Archicad 14 New Features

[Dennis Lee]

See what's on youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/user/Archicad#g/c/5C1926DD91A70C7B

Personally, not much in it for me at all!

[Ralph Wessel]

Achille wrote:
We alredy had to get rid of G5 mac because of AC13, now we will be forced to ditch all non-64 bit Intells for AC 15?

There are not many Intel Macs incapable of running 64-bit. By August 2007, all shipping Macs were 64-bit capable.

[owen]

Ralph wrote:

Achille wrote:
We alredy had to get rid of G5 mac because of AC13, now we will be forced to ditch all non-64 bit Intells for AC 15?

There are not many Intel Macs incapable of running 64-bit. By August 2007, all shipping Macs were 64-bit capable.

Yes only the earliest laptop processors were 32-Bit .. AFAIK Mac Intel desktop processors have all been 64-bit?

3 years is a reasonable timeframe to replace a laptop. Still, Graphisoft should not be forcing people off relatively recent hardware without good reason.

Being the programmer Ralph do you have any insight as to why they would be going 64-bit only on the Mac side? AC14 is starting to show they are well along the road to rewriting AC in Cocoa (its a subtle difference but using it you can feel its a little more Mac-like). But Cocoa obviously supports both, and there is nothing else in the current OS that would be forcing them into 64-bit only (is there?).

[owen]

sinceV6 wrote:
If GS wants to improve AC, in my opinion they should look into:
1. Database parametric engine: In Revit, you really have live views of a single database. If you have several views open and select a door in one of them, it gets selected in other views, and changes are realtime. In AC, you may have a plan view and a section view opem, but they are not live and connected, and get updated only after you click on the other view. Even worse: AC bases almost everything on the floor plan, so while in Revit you click in a section view and the software responds like "the user selected a door", AC works like "the user has clicked a point in a section view, in the coordinate x=2 y=1.8, which based on the floor plan and elevation data, corresponds to an area enclosed by a door, so, the user has clicked on a door: select it".
2. Remove the 80's thinking about software: if sketchup and revit can make components and families without programming knowledge, why AC can't do it?
3. Improve the model->view->layout->publish work model. It is a great strength of the software: take advantage of it.
4. GUI. AC has a GUI that you HAVE to learn. Once you get it, you get it; but if you analize it... well... you'll see it lacks a lot. The features about the work environment are awesome. Export and import workspaces, and set them with a few clicks is FANTASTIC!. But the rest of the GUI is just confusing, in the sense that it lacks consistency. I mean, open up and compare the settings window for walls, doors, columns, slabs, zones, dimensions, levels, text, lines, grids, etc... and you'll see. Yes... there are some elements of consistency, but in general you have to dig into every window to know where a parameter is. Revit's GUI is not that good either, but the simplistic manner in which it shows properties (like a spreadsheet), makes it easy to learn, instead of learning a different window for each tool. You know what I mean.
5. Listen to the userbase/clients. You may come up with ideas to implement on the software, based on technology and new standards. That just gets you halfway. The userbase/clients is where the software gets tested and used in real life situations. That's the other half that's missing. Autodesk already learned this lesson. Just look at the complete transformation they're doing with 3ds max.

Agree 100% .. Great post in general but excellent summary of the major areas Graphisoft needs to address.

[Anonymous]

oreopoulos wrote:
Buy Revit and migrate there...

Yes do it.

[Anonymous]

NeckoFromSarajevo wrote:
my Revit 2011 DVD is on the way . . .

good idea! At least, you did what you should have done a looong time ago.

[Anonymous]

BTW, I am clearly disappointed with modelling tools and interface improvements (just what I got from the list).
Seems to me that direct interoperability with structural software (Allplan, Revit structure, SCIA, Tekla) is the big point. Let's check that.

[Ralph Wessel]

owen wrote:
do you have any insight as to why they would be going 64-bit only on the Mac side?

Technically they could do both, but in practice I think it would be a poor choice. If you maintain 32 and 64-bit versions, there will always be the risk that something will go wrong as projects move between them. For example, the 64-bit version will allow projects to grow to a size that the 32-bit version cannot open. And there will always be scope for very subtle bugs arising from the different word sizes as binary data is read/written.

GS has chosen to do both for Windows, but only because that market is in a bit of a shambles. MS have chosen to release their OS in a baffling line-up, some 32-bit and some 64, and many have chosen to hold onto plain-vanilla 32-bit XP because more recent versions of Windows didn't seem to offer compelling advantages or were incompatible with existing hardware/software. The result is that many can only run 32-bit software. I'm sure that GS would otherwise go for 64-bit only on Windows too.

Conversely, all contemporary Macs are capable of running 64-bit and the Mac OS is entirely 64-bit capable. For example, I'm currently using a MacBook Pro from Dec 06 and it's happily running 64-bit software under Snow Leopard. By the time AC15 arrives, it will be around 4.5 years old. I'd rather see some investment in improving the UI on the Mac version rather than maintaining a 32-bit version (for the few who still need it).

[Achille Pavlidis]

OK it is true that most Intel macs are 64 bit, and the fact that the porting of Archicad to Cocoa has been delayed so much, is just another reason for considering AC 14 a mere 13.1

[Anonymous]

YO Philippe

It looks like REVIT name hurts you a lot

You will have chance to see REVIT in action cos my plan is to post it here on this forum. You will be able to see REVIT in action comparing to ARCHICAD. I will try to draw some roofs, profiles, free form object, stairs, walls, print, workflow and speed. Then you will see that your stubborn view on software is worng. You act like you are from GS which is cool cos they dont say NOTHING for years !

You think that i enjoy and that i have time to change software ????
Im here for a long time, old school user but i defintily dont see reason why should i update to AC14. Its good to see that you are dissaponted too, that means that you belive what you see and you will not get nothing with AC14 that will improve your architectural practice.

At the end you should say thx Necko for your effort to open my stubborn view and thx Necko for showing me what competition do on other BIM software.

[Anonymous]

Hear some people are insinuating about the presence of AC14 I had felt it was something that was not deserved.
So I hope that the presence of AC15 have to make a severe blow to some users who started to elevate what is displayed Revit. It should.