topic Re: Archicad PR in Modeling

Archicad PR

KeesW — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 23:45:26 GMT

My favourite (but sad) topic. Attended the National Australian Institute of Architect's conference and Designex in Sydney last week (Designex is probably the largest interior design/building product show in Australia and is held annually in either Sysdney or Melbourne). Revit was there but, alas, no Graphisoft. This is, of course quite normal since Graphisoft believe that customers can be conjured out of thin air from existing users. More serously, Revit told me that Woods Bagot, one of Australia's largest architectural practices, with a humungous number of Archicad licenses, was changing to Revit. I hope that this is untrue because they have made enormous investments in creating templates and GDL objects to suit their practice. Can a better informed AUS AC user can allay my concerns?

Re: Archicad PR

owen — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:06:05 GMT

That Graphisoft Australia did not even bother to show face in their target markets two largest events does not (unfortunately) surprise me .. it is really quite embarrassing and it is about time Graphisoft HQ took a long hard look at the way things are being done 'downunder'.

But not surprising at all.

However if what you say regarding Woods Bagot is true then that really is bad, bad news for ArchiCAD in my opinion. That one of (if not THE) largest architectural practices in the country, and one of our very few true global practices - would even be considering leaving behind the investment they have made in ArchiCAD speaks volumes about their confidence in its future.

And given their size, I suspect they have a far greater insight into what that future looks like than all but of a handful of users on these forums.

Very worrying indeed. Lets see if there is any truth to the rumours.

Re: Archicad PR

Dwight — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:10:16 GMT

Quit speculating and call them up.

Re: Archicad PR

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:29:15 GMT

I don't much think too much speculation is needed -- a search for "Woods Bagot Revit" generated a lot of job postings for positions asking for Revit. I have heard that they're transition to Revit as well, though I don't know what timeframe it's happening under. I don't know any details; I've just heard it through the grapevine...

Graphisoft is slowly waking up, as they're looking to become more aggressive in Canada with respect to their sales chain. But they're late to the party. BIM takes such deep pockets to develop and market that I think it will be hard to compete with Autodesk. But they certainly need to get moving on whatever strategy they've got because Autodesk will continue to chip into their market everywhere BIM is being practiced.

Re: Archicad PR

owen — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:11:45 GMT

Well a quick look at job postings seems to show the North American and Middle East driving this conversion .. its all about Revit, 3DS Max and Rhino. Given you would assume an office establishing new studios would continue to use the systems already developed where possible, it makes you wonder about the ability to find skilled staff in these locations and wether this is what is driving the change?

I know .. good staff should be able to quickly re-train in whatever software needs to be used, but unfortunately thats just not how most practices work. If you don't put the listed 'advantageous' software skills on your application it is very unlikely you will hear from them (particularly if they think Autodesk is the be-all and end-all of building design software)

Anyway .. not the end of the world but i'm sure it has caught Graphisofts attention.

os

Re: Archicad PR

Bricklyne Clarence — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 08:34:40 GMT

owen wrote:
........

Anyway .. not the end of the world but i'm sure it has caught Graphisofts attention.

os

Not like they therefore plan to do anything about it.

GS have seen this coming or happening right underneath their noses and in what used to be some of their most formidable market strongholds, and yet have always insisted on holding steady with this head-in-the-sand approach to marketing, PR, and recently, the software development, of their product.

Why you would think that would change because their biggest client in Australia is (presumably) on the cusp of switching, is beyond me.

When some of their biggest clients in North America and the UK began switching, years ago, it hardly spurred a change in how they approach the client-base - both existing and prospective - and the excuse then was that since Autodesk was American-based with a strong presence in Western Europe as well, this encroachment of AD into former GS market-bases was not only not unexpected but also probably somewhat inevitable given AD's deep pockets. The consolation was always that ArchiCAD is the dominant and widely used BIM product elsewhere in the world, specifically in Eastern Europe, Asia and the South Pacific.
So what should be their expected response now that the tide seems to be turning in Australia and in the rest of Asia (Autodesk/Revit is huge and not to be unexpected, growing fast in China - with its still booming Construction and real estate industry and economy) as well?

When your market strategy depends in large part on relying on your own customers to popularize, sell and market your product rather than a pro-active effort of any degree on your own part, then it's best to make sure that those customers actually know what's going on (with regards to its development, and your future plans for it), and have enough confidence in it/you to actually want to sell it to their colleagues, friends, peers, and rivals - and much less want to stick with it in a tight economic climate and uncertain future.

The really scary part in all this is that if Woods Bagot, whom I would presume would have a decent enough line of communication to GSHQ given their size and the number of seats they hold, are doing this or going this route because they have recently got the same kind of cold-shoulder treatment that we small fish here on the forum are used to getting, and if GS's recent marketing efforts have been unabashedly geared towards big or corporate clients, and yet this is the result - then what does that portend for the rest of us small fish who don't even have a clue, much less an 'in' to GSHQ and GS R&D deptst.?

Re: Archicad PR

Dwight — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 08:59:15 GMT

And Canada's new marketing team Dowco made a particularly weak showing at Vancouver's Buildex Trade Show last week, so I am left with misgivings about sales management decisions here, too.

Re: Archicad PR

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 09:34:33 GMT

for those who are in other countries and have not joined the dots

Woods Bagot were one of the team members for the building on the 'flagship' branding for AC13, i.e. the box AC13 ships in....

Woods Bagot have historically had the advantage of advance exposure to future versions of the software. If the rumour is true, this is not good news for anyone on the forum....

Re: Archicad PR

Bricklyne Clarence — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:01:53 GMT

rwallis wrote:
for those who are in other countries and have not joined the dots

Woods Bagot were one of the team members for the building on the 'flagship' branding for AC13, i.e. the box AC13 ships in....

.......not to mention the Featured building on Graphisoft Homepage that greets people when they first visit the site. The name did seem familiar to me, and then I remembered it from the AC13 installation splashscreen.

Oh the irony.

(if it's true, of course)

rwallis wrote:
Woods Bagot have historically had the advantage of advance exposure to future versions of the software. If the rumour is true, this is not good news for anyone on the forum....

I've always been of the impression that that 'ArchiCAD 14' thread that's running elsewhere in this forum, was something of a huge waste of time, not so much because speculating on features of a version that's probably already completed beta-testing and is mostly complete is almost as pointless as window shopping on a QVC channel (television shopping channel) while watching from the TV across the window in a neighbour's house, but also because GS's total non-participation in such threads makes it about as helpful in these forums as the WishList sections.

This Woods Bagot story/rumour (if true) would put a whole new light on the matter of speculation of future versions and features. Especially given what they might know about any future versions or features that would lead them to such a decision, and also also given that this is supposed to be the niche of clients (corporate, big) that GS is supposed to be focusing their marketing towards.

Re: Archicad PR

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:19:27 GMT

If indeed Woods Bagot is transitioning to Revit it may have more to do with the multidisciplinary nature of Revit and less to do with ArchiCAD's actual feature set. A big company like WB may be interested in working with its consultants in ensuring that a complete building model is being assembled. It's drop-dead easy to get an entire building model using the different flavours of Revit; I'm not sure how people collaborate between ArchiCAD and other BIM platforms here... ?

If it is relatively easy to clash-detect with ArchiCAD without resorting to something like Navisworks (which you pretty much have to do with Revit if you're intersecting more than two models!), then I'd take it as more of a warning sign that WB is bailing on ArchiCAD.

Re: Archicad PR

Rakela Raul — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:18:30 GMT

it may have more to do with the multidisciplinary nature of Revit and less to do with ArchiCAD's actual feature set

very polite !!

I know a County that now requires BIM and they prefer Revit BUT 'consultants can use other BIM Packs'

I feel the pressure to learn RV, the pressure is bigger by the day

Re: Archicad PR

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:05:49 GMT

Again, Wes, history is telling.

If you look at this link
http://www.graphisoft.com/support/ifc/References/ifc_int.html
you will see they (Woods bagot - WB) were major promoters of IFCs as a way to talk between different software.

So if your theory is correct, and Woods Bagot want to have all consultants working on one software platform, they have obviously rejected IFCs as a workable solution....... the implications for our industry are clear - in the words of Dwight - it's in(r)evitable...

Re: Archicad PR

Dwight — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:11:05 GMT

rwallis wrote:
it's in(r)evitable...

Nice twist.

Re: Archicad PR

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:38:17 GMT

IFC is a mess. It can't be counted on at all. So then you have people all tied up in proprietary platforms, and then the world starts getting really boring... then some upstart start-up gets a pile of money together to come up with an innovative new product with a promising future... and then...

D a m n !

Re: Archicad PR

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:47:58 GMT

Wes, I could not agree more with your sentiments on IFCs.

The inherent problem with IFCs IMHO is that two translations occur with any information sharing. It has taken the industry years just to get *.DWG files translated properly (and that's a one step translation!). And how about the battles with Microsoft and Word formats (again one step translations)? These precedents do not bode well when you consider the order of magnitude more complex a BIM file is - by way of comparison.

Of course some (European?) Governments may legislate for open standards, but a unified model has so many inherent advantages - not only during design and documentation, but in post occupancy too.

Re: Archicad PR

Rob — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 05:00:08 GMT

I would be very surprised if WB was in the process of a total switching to Revit.... utterly unfeasible for the company of this size.... but I can just speculate as you do...

I have said this somewhere on this forum sometime ago:
one proprietary format will not ever work in building industry just because of the shear number of consultants and trades involved. Each of them prefers to use bespoke software. I do not want to end up with a scenario where I would be forced to choose e.g. an engineer just because they use a particular proprietary platform as opposed to their professional capabilities.

Yes it is true that IFC is not really there however so far it is only serious option on the market. And yes translating any of the available formats carries a potential errors by default. The only way (my opinion) to control it is a full-on IFC server with standardised interface to keep integrity of data. Sure if you put sh*t in you would get sh*t out but that's a different cuppa...

BTW I have talked to a fella who runs BIMServer project in Denmark (?) (unfortunately the project is not mature enough for a serious hammering) about IFC compatibility. They ran some tests with Revit and it seems that Adesk is deliberately screwing IFC up... well I suppose GS could answer to this with some optimised and workable IFC import/export in near future perhaps.

Re: Archicad PR

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:42:47 GMT

I'm not surprised. I learnt today of another Australian mid sized architectural firm that are going to jump ship from Archicad to Revit notwithstanding that they have been long term users of Archicad and have an extensive list of projects done in Archicad.

Re: Archicad PR

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:57:52 GMT

This is getting away from the topic of the OP, but the GSA (in the US) MUST demand IFC that meets the rigours of testing. And so must any other client or body requesting the BIM model after construction for FM purposes.

No Revit RVTs.
No ArchiCAD PLNs.
No Bentley DGNs.
No AutoCAD Architecture DWGs either 😉

All IFC, all the time.

Actually -- on the IFC thing -- it really depends on how the geometry was built. I've banged out a few IFCs myself from Revit and checked them in Solibri and most of the time they come out OK. But if I do anything remotely irregular, you can't be sure of what you'll get.

@Rob K: what makes you think Adesk is sabotaging their IFC export?

Re: Archicad PR

Nando Mogollon — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:28:19 GMT

metanoia wrote:
All IFC, all the time.

... I second this...

Nando

Re: Archicad PR

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 21:35:45 GMT

metanoia wrote:
No Revit RVTs.
No ArchiCAD PLNs.
No Bentley DGNs.
No AutoCAD Architecture DWGs either 😉

All IFC, all the time.

I always seem to agree with Wes.

Proprietary file types are instruments of service and not deliverables. If the clients/authorities want BIM deliverables they must be in a neutral, public format (or formats). For now IFC seems to be the only game in town (or, more precisely, the world). DWF might have a run at it (it certain has a place) and I'm sure Adobe would like to see 3D PDF take a piece of the action, but I'm not sure either of these has the teeth to take a big bite of BIM.

The requirements for working formats (such as RVT, PLN, etc.) are very different than for exchange/archive formats. I don't think they can or should be incorporated into a single format.