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Monday - last edited Monday
Two years ago I had created a wish
https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Wishlist/Cigraph-Archiquantplus/idi-p/358750
It is strange that although the wish is posted in the Archicad forum, it came true not by Graphisoft but by Fermat Design https://www.fermatdesign.it/ .
My wish was related to ArhiquantPlus by Cigraph just to make Graphisoft interested in the development of this fantastic addon as Cigraph had closed down.I had even contacted Graphisoft Italia but got not respond.
Fortunately Fermat realized faster the need for direct Quantity Extraction and Cost
Calculation in Archicad
As soon as I learned the news by @strangeday in the post :
I contacted Fermat directly with a lot of excitement and when the beta was released I was really lucky to test it and check the improvements of the updated ArchiquantPlus named BIMKit Quant https://bimkit.it/bimkit-quant/
Although I expected in patience for two years, the new updated addon seems to have several new impovements and calculation options which makes it the absolute cost calculation tool for ArchiCAD users.
From my side of view it fulfills 4 crucial parameters:
1. The UI is based on the UI of Archicad giving direct access to element properties,quantities, parameters via an analytical tabs without the need to write expressions.
2. Quantity, Cost scheduling options are enhancing the scheduling capabilities of Archicad (optimized filtering, categorization of different several quantities/elements/costs all in one schedule WITH or WITHOUT COSTS. Whatever you Like
3. Free customization of all the created schedules,bill of quantities etc.
4. Everything is performed inside Archicad without the need of exporting in other apps (like Excel). Working inside Archicad means that you can have live sync with the cost information in any stage of the project.
I had used several apps so far mostly based on IFC via exporting. The fact that there is full control of cost in realtime , inside Archicad, is a game changer.
And the most impressive thing is that the calculations are performed with light speed in comparison with the traditional scheduling of Archicad because they have optimized the lists capabilities of Archicad and the results are superfast.
The logic is as simple as it can be:
You create cost elements with code, descritpion, unit, cost which are attached to any element, or subelement, or material, to any kind of quantity or parameter, or expression. You can set as many types of schedules as you want to with filtering and formatting options and you get a preformated list ready to be saved as pdf or exported in any format.
You can feel my dissapointment in my wish more than two years ago so I am just sharing my excitment here.
Archicad can be finally considered a complete 5D package in my opinion.
BIMKit Quant is really user friendly and simple but I am sure it can evolve to a really advanced addon in the near future.
Thanks Fermat.