friday 10th september
graphisoft morning
mark sawyer, VP of worldwide sales kicked off 'graphisoft morning' with a presentation dedicated to the company's performance and directions of growth. graphisoft have just opened a south-east asian office to promote their products in the region. the chinese market has a staggeringly large potential customer base (45,000 employees in the ministry for construction alone!), with a huge construction programme.
it was interesting to note that the UK and australian archiCAD sales figures were the only two regions down from this time last year. mark suggested that the further marginalisation of the role of architect here in the UK could have something to do with this. he hoped that we wouldn't be offended by this remark, but from my point of view there was no offence taken. i actually agree wholeheartedly - it's one of the reasons why i'm just about to up-sticks and travel to the other side of the world to work . . .
he finished by giving an overview of the role of IT in the complete procurement and management of a building. when split into three distinct phases, 'design', 'construction', 'management', it demonstrated a big requirement for IT solutions in the 'construction' phase that graphisoft's current products don't reach . . . and asked us to 'watch-this-space' over the next few months for their answer to this. interesting . . .
bence kovacs and akos bezegh then began the main event! (you may well have noticed that archiCAD 9 was given its premiere at the archiCAD university
) we were treated to an overview of the new features with bence narrating through the focus areas of 'easy', 'polished' and 'powerful' whilst akos demonstrated the practical application of these features.
as a beta-tester, i can't help but feel that it wasn't done as much justice as it shoud've! many new features that i'm feeling the benefit of every day weren't mentioned (manual-rebuild sections, syringing library part parameters, etc, etc...) proving that this really is going to be a tricky upgrade to sell. but we did get to see (amongst others) the new (and long overdue!) implementation of the 'text editor', the 'work environment' customisation process and . . . drum-roll . . . the incorporation of the 'lightworks' rendering engine! thanks graphisoft!
bence also ran through a reassuring outline of the graphisoft quality assurance process and procedures. starting with a full-monty style (well, nearly) strip! he revealed a t-shirt with the logo 'no R2' emblazoned across it - graphisoft's aim for the release of 9. far more automatic testing has been put in place to ensure the quality of the code is at a much higher standard before it even gets to the beta phase. 'hatteras' testing began the beta process with a selection of users invited to graphisoft's offices around the world for two days of testing and discussion with the developers.
the beta test followed with a 'points-race' incentive for the testers, the top three of whom were given an honourable (ahem!
) mention! eight companies then participated in a 'project validation' - using AC9 on live projects within their practice. it was disappointing to see only one UK practice amongst them . . .
workshop #1 - GDL: an introduction for beginners
now - as some may know by now, my GDL skills are not quite on a level with my archiCAD skills. i'm rubbish! i can take the most complex of objects, understand its structure, pull it apart and put it back together in new ways, 'parameterise' it, etc. but ask me to make a simple object of my own and i'm stuck. big time.
so it was a great relief to attend herbert peter's workshop and finally have the basics explained in a thorough and patient manner. herbert was an excellent tutor, running through the syntax and examples of some basic keywords before putting them to use in a simple object. i can now actually remember some basic GDL and with a bit of luck, a tailing wind and lots of practice i might get there yet! thanks herbert!
'visualisation' half-plenary
adrian harms chaired a two-hour session dedicated to the various visualisation products that work with, in and around archiCAD.
pavol elias began with a clear and concise introduction to the basics of the new 'lightworks' rendering engine within archiCAD 9. 'lightworks' shaders are easy to import from five libraries of default materials included with AC9 and modifying their various classes can be easy or as complex as you wish! 'lightworks' shaders can also be downloaded from the 'lightworks user' website which has hundreds of shaders for free or proprietary shaders for sale. also mentioned were the three new lamp objects included in the archiCAD 9 library, 'sunlight', 'skylight' and 'window light', which replace the built-in sun and ambient light with a better quality of light and soft shadows for some stunning results.
next, gerard bomer of abvent gave us the second big treat of the day - a trip through the new features of a working art•lantis 5! on speaking about the design and considerations for the new version, one of the first things that struck me was the declaration "respect the operating system"! gone is the traditional art•lantis garbled interface! yay! and - the demonstration was on a mac - in came a slick cocoa-style UI that a mac user could pick up in minutes. graphisoft take note!!! what followed was a tour-de-force of new features including the terrific seasonally-aware trees, (seeing is believing!), and their new proprietary radiosity solution along with some very impressive images.
unfortunately, i have to confess that i needed to absorb some of what i had just seen and so missed out on perry stacy of maxon demonstrating cinema 4D and david rimmington's piranesi 4. next time maybe . . .
workshop #2 - archiCAD 9 features, IFC, import/Export
simon gilbert was caught a little off-guard at the introduction of "IFC, import/export" to his "archiCAD 9 features" workshop(!), but nevertheless held court on a Q&A session over the use and production of DWGs within archiCAD. it was a small group and so particular issues could be raised and looked at in more detail.
we saw the improvements to the DWG translation engine in archiCAD 9, including cropped content DWGs from plotmaker! at last! in addition, the attributes of DWG files that have been x-ref'ed into the archiCAD file are now deleted when detaching them (with relevant warnings!). a double-whammy!
workshop #3 - project organisation
unfortunately, i felt that matthew lohden's workshop became a little off-topic a little too soon and became stuck firmly in a particular issue of one of the participants. however, it's always a pleasure to hear matthew's clear and calm reasoning on any topic that falls his way! i became a fan after hearing his plenary last year on the topic of office standards and many-a-time he has unravelled and explained a particular issue on archiCAD-TALK in a way that turned the light-bulbs on in my head!
i just wish that i had had more of a chance to speak with him, but our paths didn't seem to cross as much as i had hoped.
the pub!
take two - more drinks seemed to fall my way. it would've been rude to turn them down! thanks again!
b e n f r o s t
b f [a t ] p l a n b a r c h i t e c t u r e [d o t] n z
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