Archicad 26 Preview

[Carlos Cordeiro]

UPDATE: registration process is now closed. We will proceed with some administrative tasks and the access links will be sent shortly.

Graphisoft is proud to announce the launch of the product preview phase of our software development for Archicad 26. This is in lieu of an expanded Beta period. This year, we changed our product Beta process to make it more streamlined, efficient, and effective. However, recognizing the need for customers to try our upcoming release in advance and in order to collect your feedback, our product preview will be launched at the start of our Beta period when all languages of the preview software are ready - INT, USA and GER, around April 14th.

If you would like to participate in the preview, please submit your request here.
Feedback regarding the product preview can be provided through the Jira Service Desk, available after registration.

We are looking forward to your participation and feedback in the upcoming User Group - register here .

Thank you very much for your interest!

Sincerely,

Product Success Team

[jl_lt]

most definetely we cant.

But it would surely be nice to be able to discuss it in a legally protected environment

[Bricklyne Clarence]

I will never understand the obsession with pungent secrecy that this company seems to love so much.

Are they scared that if people see or actually (PROPERLY) publicly preview the new features before the official release (.....you know.....not in a rebranded and glorified 'Beta-Testing' process, which is all that this 'new-coat-of-paint' Technology Preview process really is. Let's just be honest)....that one of their rivals will steal their secrets or something of that wild nature?

Or is it more a case of, they're just worried that if they openly publicly preview the features before official release, it could depress and dampen customer enthusiasm for the new version before it's released once people realize it doesn't do much by way of addressing long-standing issues most users have had?

It's not like they're not going to be able to see this once the version is released anyway.

This is why they had such blowback when version 25 was released and it turned out to be such a flaccid disappointment. How different would that reception be if it have been previewed several months earlier, or rather how much of the disappoint reactions do they really believe they warded off by not having a proper preview.

Because this isn't a technology preview that they're touting.

This is just a glorified Beta-testing (and not even that) and rebranded version of what they were already doing.

Meet the new boss.

Same as the old boss.

Some people say that a large reason they are rooted in such an archaic way of thinking and approaching customer interaction and public relations has a lot to do with the Eastern European and old Soviet era ways of thinking that's still prevalent in the Hungarian way ot thinking and culture.

It just seems odd to me as an INTERNATIONAL company to be acting this way in the 21st Century and nearly a quarter of the way through it - and at a time when we can see the actual cost (sadly in lives and blood) of that old soviet way of thinking right this moment..

Preview your program and technology properly (if you're not going to beta-test it the same way), and if people are disappointed then so be it. Have a frank and open discussion about it to see the reasons why and how you can do better in a proper back-and-forth like grown-ups.

You're obviously not going to please everyone. Certainly not all the time.

But you only need one time to disappoint everyone (or several in the case of GS these last several years).

In light of that, you can make a much better effort at addressing the needs of most, if you are actually open and honest with them.

At least that's the way I see it.

[Paul King]

I don't think it is at all fair to link the current rate and direction of Archicad development to historic Soviet era cultural influences.

If anything, I suspect the opposite may be the case - corporate imperatives are probably the issue.

Development of Archicad while Graphisoft was an independant company in the early days was quite rapid, nimble and innovative.

However Graphisoft has been bought out by Nemescheck, a large German company with multiple products being marketed internationally, which presumably has significant influence over development policy and focus.

I suspect many factors are involved in the percieved slowdown of Archicad development progress for the average user:

• The lowest hanging fruit has probably already been plucked.
• Significant improvements to the way existing tools work from here requires fundamental (expensive) changes and it is too hard to make the business case for making those changes to the Archicad's current owners. 
• Archicad is facing off against Revit inthe marketplace - which is produced by Autodesk - a company with much greater marketing reach globally.
• It may be that the main area of competition both companies are focussed on is in the aquisition of new subscribers, rather than retention of existing subscribers. Both companies probably work on the basis that nearly all existing subscribers are already, for better or worse, too invested in whatever they started with to jump ship - so strategically most effort needs to go into aquiring customers who are not yet invested in either platform.
• The people making software purchasing descisions impacting the most licences are in large offices, and probably not the ones using the product themselves with any focus day to day.
• Of those who influence purchasing descisions who do use the product day to day, most probably won't use the tools well enough to recognize the difference between their own limitations and software limitations for some time - in a nutshell, expenditure on substantive improvements to tools that are mostly of interest to those who are most skilled (= already most invested in Archicad, and quite likely those with a design and production focus rather than project management or practice administrative focus) may be seen as too 'academic' from a new customer aquisition point of view. 
• Given that large companies buy the most licences, it probably makes most sense to Nemescheck that their limited development budget should be directed towards those things that complicate the lives of BIM managers in large companies the most, and that are cheapest to impliment (directly impacting the fewest existing tools) - i.e. with a focus on the logistical and administrative issues associated with running multiple very large projects and teams etc - exactly the opposite focus to what most expert users at the coal face are looking for.

[DGSketcher]

@Bricklyne Clarence You may have something there, not that I would advocate racial profiling, but a secretive and self-righteous attitude of those in control of the roadmap would go some way towards explaining the current lack of customer centric development. Even this forum seems to have been a unilateral poorly implemented decision that forgot a substantial number of users rely on Apple's Safari and has left half the options broken.

[Lawand]

Will Archicad 26 finally support the M1 chip natively?

[Barry Kelly]

---

@Lawand wrote:

Will Archicad 26 finally support the M1 chip natively?

---

You might want to read this article.

No exact date but supposedly later this year.

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Setup-License-articles/ARM-Mac-support/ta-p/304108

Barry.

[mthd]

Hi, is there a public release date for AC26 ?

[Carlos Cordeiro]

The public release for the first language packages of Archicad 26 is July 14.

[mthd]

Thank you, Carlos. I learnt Archicad way back at version 7 in 2002 and bought 8.1 after that. Not that anyone really cares that much lol ? It was great back then and it only gets better with time. I use it for houses mainly and It’s probably way beyond what I need but hey it does the job very well. It’s the best program for DWG transfer and translation and many other functions. Looking forward to seeing what’s new and updated in this release. Thanks again.

[proev]

Is INT in the above mentioned first language packages of Archicad 26 or it will be released before July 14?

[Barry Kelly]

INT is the main language version and is always first cab off the rank.

But I doubt if anything will be released before the official release date which as far as I know is still July 14.

Barry.

[Carlos Cordeiro]

Dear @proev, as @Barry Kelly mentioned, the INT package is our global international English version and is always the first one to be released together with some other languages (the number of different languages released simultaneously may vary). We are now working towards July 14 as release date.

[brittsax]

Hi do we know what the software requirements will be for Archicad 26 - for Mac specifically? I need to upgrade my operating system 

[cgrbsrn]

i have licence since Archicad 19 but we need better tools. My english not enough sorry for this.

1. Revit like slab tool. (maybe different z parameters every point of slabtool)

2.Slope not correct curved shapes.(meshtool)

3.Paromo soo basic (rhino)

4.Walltool different height on top maybe bottom.

we need some modelling tools to solve geometry especially landscape design. extrude profile along curve with z parameters. 

we need modelling tool upgrades.

Thanks

[Martin Jules]

@cgrbsrn I understand your point. In terms of BIM software, Revit appears to be more complete, intuitive, and/or advanced than Archicad. This year would mark its 40th anniversary.. It's about a crucial milestone to fill in all of the software gaps.

Archicad has a great potential for development than Revit.

Just do it! 

[Bricklyne Clarence]

---

@Martin Jules wrote:

@Revit appears to be more complete, intuitive, and/or advanced than Archicad. This year would mark its 40th anniversary.. It's about a crucial milestone to fill in all of the software gaps.

......

In what universe?

Almost everyone I know that uses Revit absolutely hates it and doesn't in the remotest sense think it's in any way "intuitive".

"More advanced" and "more  complete" are also debatable considering the act that only in the most recent versions have they gotten things like the ability to canter walls, work in true perspective in the 3D window (and even then, not even completely) among many other things we take for granted in Archicad  and that have existed in the program for longer than the last 10 years.

And that's not even taking into account that godawful Spreadsheet interface they're burdened with.

That's part of what's so frustrating with Graphisoft's recent weak update versions being that even they seem to know that most of their users have no other viable or comparable options and satisfactory alternatives to turn to if they're completely dissatisfied with the progress in development that the program has been receiving recently..

Which ostensibly gives them the excuse to just phone it in as much as they want - even though the reality is that they're now just running on the fumes of back when it really used to be a trailblazer program.

But all that doesn't hide the reality that Revit is a godawful program as an alternative much less a "rival" -   anymore than it should serve as an excuse for GS to under-perform on their own end.

[Martin Jules]

@Bricklyne Clarence You can't fall in love with Archicad more than me, but we'll discuss both Revit and Archicad capabilities from next week with supporting files and evidence.

[Martin Jules]

@Bricklyne Clarence I just posted an example, which you can see here, about how Graphisoft can develop Archicad to become a complete BIM software according to the design process generally or traditionally adopted by architects. It's about only one example. I have lots of other examples I will post, progressively, to show you how I consider Revit is more advanced than Archicad as a BIM software. 

[cgrbsrn]

my dreams for Archicad 26-27...;

1-new siemens parasolid core with new modelling tools.(slab, wall etc)

2-new profile tool 

3-grasshopper maybe a different name for Archicad - not integration with rhino3d (also I have a rhino licence)

4-new mesh tool with composites (ı dont wanna use mesh to roof tool)

we need a massive update

realities for Archicad 26

1-new enchangements graphic overide tool.

2-surface textures on plan view

3-new objects

4-m1 support

Thank you...

[femi5foot]

I feel the morph tool should be further developed to be a parametric tool. 

[Barry Kelly]

Parametric in what way?

A morph can be absolutely any shape, so it doesn't have a length, height, width, thickness , etc., like walls, slabs, roofs.

You can push an pull any node, edge or surface and you can stretch with the bounding box.

Barry.