Designers of buildings with a glass wall façade are doing themselves a great disfavor if they are using traditional CAD drawing environments for the realization of their design concepts. Rather than using CAD designed for the traditional architecture of 30-40 years ago, glass architects should employing a drawing environment that specifically suits their needs when it comes to the intricacies of creating, for example, a curtain wall section or a double facade. Standard CAD requires too much configuration to be intuitive for anyone but the most skilled CAD user; too many objects and physical properties need to be defined, whereas a product like Athena from Glazier is easily customizable for design involving curtain walls, glass panels, sheet metal framing, glass fixings, and all the rest.
Beyond a vast library of parts, this software has the usually abilities of a full-featured computer aided design suite and easily integrates with a number of other software solutions that do everything from detailed thermo-analysis to yield optimization for glass paneling and sheet metal. The basic version itself even offers up its own tools for thermoanalysis, enabling engineers to see in real time the impact different choices in materials and placement have on the functionality of the building and prompting adjustments that can save building users as much as the cost of the building over the long-run through conservation of energy by smart design and materials.
Designing a curtain wall section has never been easier than it was with this program, either. Aside from an extensive parts list, creating objects or manipulating walls into more dramatic, sloping shapes is a breeze, and user-defined objects can be easy interfaced with software designed to optimize cutting and manufacturing of pieces for construction for yield and accuracy, which reduces cost and waste and increases the speed at which products make it to market.
Take it from me, a designer in glass for the last 30 years. If much of your work involves the design of a wall façade made and if you could benefit from faster design times on a more intuitive interface that responds specifically to the needs of those designing glazier buildings, then you should absolutely be using software suited to the task. The time it will save you in the first your alone will pay for it and enable you to provide quicker, more inventive service to the clients who count on you to turn their modern visions into realities.