ARCHICAD 20 Announced

[Laszlo Nagy]

See the official announcement here:

http://www.graphisoft.com/info/news/press_releases/archicad-20-a-fresh-look-at-bim.html

There are already a few clips that show what is new:

http://archicad.com/en/

[Ruben V]

laszlonagy wrote:

B.E.A.T. wrote:
Allas, the new (nice!) GUI means I'll need to retake 200+ screenshots for my BIM-handbook...

How about the almost 2000 screenshots found in the ARCHICAD Online Certification Exam? Or the several thousand screenshots of all ARCHICAD Reference materials? Someone at GRAPHISOFT has work cut out for them for months.
But I think it was time for ARCHICAD to get a new interface.

I totally agree - but I hope teacher will get access to V20 early enough...

[Jeff Kogut]

Not too impressed with the videos so far. Seemed like 90% of the videos are showing basic window navigation ("click on the column head to sort..."), if you need that level of introduction then maybe this is not the program for you. And new icons and customization that may break upon R21, or R23, release (i.e. more custom = more to break)?

I'm hoping for some real-world working drawing drafting enhancements. New Stair tool, new Windows which play nice, garage doors (a roll-up door?), and how about a complete refresh of the Objects to reflect what thousands of us are using instead of some of the dated stuff in the libraries. How about a driveway tool that follows the contours of a Mesh, you just specify the depth positive and minus in to the mesh? Now that would blow my mind!

It seems crazy that the thousands of end-users are messing around tweaking Objects daily instead of having Graphisoft take the lead and push out useful real-world objects. At least get major brand appliance and plumbing manufacturers on board. How about Simpson connectors (we have modeled some of their catalog in-house)?

Employing a single Graphisoft guy working on Objects all year would be awesome instead of having all the end users spending time on it. I'd look forward to that more than more Cinerender stuff or pretty interface stuff.

Overall, we are way more interested in lowering WD production time than more pretty stuff. We do decently complex homes but are gimping out our 3D models a bit to quicken the pace of getting them out the door. And there are never enough experienced AC users, so the lower threshold helps...but I digress.

I look forward to eating my words if some of this to be released!

[shtarkel]

Absolutely agree with you, Jeff Kogut!

[Anonymous]

Thanks Jeff, I am with you on this too.

[Stress Co_]

Jeff wrote:
and how about a complete refresh of the Objects to reflect what thousands of us are using instead of some of the dated stuff in the libraries.

+1

NeckoFromSarajevo wrote:
At the end, what to say...

Moo ?

[Anonymous]

I, like most users. would love to know what GS's priorities are and when we might expect to see the things we want. In reality, telling everyone what you are intending to do and when you are going to do it, is not feasible and would have many downsides. I do mostly residential and small commercial, so the stair tool and many of the objects are important to me, but I can see for large commercial firms their priorities could be very different. Not to mention that GS is used in many countries who may have different needs.

From what I can tell, the new interface and navigation refinements would be much more useful (to me) than some of the other things that have been mentioned.The new changes are systemwide and would hopefully aid productivity at every keystroke. I have never contributed a suggestion to the wish list because much more capable users have so many great suggestions. But, is it at all feasible to add color to the many lists and menus? I would be thrilled if I could color code just even the layers list!

As a user since 4.5 I have experienced the evolution of the AC over a long period of time. I really don't think the hard working people at GS think as poorly of their customers as some posters here seem to believe. I mean they do look like nice people in their pictures-nothing sinister as far as I can tell. Then again, if I don't get my color coded layers list, I might have to reconsider......

[Bricklyne Clarence]

Having a roadmap for what's expected to be addressed in upcoming versions (with no specific or hard dates) is not an unusual thing for software development firms to do.

In fact a lot of firms usually do it it these days and it's the sort of thing that companies do to let their customers know that their needs are being addressed, or at least will be in the near if not immediate future, in addition to placing the company themselves on a self-imposed and public scheduled timeline trying to hit their marks.

In addition to that it gives the customers a realistic picture of what can, will and is going to be addressed, versus those features which won't (for whatever reasons) allowing them to allocate their resources accordingly for upcoming versions in terms of when to upgrade or not.

As a simple example, if I know a particular tool will not be upgraded or improved in upcoming versions - a tool, for which I rely on third party solutions - I can schedule my upgrade cycles accordingly. Especially when you consider that third party add-ons and tools are not always upgraded in lock-step with new versions and that sometimes you're better off sticking with the older version until they work the bugs out.

I realize this isn't ideal for Graphisoft when customers elect not to upgrade their licenses, but you also have to look at it from the point of view of practitioners with limited resources and who have to factor in lost hours in trying to stretch out what we have available to us.
And being a company that has to operate with limited resources themselves, I would have expected that this is an area in which they would have been empathetic with (the vast majority of) their customers in.


I'm also at a loss to figure out how anyone would suggest that something like a Stair tool - and more specifically, improvements to the tool - wouldn't be beneficial to virtually all ArchiCAD users and who only have limited appreciation.
Virtually every single building (with the exception of single story buildings and houses) use stairs in them. And virtually very single firms (from large multinational firms to single-person shops) use either the stair tool or stairs at some point or another in their projects.

This is like one of the tools that there should be no debate about improvements on (and the necessity for such improvements). It boggles my mind that anyone would diminish the clamor for its improvement to any degree.

Ditto other more universal tools that are constantly hit up on for improvements like the door and window objects and custom GDL library object creation.

As has been said before, things like interface improvement are nice, but it's not going to save me as many man-hours in production as having an improved stair tool or vastly enhanced door and window tool would insofar as not having to resort to creating custom versions of these objects using Morphs or "slab-ifying" them, which in turn then can't even be kept in lock-step with the rest of the project due to not being parametric or parametrically editable.

Perhaps the developers are not intentionally or maliciously ignoring their users or these requests in lieu of following their own path, but the perception remains that they don't place that much importance on what their users' needs are.
And sometimes in life, perception is reality and perception is all that matters.

When people in life, and generally, get the sense that you are not listening to them, they typically stop talking and communicating with you.
This is human nature.
Who wants to talk to a brick wall?
And when they stop talking to you, they typically stop looking to you for solutions or using your products.

I mean, look at this forum, for an example.
5-10 years ago it used to be vibrant with primarily expert and veteran users constantly chiming in to help new users with issues and questions they had about the program.
Nowadays, unless a moderator decides to step in, a new user's question can linger with no one addressing it or wanting to address it, for weeks on end before it disappears down the list. And not that no one want to help them, but rather that no one is using the forum as much as they used to.
And that's just emblematic of a company that has broken communication channels with their users.


I'm sorry for the long rant.

But I (STILL) love using this program.
It just saddens me to see the way it's going - especially if you're one like those of us in a sea of Revit companies and users and constantly have to swim against the current.
It's become like watching the old tale of the Frog sitting in a saucepan with slowly boiling water as it sits quietly and boils to death, and there's nothing anyone can (or wants) to do about it.

Edit : This isn't aimed at anyone specific or in particular.
It's just a collection of thoughts and feelings I've had since GS announced this new version. I didn't want to comment too much on this too soon, but I think I'm going to switch off for the moment and let these be my last thoughts on the matter for a little while.

[Anonymous]

Bricklyne wrote:
But I (STILL) love using this program.
It just saddens me to see the way it's going - especially if you're one like those of us in a sea of Revit companies and users and constantly have to swim against the current.
It's become like watching the old tale of the Frog sitting in a saucepan with slowly boiling water as it sits quietly and boils to death, and there's nothing anyone can (or wants) to do about it.

Does anyone know of any rough figures or percentages ACAD vs REVIT users ?
just interested.

[Anonymous]

ARCHICAD may need to be split off to the Solo users who just do low rise residential and who do not need to use or load Teamwork.

I don't really want to hear about the crippled version that has no Cina Render in it either. Some users like me could not give two hoots about overkill, Rhino and Grasshopper connections etc, as we just don't use them. We pay full price for the program and upgrades that we just don't use. These features are mainly for the commercial world only.

In the end the small end of town needs to be taken care of proplerly too. I say create a branch of ARCHICAD residential and dedicate resources to help the program develop more specifically for us now that we have reached version 20

[Jeff Kogut]

Good thoughts Bricklyne Clarence.

I think the way for ArchiCAD to rule is to make drafters love it, want it instead of Revit as a drafting tool. Sure, that includes 3D and usability. However, addressing core tools and the library will keep the silent masses of AC users happy.

So far I've cross-trained 3 novice users of Revit to ArchiCAD (ahem, the lack of ArchiCAD user issue) and they all love ArchiCAD. After a week of AC they noted how they liked it better than Revit, so I think AC has the advantage in usability. But, GS, let's address those long-standing AC issues that everyone has griped about for years. Less sexy than Cinerender and interface stuff, but it keeps everyone happy using the program daily.