I have been checking out Skyciv as a viable tool to help with rough dimensioning of simpler structures where engaging a structural consultant would be kind of overkill. Skyciv seems like a promising option, and I got a one month subscription to play with it.
It seems that it's not straightforward to get my model into Skyciv from Archicad, though. I am sure someone here must have used it, and any input on how to do this would be much appreciated.
As far as I can see, Skyciv lets you import the following file types:
- Revit (needs Pro subscription)
- DWG (needs Pro)
- DXF
- Space Gass (TXT)
- CSV (with specified data structure)
- Skyciv file (JSON for API)
I was hoping I could make use of the Structural Analytic Format to get a simple model transferred, but this seems impossible right now. I might be able to manually convert some of the XSLX that SAF outputs into a usable .csv file using Excel, but this seems impractical. Also, I have the standard version of Skyciv so going the Revit route won't work.
So right now, I can't really see a practical, clear way of exporting from Archicad to Skyciv Standard, even with all the focus that has gone into the Structural - Archicad interoperability in recent versions. Is there any way to customize the SAF output to get just simple geometry exported? I just need basic nodes, plates, members at least, with the right column data, and then converting to .csv would make it reasonably simple to do.
Maybe this could also be done as an interactive schedule – but I suspect there might be some currently unschedulable variables that would make this hard to implement.
Having a multiplatform (browser / desktop), affordable structural simulation package like Skyciv could make for a very useful tool for quick dimensioning on smaller projects, so having a link between Archicad and Skyciv looks to be a pretty low-hanging fruit to harvest right now IMO.
Operating system used: Mac Apple Silicon 15 Sequoia
