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Introduction

This page is a friendly introduction to the concept and use of RepoCad.

What is RepoCad?

RepoCad is a library of drawings and digital design tools. The library is open and free to use or change in any way by everyone. The tool is also open and free, but is not like any others you've seen within digital design. Together the library and tools are intended to improve the current ways computers are used in design processes. From our perspective 'modern' digital design methods are far behind what the technology allows, in particular when it comes to availability and collaboration.

The concept

View a recording of a talk where the concept behind Repocad is explained.

Intended audience

The library of RepoCad can be read by anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. Everyone is welcome to take a drawing and share it, print it and even build it.

Creating drawings requires a bit of programming, so this part is meant for people with a design idea. However, everyone can create advanced designs in few minutes if they want to. From novice hobbyist to experienced professionals, RepoCad should be considered as a tool for the designer that is ready to flirt with computational design methods. By computational design methods we mean tools and processes that is wholly or partly inspired by the field of programming.

Why RepoCad?

So far the field of digital design have been led by point-and-click interfaces. Pointing and clicking uses a 'what you see is what you get'-approach, where users directly manipulates the drawing on screen. The biggest flaw of this approach is that the designer is forced to work with geometrical shapes instead of what design drawings normally consist of: walls, doors, windows or, in more abstract terms, objects.

Visual programming has tried to solve this problem by letting the user combine arithmetical expressions and geometrical shapes in a visual way. If you ever tried this, you realise that although the idea is good, this turns into a very chaotic bowl of spaghetti in minutes.

RepoCad solves this by using modern programming techniques that allows the user to work with objects instead of geometry. A door in a drawing is now really a door, and that same type of door can be imported and used in other drawings. It can be made wider or longer with a few keystrokes, instead of a few hundred mouse clicks.

The manual

This manual contains a number of chapters to guide users through the many layers of what RepoCad can do. If you skim the first chapter you are already proficient in using RepoCad, but we really recommend you to read on. Some of the tools and methods presented later on can be a true eye-opener for many.

The manual is still work in progress, and will be developed and expanded on over time. Please refer to the contact section below if you have questions, comments or suggestions.

• Drawing-basics
• Object types
• Users and user repositories
• Advanced parametricity
• Collections

The people behind RepoCad

Originally the idea for creating better design tools came from Ole Egholm Jackson, architect and assisting professor at Aarhus School or Architecture, Denmark. He can be contacted via his website on Aarhus School of Architecture.

The technology behind the design tools are developed by Jens Egholm Pedersen. He can be contacted via his GitHub profile page.