topic Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ?? in Modeling

When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 06:17:55 GMT

I know I am only starting out with archiad, but it seems a little shocking how much users have to fight the software to create organic shapes, sorry usable organic shapes.

I cant really understand it. So many other software companies have made this organic creation their bread and butter business but try to create something vers organic in archicad, you will soon start pulling your teeth out.

I just cant believe it really.
A big software company and product that so many architects use and if i was just building apartment layouts every day or a nice 2 stoey garage, then i would be a happy camper, but my bosses want wild and modern shapes and form, walls and roofs flowing like melting cheese over the roof.
and the only tool i have is archicad.

so when is this being done with archicad ?

Thanks.
Ian

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Bricklyne Clarence — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 07:29:58 GMT

pixpast wrote:
I know I am only starting out with archiad, but it seems a little shocking how much users have to fight the software to create organic shapes, sorry usable organic shapes.

I cant really understand it. So many other software companies have made this organic creation their bread and butter business but try to create something vers organic in archicad, you will soon start pulling your teeth out.

I just cant believe it really.
A big software company and product that so many architects use and if i was just building apartment layouts every day or a nice 2 stoey garage, then i would be a happy camper, but my bosses want wild and modern shapes and form, walls and roofs flowing like melting cheese over the roof.
and the only tool i have is archicad.

so when is this being done with archicad ?

Thanks.
Ian

The simple answer is that it sounds like you're using the wrong tool. for the job.

If you want a software that is dedicated and specialized in designing and conceiving flowing organic shapes, then you're better off investing your time in learning and using something like Rhino3D (which is also limited in terms of just how organic you can create your forms - although they now have plugins like T-Splines and Grasshopper that help a lot in this regard), and more likely software like Maya, Cinema4D, 3DS Max and those kinds of software which specialize in creating those kinds of forms.

However, the caveat in using those particular software is that you're probably going to struggle like hell getting those organic forms out of the software into a form that they can be fabricated or which would make sense to a digital fabricator.
Often times a combination of one of the above mention software with Rhino3D (which is great for translating organic forms into digital formats for CNC fabrication) is what you would end up using.

As for ArchiCAD, in as much as the developers did a fantastic job in extending the modeling tools in the software to include all the new shell modeliing tools, ArchiCAD was simply never meant to be the type of software that generates those kinds of forms.
These new modeling tools are to help their customers, - majority of whom still have to worry about actually building in the real world these forms and majority of whom still work with conventional forms - get better tools for working with and to extend their creativity.
ArchiCAD 16 (which should arrive sometime next year around mid to late Spring, if they follow their current cycle) will possibly come with some more tools but I highly doubt it will come with the type of tools you're seeking.

I would strongly suggest you look into getting or learning Rhino3D (which is much easier to learn and more intuitive than those others and which also plays well with more software than I know) if that is really your focus and desire to get those kinds of forms.

p.s. Sketchup also has a plugin to allow users to generate FreeForm organic shapes but like those others I mentioned, you're going to run into problems trying to get that form out of Sketchup and into a fabricatable format.
And then there's the issue with the high polygon count that freeform/organic forms usually tend to generate and which usually tend to bring most software to their knees.

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 07:45:05 GMT

Archicad hasn't focused on that aspect of Architecture because 99.9% of the time in the current industry buildings are pretty standard. Thus when it comes to Archicad work flow is King.

I've modeled over a hundred buildings so far in the few years I've been at this and I've only had use for easier "organic massing" or "blobutecture" a few times.

Most of the time what I need is something that saves time for real-world applications and AC delivers (mostly). For example, a couple of weeks ago I did a rush job for a guy in a small single commercial unit for a takeout food place. 22 - 11"x17" sheets and 8 hours later I had the job completely done and I got $2500 for my time. That's why for Archicad.

I hear your pain tho. I have my own complaints and have I realized that AC will never be perfect. Most of us will have one or two pretty sore spots from having to hack around AC. Mine is the stairs. Nothing takes me more time in AC than stairs. And I purchased AC for stairs specifically.

But I cannot deny how fast I can slap a drawing together and still have people tell me those are the best looking and most professional looking drawings they've ever seen. In fact, the building department I deal with the most (in a metro area of million plus), have told me time and time again they wish my work was standard and I have to admit here it's AC's ability to pump out good looking and accurate drawings way more than it's me.

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 01:11:10 GMT

Even Gehry, one of the greats of freeform design, as I understand it has the following work flow:

-Physical model
-Rhino for basic forms from model
-Digital Project for the real stuff 🙂
-Autocad to output the 2D stuff

....so you need to be flexible and understand one program may not do it.

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 10:34:18 GMT

I agree - the main difficulty is not to make free-form shapes - is to offer construction documentation for free-form .

You may prefer hand drawing - the most free software .

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:24:19 GMT

Rlcosta wrote:
Even Gehry, one of the greats of freeform design, as I understand it has the following work flow:

-Physical model
-Rhino for basic forms from model
-Digital Project for the real stuff 🙂
-Autocad to output the 2D stuff

....so you need to be flexible and understand one program may not do it.

well, you are wrong.
Gehry has established a software company Gehry technologies, just to develop software for his architecture.
http://www.gehrytechnologies.com/

I am not sure, but that software is based on Catia. this is not checked information.

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Eduardo Rolon — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:13:29 GMT

Mzex, Ricosta is correct in what he write about Gehry's workflow. Though he forgot that they use a 3D scanner to digitize the base model.

Digital Project is the software produced by Gehry Technologies based on Catia.

You can watch the movie "Sketches of Frank Gehry" were they show how he works.

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

David Collins — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:25:40 GMT

One of the things that intrigued me about the new shell tool was that all the shell variations are geometrically definable, i.e: they can be described, specified and built.

I've mentioned before the monumental curved skylight on the Peabody Essex Museum by Moshe Safdie Assoc. What looks like an entirely organic shape turns out to be fragments of a monstrous imaginary torus. This was a brilliant solution because the skylight could be geometrically decribed with (relative) ease and most of the glass panels were exactly the same size and shape.

I think Graphisoft's approach to Blobitecture is exactly right. If I ever had to get serious about designing buildable organic shapes, I would look to generate forms based on a disciplined composition of interlocking shell fragments.

David Collins

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Anonymous — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:15:02 GMT

A GOOD DEVELOPING IDEA FOR SHELL TOOL IS THE ABILITY TO UNWRAP SHELL SURFACES FOR DOCUMENTATION .

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

archislave — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:43:18 GMT

Well I am just hoping for one of the most useful things I can imagine to improve my workflow. That is: A unified window on MacOSX that can also adhere to the Lion Fullscreen Apps mandate. I am sick of switching from macbook to plugging into a monitor and needing to call up a saved screen layout each time.

Even with saved schemes it still places the title bar of each archicad window underneath the magnetic icon bar and main palette. Archicad on OSX is a mess and they have never made it OSX compliant in ten years -as far as the more modern gui provisions apple created for OSX apps.

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:54:27 GMT

have you ever seen Digital project in action? it is full on! you'd be best to stick with your ArchiCAD workflow 😉

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:30:59 GMT

zeropointreference wrote:
...people tell me those are the best looking and most professional looking drawings they've ever seen. In fact, the building department I deal with the most (in a metro area of million plus), have told me time and time again they wish my work was standard ...

Any chance you share with us some of those drawings?

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

aahatimo — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:10:01 GMT

May 19th@ AIA announcement?

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Anonymous — Tue, 01 May 2012 09:48:18 GMT

Google gets prophetic!!

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

TMA_80 — Tue, 01 May 2012 10:28:07 GMT

ha ha, Good find.

(Did Google know I'll be writing this )

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

_Salmon — Tue, 01 May 2012 12:30:52 GMT

this people are visionaries, so stay cool and wait for 16th..

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams ... glitter in the dark near Tanhauser Gate.. "

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:08:05 GMT

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams ... glitter in the dark near Tannhauser Gate.. "

Off-Topic: Blade Runner?

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Eduardo Rolon — Tue, 01 May 2012 14:14:47 GMT

Yes.

"…and all of this will be lost like tears in the rain. Time for me to die."
-Roy Batty

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Anonymous — Tue, 01 May 2012 15:39:36 GMT

Looks like the Google search engine also turned up sneak peek details on the release date:

Re: When is Archicad 16 coming out ??

Anonymous — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:36:27 GMT

Off-Topic: Blade Runner?

Like this analogy about future events and developments (not only building turning into images but 'images' and ideas into 'material' reality) .

However this remained me of:

'BIM' me up, Scotty"

Captain Viktor Várkonyi (Kirk) when he gives orders to his chief architect László Vértesi (Montgomery "Scotty" Scott) as he needs to be transported back to the architectural community (Starship Enterprise).

Mind you smart cell phones (and iPad) from show are already in use, what we are waiting fore, is that not only for captain being BIM-ed up but also our Ideas to be BIM down (simply without tricks) by hitting 'OK'