Rhino etc. the begin design products in the architecture industry. getting a copy for a student is close to impossible within a decent budget, but that doesnt mean there arent alternatives, like Google sketchup which is free and most people have heard of. For those people a bit more adventurous you can try Blender 3D http://www.blender.org/ which is a CAD/Maya like mix for 3D rendering that serves very nicely. Google Earth of course has become a staple for geographical imaging. For those of you interested in GIS but a bit afraid of the depth of ArcGIS try the Kalypso simulation Platform http://www.kalypso-simulation-platform.org/, or SAGA http://geosun1.uni-geog.gwdg.de/saga/html/index.php (although Saga is a bit more complicated). and for those few of you who are interested in trying out graphics programming for shape and mass transformation check out the programming language “Processing” http://processing.org/ an easy to use and learn language.
Finally why dont you have a look at Linux… i’ll be honest i was a complete windows fanatic and still use windows alot, but once i took the plunge and installed a linux distribution.. its hard not to love it… try Ubuntu …http://www.ubuntu.com/.. its nice and simple and can be installed side by side with windows easily, its a great interface for getting free opensource stuff and on top of that is stable, your computer will hardly ever hangup.
I guess thats enough for now, anyone who knows any open source stuff that will help any architecture student/professional, post a comment and share your knowledge.
On a side note.. Sonata Arctica is a great band and i miss watching Code Geass the melodrama is worth it… check it out..A cool AMV.
