BIM details.. what a pain in the ass

[Anonymous]

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.

[Seiss Wagner]

I agree with everything you have said about add-on's, your shouldn't need them.

When downoading the Special Edition library you should also take the time to download the instructions: http://www.graphisoft.com/support/archicad/downloads/library_updates/usaSE.html , > Installallation > "AC9 Special Editon Library Manual", and of course read it.

Set your wall type in the General tab to brick veneer, go to the Brick V. tab and you will see your rowlock brick sill with a half dozen or so adjustments.

Having lost my favorite add-on "DoorWindow Builder" to an upgrade bug I have been forced in the last month to beome an expert in the door / window section of the SE9 Library. Be careful, the library is littered with landmines and it has many inconsistencies. For example: you can't make a dry wall return without head and jamb casings, probably the most common trim detail used in the USA without forcing jamb extension to a fraction above zero. Be very careful about entering zeros anywhere, zero = bomb. When you remove the jamb and head casings you will notice, when projecting interior elevations, a line above your window head on casement window objects. This line repersents your rough opening setting found in the General tab. It shows on the head, but not on the jambs. However, don't set the rough opening to zero, guess what - Bomb? The list goes on and on and on.

I agree with Z. Bauer, the basic development of ArchiCAD is good, but good tools to do simple everyday functions, with all their variations, like stairs, door and windows don't exist, but I think the SE9 Library for doors and windows is a step in the right direction. Graphisoft needs to put more effort into perfecting tools to do everyday chores simply and get off the GDL mantra which most working professionals don't have time for.

[Anonymous]

This looks like a USA users topic, but i say my opinion
I suppose we want to make the model of our plan as realistic as we can, just to have
perfect 3D views.If we try to achieve this, at all cost ,we lost the point
As engineer (at least me) i don't care so much about beautiful and realistic pictures.
I care more for the plans and sections/elevations, if they are ok, everything is ok.
Of course somebody will say "why don't you use AutoCAD then"
My answer is "search this forum and you shall find the answer"

With a CAD/BIM program you can't represent(model) the reality(real buildings) at 100%
You can't describe the real world with mathematics.("THE MATRIX" is only a movie):D

To Daniel S:Why don't you use the detail tool to make a detail drawing

[Jere]

Daniel wrote:
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

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread. During my fruitless search for an answer to how to model a wall with brick on the lower half and stucco on the upper half I came across this thread and Daniel conveys my feelings exactly. My very small firm just made a large commitment to switch to ArchiCAD. In general I absolutely love the program. But I am growing increasingly tired of all the workarounds that are needed; especially when listening to the new guy in our office who has some experience in Revit. The fact that it is so difficult to model a single wall with different claddings is absolutely ridiculous and, in my opinion, completely inexcusable. After all, isn't ArchiCAD a program in which we model buildings? What could be more fundamental than having a wall with different claddings? How many times do we run across walls where every skin in the composite extend to exactly the same height? Never? Rarely?

And please don't tell me GDL or Add-ons are the answer. We just paid thousands of dollars for the software and, quite frankly, are not interested in paying more for something that should be inherent in the program.

I'm not delusional; I don't expect any program to be perfect or satisfy all my needs without some workarounds, but it is very disheartening that such fundamental functions do not exist.

Sorry for the aggressive tone, i'm just not a happy camper right now.

[TomWaltz]

Jere wrote:
During my fruitless search for an answer to how to model a wall with brick on the lower half and stucco on the upper half

In Archicad 10, it's one of the primary new features.

[Anonymous]

TomWaltz wrote:

Jere wrote:
During my fruitless search for an answer to how to model a wall with brick on the lower half and stucco on the upper half

In Archicad 10, it's one of the primary new features.

But it is possible just for simple wall (not for round wall)
That means, walls through profile-manager must be combined with round wall.
For this job one must have nice experience with AC.
We need generally many exchange of skill with this not perfect profile-manager (If it should be wall) without criticizing AC.

[Jere]

TomWaltz wrote:
In Archicad 10, it's one of the primary new features.

I have a demo of AC10. How would I accomplish this? By using the complex wall profile selection?

[TomWaltz]

Jere wrote:

TomWaltz wrote:
In Archicad 10, it's one of the primary new features.

I have a demo of AC10. How would I accomplish this? By using the complex wall profile selection?

Yes, you would use the Profiled walls. The profile walls work by drawing fills in section view then extruding them along a path. They allow horizontal and vertical "stretch zones" so that you can make walls that are taller/shorter or thicker/thinner based on the wall's parameters.

I just got done making walls that have sill and top plates in them... very cool.

[SeaGeoff]

I can sympathize with both sides of this argument. The pace of change is agonizingly slow, especially with regard to our own pet issues (e.g. Core Only display option, good stair tool). But the undertaking is enormously complex and necessitates choices that I'm sure are as painful to Graphisoft as they are to us.

That said, as someone is currently taking a hard look at the ArchiCAD 10 doors and windows (US and INT), I agree that GDL development is lacking. The potential is there for these objects to accurately represent every common door and window found worldwide at small and medium scales. The fact that so many graphic and geometric mistakes persist even in the latest libraries suggests that the programmers simply do not know how these symbolic representations should look. Graphisoft needs to work more closely with people who do, architects and builders. GDL is one of ArchiCAD's great strengths, it should be more fully exploited.

[Anonymous]

Granted AC10 does solve a lot of these problems, I've had the opportunity to use it and the complex profiler is a great tool that fixes many of AC9's shortcomings, but it's still going to be awhile before the majority of AC users are using AC10 because it can be cost prohibitive, so the gripe still stands.. and even with AC10 there are still some things that you cant do properly (see: barrel vault roof thread). Hopefully by AC3456 we'll be able to actually model a building properly

cheers,
Daniel

PS: jere; were in Canada are you located?

[TomWaltz]

Daniel wrote:
Granted AC10 does solve a lot of these problems, I've had the opportunity to use it and the complex profiler is a great tool that fixes many of AC9's shortcomings, but it's still going to be awhile before the majority of AC users are using AC10 because it can be cost prohibitive, so the gripe still stands.. and even with AC10 there are still some things that you cant do properly (see: barrel vault roof thread). Hopefully by AC3456 we'll be able to actually model a building properly

cheers,
Daniel

PS: jere; were in Canada are you located?

Yeah, but now you could make a barrel vault out of a profile wall/beam.