Student versions

[Akos Bezegh]

Dear Archi-Talkers,

Meeting the needs of the student community is a key priority for us at Graphisoft. At present, we are evaluating our policy to find ways to better serve architects and students of architecture at schools and universities around the world.

We would like to get your feedback and ideas on how Graphisoft can make ArchiCAD more accessible and useful to students. Feel free to use this forum to write whatever occurs to you on this score. Some questions you might address:

1. Did you learn and/or use ArchiCAD in school?
2. Is ArchiCAD taught at universities near you?
3. Do students know about ArchiCAD when they choose a CAD system?
4. What are the most important factors for students who have decided to learn ArchiCAD?
5. What are the most important factors for students who decide against learning ArchiCAD?
6. As far as you know, do students of architecture submit their work in electronic format, or are free-hand drawings compulsory?
7. Is a working knowledge of ArchiCAD an advantage when looking for a job?


Let us know! Drop us a line.

Thank you


About me:

Greetings! I graduated as an architect, and have been working at Graphisoft since 1999 as a user interface designer. For the past three years, I have also taught Computer-Aided Design at the Technical University of Budapest. Earlier this year, I was appointed ArchiCAD Product Manager at Graphisoft. My new responsibilities include Graphisoft's educational policy, and as moderator of this forum I encourage all of you to start topics and post messages here. I look forward to lively and productive discussions!

[Anonymous]

I have just found your page and your pricing.
I had Archicad recommended by a first year instructor. He uses Archicad in his private practice. They plan on teaching a semester of Archicad in the near future at UTA for both undergrad and grad students.

Currently they teach Autocad as a CE course that you can get credit for and Microstation Triforma in a semester course.

Thanks

[Akos Bezegh]

Mark,

Is there an interest among students to learn ArchiCAD? Do they know about ArchiCAD at all?

[Karl Ottenstein]

There are time-limited protection keys that you can purchase at an economical price to 'bootstrap' your business. It is like renting an AC license I suppose, so the money is down the drain ... and you would later have to pay full price for a license (unless GS and/or your country distributer has a "deal" for you) ... but for a small investment, you potentially could get several projects completed and earn enough $$ to purchase a full license.

Has anyone here done that themselves and have a story to share? (I know a guy in Colorado doing it at the moment, but he's not on the list.)

Karl

PS Please do not post the same message to two different forums here. Once is enough. You can go to your other message here:
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=3393
and click on the blue "x" button in the upper right area of your message to delete it. Thanks!

[Eduardo Rolon]

I have a full licence and a 100hr key for when both me and my wife have to work at the same time on one or different projects. Have had no problems and still have about 60 hrs left on the ppu key.

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

"Akos Bezegh" wrote:
Mark,

Is there an interest among students to learn ArchiCAD? Do they know about ArchiCAD at all?

Hi I am an architecture student at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Both RMIT and UNIMELB are Autocad training facilities and hence we use autocad at uni. Apparently archicad was once an option but alas no more. The labs are all windows based. Curiously the staff all use Macs and the post grad lab is mixed Mac & windows PC. I have a new apple G5 2.0 and am interested in the combination of archicad and Piranesi for submitting design work. The Design lecturers are indifferent as to the program used for design; indeed hand drawn is encouraged, but seldom employed.

I have never used nor seen archicad in operation and am curious to use it natively on my home Mac. Autocad is a dog of a proram and I have little loyalty to it although it is the only program I have used or been exposed to.

Is there any demo version I can try before buying as the student price is still expensive especially sight unseen?

[stefan]

vernissage wrote:
Is there any demo version I can try before buying as the student price is still expensive especially sight unseen?

As soon as ArchiCAD 9 is released, I suggest to request a demo-version from some reseller. That way, you can at least try it a bit.

[Anonymous]

"Akos Bezegh" wrote:
Dear Archi-Talkers,

1. Did you learn and/or use ArchiCAD in school?

I am 50. I was taught obviously manual drafting. A company I worked for tried out several CAD programmes (macdraw/macdraft/dreams/versacad/clariscad). I chose archicad for 'ease of use' after considering architrion.

2. Is ArchiCAD taught at universities near you?

No - autocad. I am teaching archicad now at 'Weltec' in a drafting course. Archicad is rapidly gaining popularity in New Zealand amongst architects and so this is the only program we use. Autocaad is at the end of its lifetime I think. Our main priority is teaching drafting skills. We expect that Autocad could be learnt as a latter add-on if required.

3. Do students know about ArchiCAD when they choose a CAD system?

Not sure.

4. What are the most important factors for students who have decided to learn ArchiCAD?

Getting a job using it.

6. As far as you know, do students of architecture submit their work in electronic format, or are free-hand drawings compulsory?

We require paper & cd submissions, but I mark the paper as this is still the end product that most will be required to produce. The bldg. model is important but 2d clarity is still essential.

7. Is a working knowledge of ArchiCAD an advantage when looking for a job?

There is a ready take up of graduates although the industry is red hot at present and our course has only been going a couple of years.


TEACHING MATERIAL
I think the v8 course book is very good. We will use it in the first year to introduce the basic drafting skills.

Here the student version is free - essential I think.

TRADE RELEVANCE
I am concerned that the students graduate running - ie. have relevant, practical methods for producing documentation rather than theoretical techniques. So I will concentrate more on pragmatic strategies for producing documentation. 'Project framework' is a usefull reference. Possibly for teaching it may be a little 'universal' and hence complex in its suggested file structure. And now with relatively fast machines it can be simplified.

I also find that many practitioners aren't inclined to use complex layer sets as it impedes their design process, so I am trying to develop a simplified modelling process. If anyone has any suggestions I am all ears. (I came across one who only used one storey and one layer once - single storey additions - thats as simple as it can get - but it met his needs so top marks to him for his choice - I was horrified at the time!)

I am concerned that I might get out of touch by not producing real work and wonder how others deal with this?

[Anonymous]

Akos wrote:
1. Did you learn and/or use ArchiCAD in school?

I didn't learn it there, but I do use it on my own.

2. Is ArchiCAD taught at universities near you?

I believe it is at my school, but it doesn't seem to be promoted. It's only listed for one semester a year, and only among the architecture classes, not the interior design ones.

In fact, the interior design faculty (most of whom are actually architects) seem utterly confused about what AC is, and have it completely mixed up with Autocad, at least in one particular case. They think that it's Autocad that has pioneered the single building model, and is the important thing to learn. I was cringing to hear this misinformation disseminated in a meeting with everyone in the entire department. The net result is that probably no one in the Interior Design department has a clue about it, never mind having taken the class.

3. Do students know about ArchiCAD when they choose a CAD system?

I doubt it, at least not, as I have said, in the Interior Design department. I certainly wouldn't have known about it had I not investigated it on my own. Everyone in my classes uses Vectorworks and formZ. I don't know how much more awareness the architecture students have, since I have little contact with them.

4. What are the most important factors for students who have decided to learn ArchiCAD?
5. What are the most important factors for students who decide against learning ArchiCAD?

If it hadn't been for a few features that I thought were essential to helping me produce work at a reasonable pace (I'm quite slow), I would have totally bypassed Archicad because of the different file format for the student version vs the professional one. I ended up buying the commercial version, but most students can't even begin to afford to do that, and frankly, it's really been a gigantic waste of money, as I've had more versions now than I've had projects to do in it. I simply cannot justify it financially because it is so weak at general 3D modelling out of the box, even though I like the program a lot overall, but I now feel stuck.

It's also very frustrtating to know there are copies sitting on the computers at school, but I can't use them, and most especially, can't use them to print because of the different file formats. It's all well and good to be able to print to PDF, but I've found that that format mangles fills, and things just haven't looked quite right. It would simplify my life tremendously to be able to take a disk from my laptop to one of the school computers and just print or plot my file straight from AC or PM.

I also think it's very sad that any work a student produces on the student version, particularly any library parts that may be created, will be totally lost when the student license expires, and cannot be ported to the full commercial version. For this reason alone, I recommend *against* adopting the program as a student.

I've found it a lot harder to create objects than I ever expected, but I know most other students are more adept at these sorts of things than I. I think it's terrible to have built a library of details and objects during school and then have it not even usable.

Other programs simply make the transition from student to professional a lot easier. They seem to better understand that students turn into professional users, and better facilitate that transition by not setting up different file formats that are not compatible with one another.

I have the student version of every other graphics program that I use, and they are completely identical to the professional versions. The work I've done in them will never be lost, nor will the library of textures and objects I've built up, and I appreciate that.

6. As far as you know, do students of architecture submit their work in electronic format, or are free-hand drawings compulsory?

Neither. CAD drawings and 3D renderings are utilized for presentations, along with models. Hand drafting will no longer be taught at all starting with next year's entering class.

7. Is a working knowledge of ArchiCAD an advantage when looking for a job?

I don't know yet, but I certainly hope so after having invested so much money in the program and time learning it.

Wendy