ODBC alternative for AC22 onward?

[Anonymous]

Since ODBC support was discontinued a few AC versions back, what is the current approach to organizing external read/write access to Archicad project/database (located on BIMcloud server)?

To clarify, I am looking for the curently suggested official approach to access project's SQL database from external application, however, I can't find any information on the matter.

I have background, interest, substantial resources and budgets to develop a number of PM applications for BIM environment, but lack of clear information on database connectivity within AC development sphere does steer my interest away from this BIM authoring environment.

Would any GS staff reading this forum be kind to clarify this matter?

I would really appreciate any pointers.

Thank you.

[Akos Somorjai]

Folks,

I would like clarify our ODBC approach a little. The driver was removed for two reasons:
The ODBC driver was nearly a full ARCHICAD, which provided read-only access to the plan file, without its user having to pay anything, which was not good from the business point of view.
Also the last implementations were far from complete (e.g. you couldn't access the building materials), and the development cost of maintaining the driver was not justified by the very low number of users (<10) around the world.

The ARCHICAD database uses a proprietary format, so providing ODBC access does require a serious development effort.
The SQL add-on Ralph mentioned ended up in the same functions internally as the ODBC driver, but it could be called only from inside ARCHICAD.

The current plan is to provide some kind of BIMcloud API where you can access the project data in IFC format. If you would still need the ODBC access, then please talk to the Product Manager for your country; nowadays they define the development priorities.

Best, Akos

[Anonymous]

Thank you, Akos, for joining the conversation.

Akos wrote:
The ODBC driver was nearly a full ARCHICAD, which provided read-only access to the plan file, without its user having to pay anything, which was not good from the business point of view.

I really appreciate a clear answer and this is exactly what I meant when I mentioned that I believe am aware of Graphisoft's budgeting priorities.

Akos wrote:
The ARCHICAD database uses a proprietary format, so providing ODBC access does require a serious development effort.
The current plan is to provide some kind of BIMcloud API where you can access the project data in IFC format.

If I may, I think the better approach would be to develop API functions to allow user to query a specific element or zone on a BIM cloud server, but only allow for controlled, authenticated read/modify access to the element property set (including, but not limited to IFC properties only). This would allow us, as developers, to write web applications to update element property sets without infringing onto modeling capabilities carried out by ARCHICAD itself, thus providing us with a capability to grow ARCHICAD into non-architecture-related industries.

Akos wrote:
If you would still need the ODBC access, then please talk to the Product Manager for your country; nowadays they define the development priorities.

I don't, specifically, need ODBC access myself, as I am looking for any way to update property sets of project elements on BIM cloud server, but I don't think I can identify a specific product manager in my case, as the industry I am involved with is global and no specific country manager will do the trick for us. I think, there are still cases when direct involvement of GS might be beneficial.

Thank you again for joining the conversation, Akos.