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Modeling
About Archicad's design tools, element connections, modeling concepts, etc.

BIM details.. what a pain in the ass

Anonymous
Not applicable
I am attempting to completely model a house, I want to stay away from exploding and drawing in 2D, because I'm fed up with BIM not living upto expectations. I had an issue this weekend which made me realise that BIM still has a long way to come, unless I'm missing A LOT. sure, it's great that you can show someone in a sales pitch how quickly you can draw four walls, a hip roof, throw a window and door in there and render it.. WOW, I'm sold (but I'm not so much anymore) There are so many details that seem to be such an arduous task to complete but yet would be considered essential to what a true BIM model should be. I am by no means an expert in ArchiCAd, so I'm hoping to be won back with your replies to this post.

In my ranting state I'm sure that much of what I've said doesnt make sense, so let me put an example to it. I put a window in a wall, a very simple single hung casement window out of the andersen window library, and I want to put a brick row-lock under the window.. how do you do it? sure I could draw a little piece of wall there and make it look like a row-lock, but in my opinion that's not the point of BIM, the row-lock is part of the wall, thus it should be modeled as such. I get so sick of work-arounds, and "well this LOOKS right", and I'm sure theres accesories and add-ons I could BUY to do this, but in my opinion that's a bunch of bull5hit I should NOT have to pay thousands of dollars for an architectural modeling programme, and then run out and pay another 5000 dollars for 12 different add-ons to be able to make proper stairs, decent windows, wall cladding, doors, skylights, landscaping.. ArchiCAd should bloody well do these things out of the box, I know this has been said so many times, and it's so frustrating to me to see that nothing is being done about the problem wether in ArchiCAd Revit, whatever.. I know that I'll end up staying with ArchiCAD, but AC10 better damn well be a stunning piece of software.. or I'm just gonna lose it.

Maybe I'm way off base and theres a bunch of simplet things that I'm over looking that are causing me to have problems like this, but It just seems to be so incredibly ineffecient to completely model a house, when BIM is supposed to make everything so much more efficient, theres times when I hoenstly feel like I could hand draught a house faster than someone coulde model it in a BIM programme. (I'd also like everyone to know that ,with the exceptions of the add-on rant, I think all the BIM programmes out there are equally lacking in this area of modelling, not just AC)

someone help me.....
convince me that BIM isn't a clusterfsck of endless work-arounds and addons, to make things "look" correct, rather than be correct.. which is the entire point of BIM...

cheers,
Daniel

PS. It's monday and I haven't had a fag today, sorry if that all came out a little harsh.

PSS... apparently f.ag is censored.. I haven't had a cigarette today.
31 REPLIES 31
TomWaltz
Participant
The brick object that comes in the Archicad library is not what you wanted?

Why would you spend $5000 on addons? What in the world did you buy?
rowlock.jpg
Tom Waltz
Anonymous
Not applicable
I haven't bought any add-ons, I was saying that there senough out there that you could. and darn you tom for ansering my questiong in 2 minutes, when I've been losing my mind for three days, and it took me 6 minutes to type the question.
Anonymous
Not applicable
and unfortunately no that doesn't work due to the fact that for some reason, unless it's another thing I'm overlooking Archicad doesnt allow you to pivot something on a horizontal pivot line, and the row-lock needs to slope down, away fromt he window...

cheers,
dan
Anonymous
Not applicable
Daniel wrote:
I haven't bought any add-ons, I was saying that there senough out there that you could. and darn you tom for ansering my questiong in 2 minutes, when I've been losing my mind for three days, and it took me 6 minutes to type the question.

Daniel,
You can also use the windows from the special addition SE9 library. They have parameters for brick headers and sills

Dan K
Anonymous
Not applicable
I've been afraid to try the SE library for fear f crashes, etc, but I'll give it a go.

cheers,
dan
Anonymous
Not applicable
Just short reply to the main part of your post:
Daniel wrote:
...I should NOT have to pay thousands of dollars for an architectural modeling programme, and then run out and pay another 5000 dollars for 12 different add-ons to be able to make proper stairs, decent windows, wall cladding, doors, skylights, landscaping.. ArchiCAd should bloody well do these things out of the box...
Agree (except of prices )!

GS plays around main concept of AC - BIM. Ok, thank's for that GS! But, please hear us, architects. At first we need many other small tools, comfortable Interface, etc.; independent from project type (just look in wish list).

ps.: very often add-ons also don't help!
TomWaltz
Participant
You should see what I do to the people in-house 😉
Tom Waltz
TomWaltz
Participant
Z.Bauer wrote:
ps.: very often add-ons also don't help!
That's a BIG point. Some add-ons sound really good until you get them and actually try to use them.

Most add-ons are made to address a pretty specific need, and if your need is a LITTLE off, it may not work.

The more add-ons I buy the more jaded I get. There are only a few that I have bought, run through the ringer, and still would recommend a year later.
Tom Waltz
Anonymous
Not applicable
I've just downloaded and installed the SE9 library, and the winows in this library, although I will agree are better, still do not have a brick row-lock option, they do have a built in masonry arch option, but I need a row lock, at the bottom of the window. Am I overlooking something, or am I hunting for something that isn't there.

cheers,
dan