topic Re: Road Tool in Modeling

Road Tool

moovme — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 03:31:31 GMT

Hi, I think I accidentally put this post into Parametrics, sorry!

Is anyone else interested in getting a dedicated Road Design Tool for AC? The Mesh Tool is great, the Morph Tool is great, but neither are any good for easily creating roads that require cut and fill areas across a terrain (mesh). I'm kind of annoyed that for an all-encompassing BIM platform that AC does not allow you to natively create roads.

Yes, we can do basic 2D road design and do manual height calculations etc. to get a rough idea, but it's very time-consuming, and not accurate at all for construction. It feels pointless to have to go to an engineer just to get a somewhat complex road design done! Failing that we would all have to learn Civil 3D, but again the twain will never meet as the files are not cross compatible to be able to correctly integrate into a BIM AC model.

Am I the only one who is frustrated with this massive drawback to AC?..

Operating system used: Windows

Betreff: Road Tool - Posted in wrong category. Apologies.

bmatt — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 04:12:25 GMT

Archicad and Engineering? Really? Archicad likes to argue that architects don't need engineering tools because architects should see themselves as designers. However, at least in Switzerland, Austria and Germany, architect is an engineering profession. But Archicad ignores this. So why should new knowledge come to them now? the MEP Modeller in AC28 is renamed MEP Designer. The subtile difference was probably recognized as to whether something is suitable for certain construction or can only be designed with it inaccurate. For years there has still been no sewer shaft, no usable sewage system planned. That‘s much more frustrating. But nearly daily business…

But stay tuned. the wish is good. But I won't give a cent to its implementation in the next 50 years. I also don’t believe in Santa😉

Incidentally, a sensible tool for modeling excavations would be necessary beforehand- imho. What we have is woefully unsuitable.

Re: Road Tool - Posted in wrong category. Apologies.

Lingwisyer — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 03:54:04 GMT

Regarding the subforum, the mods will move the thread if they believe it should be somewhere else, or you could tag them and ask for them to move it if need be.

Re: Road Tool - Posted in wrong category. Apologies.

Barry Kelly — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 06:32:30 GMT

Replies to original post have been merged with this new post.

The message from me about the moved post is because I deleted the now empty post that moovme edited.

This is an automatic message and should disappear in 7 days.

Barry.

Betreff: Road Tool - Posted in wrong category. Apologies.

moovme — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 08:04:22 GMT

You have a point, but architecture is and never will be just about 'design'. Architecture is a clear cut and undeniable cross discipline between engineering and design. Art and science. If Graphisoft won't accept that, then to my thinking that's a blatant cop-out, and they are just using that lie as a way to push their own agenda and not the truth for the needs and requirements of our discipline. There is absolutely nothing stopping us from 'designing' both a feasible and accurate road design as part of our service. The engineering part itself will always be required for safe loading and structural capacities - for both buildings AND roads. Get your head right Graphisoft.

Betreff: Road Tool - Posted in wrong category. Apologies.

bmatt — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 18:43:11 GMT

Sure, you hit the nail. I switched from Allplan nearly two years ago and miss many functions I appreciated. On the other side I like the workflow in Archicad with exception of some time-robbing incidents. And all I learned in this time was what I told yet. „Architects don‘t need this, architects don‘t need that“… Alibis for not developing suitable features wherever you look around- in most cases by people who are far away from daily practice. Furthermore AI-Visu before the first main thought is done. Is that our future? Maybe- but not mine yet.

Re: Road Tool

moovme — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 22:35:18 GMT

I guess the real point here is that we should have, at the very least, an automated best road pathfinder function that can provide feasible real world solutions that optimize cut and fill areas to obtain a road design that actually works according to minimum set grades and slope percentages. This would at the very least fall under 'design'. Once we have a feasible design it can then go to the engineer for further cross-section design and loading calculations etc.

It makes absolutely NO sense to have a mesh tool to create detailed 3D terrains that you cannot add a custom road into. It's like designing a water trough to feed animals but not putting any food or water in it, rendering it completely useless. This is what the mesh tool is currently.

I am currently looking at RoadEng by Softree Technical Systems in Vancouver BC. It has an absolutely incredible AI feature called the AI Path Finder. Essentially it looks at your terrain, your start and finish points, your min, and max. slope parameters, and generates perfectly feasible road design options that you can select and edit further for refinement. It's absolutely brilliant. What's even better is that you can export the finished format as an XYZ file so you can recreate the finished road design as a completed mesh inside AC. Starting to get the picture, Graphisoft?

Re: Road Tool

bmatt — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 09:24:33 GMT

… at the end every AI will can do only what the functionality of the program is able to. The point is that too many functions in Archicad fell asleep or are developed not further than beta-stadium in practibility but kicked-off by pressure of competition or maybe any given releasedate. As long as all those construction-sites are not solved any AI-features will be not more than a gimmick - in my opinion.

Anyway I‘m by your side. Archicad should support the beginning of (nearly) every construction-site. And in fact that‘s any kind of path or road. Followed by second step: digging a hole in the terrain. Give us a road AND an excavation tool that works smart and is usable for practice!

@moovme do you know the Archicad-AddOn LAND4 by Land Software?

Betreff: Road Tool

Hmooslechner — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 11:58:12 GMT

my own GDL-Solution for it: https://bimcomponents.com/GSM/Details/24075

Betreff: Road Tool

bmatt — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 14:03:31 GMT

@Hmooslechner
Greetz Heimo,

i know you from the german language forum and appreciate your worthy work you‘ve done so far. would it be possible to get an overview or list of those many objects you already programmed yet? Some of them seem to be named strange to me so I wouldn‘t search for such specific terms. Likely we can talk this topic even elsewhere in our motherlanguage to not go too far off-topic herein? Or you will link such a list here too for those who are interested in the international forum. By the way I was recently able to use your sewer shaft- good work you‘ve done! 👏🏼 but that should be Archicad‘s task!

Re: Road Tool

moovme — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 17:18:19 GMT

I am aware of LAND4, but for whatever reason they don't provide/allow for the user to make anything to do with roads. I can see it may be useful once a road design is already done, but sadly it just cannot do any of the fundamentals for road design, making it a bit of a pointless plugin for anything more than site cosmetics.

I fully support your request for excavation/cut and fill calculations and volumes as well. RoadEng software does it all, much quicker and a great deal more simpler than Civil 3D.

Betreff: Road Tool

moovme — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 17:20:02 GMT

This looks quite interesting! Would you happen to have a video showing what your GDL solution can do, and how to design and integrate a road into a mesh inside AC?

Re: Road Tool

BEBDesign — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 13:44:48 GMT

Have you tried Architerra 5.0. https://www.eptar.hu/ArchiTerra

Re: Road Tool

moovme — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 20:07:13 GMT

Thanks for the link! This looks pretty good. Are you a user of this plugin? Do you know if Architerra can generate the best solution from A to B across steep terrain, and allow you to input min. and max. slopes and provide balanced cut and fill calculations like RoadEng can do? I have emailed Architerra as well in case you're not sure..