Graphisoft public roadmap - Follow-up conversation

[Gordana Radonic]

Dear Community, 

We're excited to have published our roadmap!

We'd love to hear your thoughts and questions. Please feel free to use this thread for discussion.

Graphisoft Insights announcement: https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Graphisoft-Insights/Graphisoft-public-roadmap/ba-p/375281

Public roadmap on the Graphisoft website.

Thank you.

[jl_lt]

Much better than the tool im proposing would be an AI assisted documentation process, from speed to setting up layouts, to annotations. Currently, working on Archicad in 3d is still a joy, the documentation process... not so much

[4hotshoes]

I find that a well thought out template does much of the heavy lifting for the document process. I spend time modeling the details and then just slice and place. But plans, sections and elevations are mostly done before I start a new project. They only need minor adjustments to show. I cannot imagine what AI will do for us yet. I have used ChatGPT for some creative ideas for naming a work group. It came up with some great ideas, but ultimately, we used human creativity. Maybe AI could do some small tasks that we don't really think much about, but the big stuff of designing buildings cannot be left to AI anymore than I would leave that to another architect to do for me.

[Roman-PS]

Today was the introduction of spacio. The launch (beta) is tomorrow. This is where the things are going. 

Integration and even providing BIM features are in their consideration (real road map).

https://www.spacio.ai/

[Bricklyne Clarence]

I'm going to have the countervailing differing, and some might even say "Hot-Take"-ey opinion on this whole discussion.

I think Graphisoft should stay the hell away from AI or anything AI-related.

which they reckon are the way of the future, but because of lack of foresight and clarity at the inception, or a lack of collaborative approach or maybe just because of their usual byzantine way of doing things, they inevitably end up spending a lot of (development) resources working up something that either goes nowhere at all or doesn't go where it's going very well or very far.

I give you Maxonform (For those of you old enough to remember that little adventure)
I give you VICO (or VICOsoft or whatever the hell it was actually called)
I give you the Morph tool 1.0...
I give you The ArchiCAD-Rhino-Grasshopper bridge....

Cinerender,....Twinmotion,...

...and on and on and on and on.....

Some of them show or showed great promise.
A lot of them had admirable and good intent.
But almost all of them had almost the same fate.

I think if they go spending development and research resources on AI now, when there's already a backlog of issues on the program to be fixed or improved, and most pointedly now when we've already had three versions  of them going on another one of those adventures of theirs (SAM and MEP) with the rest of us paying for it heavily, we're just going to end up having an even more rough time on the traditional design end of things with even more things getting more and more ignored and/or short-riffed.

I'd love to give them the benefit of doubt here, I really really would, but they have frittered away a lot of the goodwill that they had formerly invested with their customers over the last several years for me to imagine that any such effort wouldn't be anything more than a big massive waste of time that would eventually be abandoned somewhere down the road when it doesn't catch on or when society moves on to the next big fad or "thing".

Please just fix the problems and short-comings, and workaround issues in the program as is right now, or give us better tools .......to DESIGN with, and leave the AI alone for the time being until you can prove you've gained people's confidence enough that they won't feel like their license fees are being wasted (......again....) for (yet) a(nother) pointless venture and tool they neither need, asked for nor will ever use.

That's my two pennies or two cents worth.

[torben_wadlinger]

You're right. GS invested time and money into doubtful functions. Don't get me wrong, I think AI makes a hugh impact an early phases or (if implemented well) in documentation. What AC lacks most of is an interface to communicate with these tools out there. IFC is no option. But as always GS is late to the wrong party ...

[Eduardo Rolon]

IIRC what became Vico was originally ArchiFM (Facilities Manager).

[Botonis]

If I remembmer correctly Vico was originally the Archicad Constructor Version  with Cost and Quantity Estimation Functionality.

Everything then was implemented in Vico Office.

[Eduardo Rolon]

and you are correct.

ArchiFM became ArchiFM

https://archifm.net/product/

[mthd]

AI is only in the idea pool at this stage but it can be useful if used correctly to help us save time in the design & documentation process. True you can waste much time and resources on R&D with this feature. It looks like most of us would like to see the basics fixed and brought up to scratch in ArchiCAD and that those things should be the main priority in new releases ? Then hopefully we may actually be happy in paying for our subscriptions to fund those very necessary improvements and or features that we really need and will use.

I am excited about the “Design Guides” and “Design Options” coming soon as many others are. They may still need some further development in the future but that’s a good start from Graphisoft and in the right direction of development. I think these things will help ArchiCAD keep up with the competition and hopefully overtake them and go even further ahead of them.

[Rex Maximilian]

It's been two months. Where is this promised user interaction? You're about to have another online event, yet the roadmap has not progressed at all. 

[Algimantas Kuprenas]

Was also wondering about that. No action in roadmap - looks asleep at the moment.

[DGSketcher]

I am half hoping the shut down on the 10th may bring some good news...

[Barry Kelly]

I am not expecting the roadmap to change (very much if at all), until 27 is released.

Then hopefully all of the 'coming soon' will actually be here and can be removed from the road map.

Most of the 'in progress' can then move up to 'coming soon'.

Some of the 'under research' will become 'in progress'.

Some from the 'ideas pool' will migrate to 'under research' and we will hopefully get a new list of idea being thought about.

That is a generalisation of course, but I don't expect too many things to move around until the next release.

Then hopefully minor updates every 3 to 6 months?

Barry.

[DGSketcher]

I think the forum sentiment may be less about the content of the Roadmap, and more about the long promised ability to vote on the content.

[Rex Maximilian]

Yes, exactly this.

Once it was first released, the initial blowback on the disproportionate number of MEP/S features to Architecture features was unexpected. My guess is they don't want further feedback regarding this since they are dead set on further developing engineering tools over architecture, and it would further invalidate their choice of direction.

[Rex Maximilian]

That's the way it would work, yes. But they promised user interaction (commenting and voting) on individual items would be coming soon; and as I assume most of us expected, they didn't follow through.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

I always said from the start of this whole process that the proof was always going to be in the pudding.

I did give them the benefit of doubt (and still do to a large degree), but unfortunately recent history dictates that I treat every pronouncement from them with a large heaping helping and healthy chunk of Sodium Chloride.

Until they can actually prove they mean any of this, everything they're putting out (including this very discussion started by them) is nothing more than a form of digital glorified lip service.

It's one thing to claim you hear your customers' complaints and will try to do something about their concerns (....ostensibly because you're under some degree of PR pressure to do so).

It's quite another to actually do something about  it,  and mean it.

The usual, (and to be expected at this point),....radio silence from them is deafening.....

.....and quite telling.

[mthd]

Hopefully by mid June we might have a good idea about what is actually in AC27 ? It would be good if there were a few little surprises along with the coming soon list but I don’t want to be overly optimistic. Let’s see !

[Holger Kreienbrink]

We hear you, we are following this tread....

We are still working on the roadmap as promised. But for that we have to work on the background systems and also on the processes.

Voting: I don´t belive in a pure simple voting.

Why?

Because it is important for us to know where you are from. The profession differs from country to country.

We need to know your office size. Your office size, your projects will differ and therefore some needs will differ. .

We need to know your expertise. Beginners might use our tools differently.

and more...

Discuss in the roadmap:
We are eager to start this. But this also need some more development so that it discussion treads are collected on the correct platform.

That means: please be patient. We are working on that

[Rex Maximilian]

It good you hear us... however we haven't been able to hear from GS. This topic and its responses are ten pages long and we've been asking questions and giving strong opinions on the roadmap, its progress, its MEP/S heaviness, etc., but non-moderator Graphisoft employees haven't commented on it, until now. Laszlo Nagy mentions that he sends a report each week, but my question is why aren't "real" GS representatives/employees on the forum more, as opposed to moderators? Please, going forward, especially with the roadmap having not developed in over two months, be present here more. We are your users with an extremely wide demographic in this forum. It should be a priority to interact with us for your own feedback.

Regarding the roadmap, we've been patient for months/years. Once it finally came out, there was promise of an interactive interface that hasn't happened yet in the two months since. When can we expect this functionality... so we can be heard? If it is in Q3 or 4, then that is confusing as to why a major software company can't put a simple comment section in. Your competitors are doing it.

We also need write-in wishes. We have ideas too; especially those of us with a 30 year history with the program.

Thanks for your response. We look forward to more of your interactions, as well as the panel in the Q&A forum. They would do well to participate here as well.

[Karl Ottenstein]

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@Rex Maximilian wrote:

 there was promise of an interactive interface that hasn't happened yet in the two months since. When can we expect this functionality... so we can be heard? ...

We also need write-in wishes. We have ideas too; especially those of us with a 30 year history with the program.

---

Hi Rex,

On the interface here - votes on wishes, organization, etc - or comments linked to the roadmap blocks - there are apparently a variety of issues related to the CMS platform software being used, some being platform limitations and others being the need to code customization... which might be broken by a platform update.  My understanding is that all of these things continue to be discussed and planned by various teams within Graphisoft and none are trivial, unfortunately.

For write-in wishes - that is the point of the Wishes forum here, and in the old archicad-talk.  We have voting of sorts there via the 'like' button.  Wishes there will eventually migrate to the roadmap.  But, as has been the case for 20+ years with wishes:  it is essential that each topic there be one single wish with a subject line that precisely summarizes the wish. This is almost never the case - people dump their entire wishlist in a topic that then goes off the rails.  Only by single specific wish topics can it be clear what a 'like' means and can the specific wish be organized and/or matched with something already existing in the internal Graphisoft wish database.

Cheers,

Karl