TEKLA and ARCHICAD

[Petros Ioannou]

check at
www.graphisoft.com


Petros

[Anonymous]

Thomas, can you give me the link to the pricing page of Teklas products.
Thanx!

[Scott Davis]

From the Tekla website:

$12000 includes training, and is available only in North America (not just US, sorry I got that wrong in my last post.)

Also, it exchanges data with AC through an XML file...why not IFC????

[__archiben]

Scott wrote:
Also, it exchanges data with AC through an XML file...why not IFC????

limitation on the part of the structural app. even revit isn't fully IFC compliant yet, right? but seriously: i agree that IFC would be a more ideal route, and i'm sure that in the long term IFC would form part of the roadmap. i'll bet that for tekla this is a bit of a gamble . . . they're not going to rewrite their app until this architectural<>structural exchange route is proven, and XML provides a platform that both apps can easily share whilst the waters are tested.

this is great approach to architectural<>structural round-trip collaboration: it means that the structural guys don't have to invest in another product to be able to collaborate with the architect. or vice versa.

scott, please correct me if i'm wrong, but my assumption is that revit structure is a product in itself that would require engineers adopting over their existing analysis software? whilst this is probably a better solution for the little guy who does both the architectural and the structural design - keeping it all in the family - my experience suggests that most engineering design is done by a 3rd party consultant. this graphisoft approach of working with the structural analysis software companies to provide an exchange format rather than try and create their own analysis software is, in my opinion, a winning approach for all parties. i'll bet that we'll see more of the same with other structural analysis software companies over the coming year or so.

and eventually, scott, we'll see this exchange becoming more IFC-centric as the industry as a whole continues with its adoption of virtual building and construction. good news indeed . . .

~/archiben

[Scott Davis]

~/archiben wrote:
scott, please correct me if i'm wrong, but my assumption is that revit structure is a product in itself that would require engineers adopting over their existing analysis software?

No, Revit Structures takes the same approach as the Tekla approach with AC. Revit Structures itself is not an analysis program...it interfaces with some of the software most used in the structural industry including Robot Millenium, Etabs, and RISA-3D, using bi-directional linking. Links to other analysis programs are being developed.

The Tekla link to AC is interesting, because I believe that Revit Structures uses an XML exchange of data between itself and the analysis software. If that is the case, we may see both AC and Revit exchanging data with a host of available programs.

[__archiben]

Scott wrote:
No, Revit Structures takes the same approach as the Tekla approach with AC. Revit Structures itself is not an analysis program...it interfaces with some of the software most used in the structural industry including Robot Millenium, Etabs, and RISA-3D, using bi-directional linking. Links to other analysis programs are being developed.

thanks!

The Tekla link to AC is interesting, because I believe that Revit Structures uses an XML exchange of data between itself and the analysis software. If that is the case, we may see both AC and Revit exchanging data with a host of available programs.

XML? why not IFC?

sounds like good news all around to me . . .

~/archiben

[Aaron Bourgoin]

some observations:

The griping about the cost of Tekla without an understanding of what it does should stop. Trying to compare Tekla to Revit or ArchiCAD or Bentley is a self-defeating proposition. They really do different things. Differently.

But the fact that the ArchiCAD / Tekla announcement caught my eye is that it does suggest something bigger and more important:

BIM is bifurcating as it rightly must along some different lines -

one is the documentation side of BIM and this is where we see ArchiCAD, Bentley and Revit competing for the hearts and minds of designers still tied to the paper based world of conceiving documentation as being paper based. The evolution of this BIM strain has been and is still rooted in a visualization based notion of what design tools must and should be. Its adoption didn't start with a marketing campaign by software vendors, but rather by architects being asked to provide pretty pictures of their designs to aid the client sell the idea - to the bank, to the prospective investor, tenant, etc. The long and the short is that its still married to documentation.

a second strain stems from a desire to better integrate the entire construction economy. Tekla costs what it costs because it has to be robust enough to actually detail and schedule, down to the last bolt or bundle of steel bars, a steel structure, all of its connections as well as a properly reinforced pour of concrete.

For example, Tekla macros analyse a building structure and insert the appropriately sized and configured connector between pieces of steel. This is ALL of the stuff that we agreed to not model in ArchiCAD or Revit or BogusCAD for that matter. Structural engineers are being drawn into BIM, not by client demand, but by fabricators and detailers who have developed tools - Tekla among them - to work more efficiently. Steel fabricators are doing this and wondering why structural engineers aren't. This is a liability issue and so this version of BIM comes from a completely different rationale for the working method. With Tekla one wonders who is actually going to stamp the design - the consulting engineer or the fabrication designer. Tekla and its kin are providing an interface to integrate the analysis, the detailing and the documentation of structures. I think its this functionality that makes Tekla almost 3x more expensive than Revit or ArchiCAD.

the third comes is driven by simulation and since this is a thread about Tekla I won't delve into the details, but let it suffice to say that what will drive the third strain is integrated design and simulation of building systems - the kicking of tires and the testing of ideas that has to take place before a design is documented in Revit or ArchiCAD.

The freshest example of a tool like this that I've seen is IES <ve>. In the IES virtual environment one models an idea about a building as well as design options to test for the best solution. In IES one establishes an evaluation criteria matrix so that for each proposition the design team can assign different weight to a number of design criteria and assess the outcomes. This is a radically different proposition from the documentation BIM tools, but it a very important part of the BIM process.

BIM is a process, not a tool.

IFC CIS/2 and XML are building database formats (containers?) and the fact that we're discussing them confirms what I first thought seven years ago and that is that DWG is dead. R.I.P. The notion of how we document is at a crossroads. What a wonderful place to be. (I hope Robert Johnson is providing the soundtrack).

The convergence or integration of the three strains is the interesting thing about BIM and we see two approaches to it. We can either maintain open systems that allow for an interchange of ideas, or we choose to try in invent the whole world ourselves. Keith Bentley first pointed this out to Phil Bernstein of Autodesk in Jerry Laiserin's great BIM debate. Not surprisingly the two agreed to disagree and went back to their offices and stick to their respective guns to the present day.

[Anonymous]

dada wrote:

they charge USD 12,000

Tooooo high!!!
Are you shure abouth this. Must be a mistake. Structural modelers are abouth 2000-3000$, no way this is fair price!

I could understand engineers who complain about that soft's cost but why architects?
Important is that we can get good bi-directional links so we can work (especially with 3d walls, slabs, columns and beams) with the largest quantity of engineers and to convince them work directly, not trough DWG.
I'm not very competent in that field but as I remember, Tekla renamed the X-steel soft, which was still expensive, because it's basically a contractor tool (big steel companies around the North Sea).
This new alliance concerns probably more the contractors working with Constructor that architects who look for a cheap structural add-on.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

The Tekla links at Graphisoft are working. The Gigundus Mac DMG file contains the X-Steel library. The Windows files appear to do the same although they are so much smaller than their Mac cousins.

http://www.graphisoft.com/support/archicad/downloads/AC-TS/

[__archiben]

Aaron wrote:
The Gigundus Mac DMG file contains the X-Steel library. The Windows files appear to do the same although they are so much smaller than their Mac cousins.

looks like somebody forgot to click the 'compressed disc image' option for that one.

~/archiben

[Anonymous]

Just talked to Risa Technologies, which they have a very popular Structural package of Risa 3D. They are planning on IFC2 implementation in coming months it is great and without the price tag of $12K
Joseph