Hey folks, some thoughts from Bentley for your consideration: I’m not trying to convert anyone here with this post, and trust that you all love Archicad (it’s good stuff) but just want to make sure you get a fuller story on this topic…
I'm not sure of the details you seem to be experiencing, but am surprised at them. Bentley's BIM solutions for Architecture, Structural and MEP Engineering all support a host of import and export types, including exceptional DWG support, and
IFC 2.0 IFC2x2 and IFC2x3. We've done many tests (including with Archicad) in coordination with IFC consumers such as the US GSA, and with other 3rd party solutions such as Solibri Model Checker and have consistent high fidelity in our IFC import and export. Our CAD file format support for import/export (including DWG) is very strenuously tested both internally by our QA folks, and continuously in real world use by many thousands of users. We are very confident that there is no better support in any application for DWG R-14 though 2006 available anywhere (including from Autodesk). In fact MicroStation generated DWG files are even identified as a ‘Trusted DWG’ when opened in AutoCAD. This isn’t really surprising since (other than Autodesk) Bentley is the largest developer in the world of applications running on top of AutoCAD and using the DWG file format.
If it helps in your workflow, you may be interested to know that aside from IFC, DGN and DWG
we also support DXF, STEP, IGES, STL, SketchUP, Google Earth, and PDF (with 3d and animations).
I would suggest you contact the support folks at Graphisoft, who I gather are quite helpful, and see if they can resolve this for you. Clearly MicroStation makes proper DGN files, and DWG files so I suspect the problem is in the Archicad import functions or the procedures you’re using. (
I know that sounds like passing the buck…)
Lastly, and I’m
not
trying to sneak a sales pitch into this site, but if you find you are interfacing with DGN regularly, you may want a copy of our BIM solutions to help you with that and to gain you access to our technical support team. We are offering special pricing to Archicad users through December, see
www.bentley.com/bim and click on ‘special offer’. Also, whoever is making the DGN files is a Bentley user and could contact our support team.
I hope this all helps, we certainly want BIM users to easily and effectively communicate regardless of your chosen authoring tool. With Bentley BIM formats being mandated by so many building owner and government organizations it is in our interest to facilitate these information exchanges. (I don’t expect to monitor this thread, so if you have further thoughts or questions please contact us at
bim@bentley.com). Thanks for reading.
