ArchiTurn (beta) — swept path analysis directly in Archicad: does the vehicle fit or not?

catalinpopa — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 15:30:26 GMT

Hi everyone,

I'm an architect from Romania and I've been building a small add-on for a problem I kept running into: checking vehicle swept paths — fire-engine access, roundabouts, parking manoeuvres, garage ramps — without leaving Archicad.

WHAT IT DOES

- Swept Path (from Selected Polyline) — draw the intended path as a polyline, select it, pick a vehicle. You get the swept envelope, the driven path and the vehicle at start/end, plus a report: FEASIBLE / NOT FEASIBLE, minimum radius vs required, area, margins. If a corner physically doesn't fit, it refuses and tells you which vertex and how many metres are missing — it never draws a lie.

- Drive with Mouse — drive the vehicle through the plan with the mouse; what you see while driving is exactly the final drawing.

- Vehicles: car, van, rigid truck, city bus, and a semi-trailer truck with a live articulated trailer (jackknife detection included).

- Everything lands as ordinary Archicad elements, grouped — one Undo removes it.

HONEST CAVEATS — it's a closed beta: Archicad 29 28 27 26 / Windows only; vehicle dimensions are indicative presets (custom dimensions are the obvious next step); forward driving only; a KNOWN_LIMITATIONS document ships in the package with measured figures.

WHAT I'M ASKING: try it on a real case of yours and tell me — bluntly — whether it's worth investing more time in. Short questionnaire (10 questions, 5 min): https://forms.gle/yeEtTy4Roe7Y9TJp8 (the form is in Romanian — your browser's translate handles it, and answers in English are perfectly welcome) — or just reply here. Screenshots of anything wrong (the drawn line + the chosen vehicle) are the most useful thing you can send.

DOWNLOAD (zip: .apx + install guide + docs): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bYL0_C88jD6-DZrYK0E9DG2pMv3DyuqZ?usp=sharing

INSTALL: copy ArchiTurn.apx into C:\Program Files\GRAPHISOFT\Archicad 29\Add-Ons\ and restart Archicad — the ArchiTurn menu appears.

Thanks — happy to answer any technical questions about the engine here.

Operating system used: Windows win11

topic ArchiTurn (beta) — swept path analysis directly in Archicad: does the vehicle fit or not? in General discussions

ArchiTurn (beta) — swept path analysis directly in Archicad: does the vehicle fit or not?