MEP 27 - The New Feature that never happened

[DGSketcher]

Can someone from Graphisoft please step up and own the current abject failure to deliver the renewed MEP Modeller?

Today I joined the many others who have had to return to using AC26 in order to deliver on our MEP commitments.

We all pay out for GS to deliver improvements to AC, yet here we are 7 months later with a key feature broken & software we can't use. Can someone at least tell us what we can expect in terms of delivery of fixing this MEP debacle and when?

It's bad enough struggling with the 3D screen "grey outs", and the disappointment of new features that suddenly became experimental, but finding a fundamental tool is no longer useable... 🙄

[FredMind]

Hello

Just to butt in.

I have been using Archicad since version 8. I am a building services engineer.

No MEP then but when they released it I took it up immediately as a stand alone add-on.

I forget which version they added it but now on AC20 and haven't bothered to upgrade because for over 10 years Graphisoft did nothing to upgrade the functionality of MEP and whilst I have trialed AC25 - there is still no improvement although it works in a functioning way that I can get around.

I have just run a one day test on a trial version of AC27 and the MEP in that sucks.

Here are a few of the major issues found:

• When doing say a duct route with various changes - like a bend, transition etc., the whole route is grouped and it is not possible  to "break" the route into individual elements for individual editing. For example I may wish to change a straight duct piece into a transition but there is no facility for that - or I may want to delete one small section of duct at the end of the route but because it is "grouped" I can't. "Grouped" may be the wrong term but it explains what all the components of any one route appears to be.
• Second issue is associated with worksheets. There has never been a facility in archicad to create MEP objects in a worksheet but there has always been the ability to copy MEP objects from a plan view into a worksheet. I specifically do this to create legends. Now in MEP 27, MEP objects will not paste into a worksheet so I cannot now create legends.
• duct labels just do not work

MEP 27 may have been "improved" from an architectural point of view but these two issues are fundamental to MEP engineers and obviously reluctant to upgrade if there is no work around.

Quite honestly, I am getting pressured to switch to Revit and if Graphisoft really want to compete in the BIM world they had better get their act together very, very quickly.

[FredMind]

Hello DGS

I just tried what you said and agree. None of the piping functionality works anymore.

GS have removed flexibility for component adjustment.

They have even removed the "Offset" adjustment in pipe transformers so that we could have the size transition on the bottom of the pipe.

There are so many other areas of functionality they have removed such as branch length on square duct bends. All there is now is a few selections of % which is inadequate in the real world.

If I dived deeper I could probably find a lot more but I don't have the time.

[DGSketcher]

And probably the saddest part of the rewrite is it will be being carried out by a team with little or no real world experience in delivering the required designs & documentation. I am happy to be corrected if that isn't true, provided its supported with hard evidence rather than Marketing posting a misleading line like "MEP2 has been designed by our in-house experts"

[gpowless]

I retired last year but continued to upgrade my license until version 27 BETA. I have been using ARCHICAD from V6.0 AND MEP for housing since it was first introduced. The writing on the wall that they were going to mess with the MEP module was when they came out with the new MEP label in BETA v25. When I submitted that there were problems the answer I got was "that it the way it is going to be" as if questioning a coder was a cardinal sin.

I didn't just use MEP for pretty modelling just to show the client, but for real world calculations for permitting and contract drawings submitted for the contractor to construct. I was not only an licensed Architectural Technology designer but a licensed HVAC, and On-site sewage system designer. Nothing I have seen in 26 or 27 advances that reality and had I not been retiring (and then retired) I would not have gone past AC26. AC27 MEP is a failure and promises of fixing it "soon" is a lame excuse. 

My suggestion would be for Graphisoft to roll back the entire AC27 MEP and reinstall MEP 26 in its entirety. If you don't think that this has validity just think back to EnergyStar introduction. Although promised, back when it was first introduced it still does not have real world application that can be submitted for permits in Canada and US.

[Jim Allen]

I agree entirely - but I think it's the same for the architectural toolset.

Development appears to have been driven by people who aren't architects, who are but don't practice, have never practised or practised a long time ago.

If you look at the tools that have been introduced recently - I think it's difficult to conclude anything else isn't it?

The new AI visualisation tool is pretty pointless.

AI can do some cool stuff, and creating automated parking layouts would be a much more useful tool for that technology.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Since this is the team that decided that when you change the width of a cabinet the handles should move away from the opening and have not fixed that in the last 3 versions.

Does it surprise us that they have no idea how architectural documentation works?

[Jim Allen]

There's no way that would have been a conscious decision. That would have been a parametric glitch. If you have ever built parametric objects you will know that you need to test all different configurations of them, because certain situations can really screw up configuration.

You can test an object with a certain set of parameters and it works just fine. Change the parameters in some particular ways and your geometry can be broken.

I'm absolutely certain that's what happened - that will have been a bug caused by an oversight.

[Eduardo Rolon]

When does a bug that has been reported multiple times during the last 3 releases and has not been fixed stops been an oversight?

😉

[Stewie11]

Increasingly, I think it was deliberate on the part of GS to ruin the use of MEP. Buy DDScad if you want to model engineering.
I can't believe that so retarded a person would work there who said it's fine and go ahead and upgrade. Even if you have no experience with the MEP system. As usual no one has the backbone to come out and admit "sorry we messed this up and rushed it, we'll revert to the previous version until the upgrade is complete". You don't get more than "sorry there are bugs in it", you won't get more than that....
As a company manager I too have to consider switching to another application, we are actively learning about Revit in the coming months. This may have been our last ArchiCAD update. I know that not having 15 license upgrades is of no real concern to them, but if they keep going at this rate, more and more companies will find themselves in similar predicaments.

[JaredBanks]

The cabinet issues and this MEP problem are quintessential GRAPHISOFT, especially over the past decade. There's this great idea and then it gets to at best 80% complete. And that last missing 20% is a real killer.

To step back from justifiable frustration for a moment, Design Options (especially now that they fixed a major bug in the latest update where duplicating options with dimensions crashed Archicad) are phenomenal and one of the best new features GRAPHISOFT has added in a long, long time. There's still a lot that I hope will be added, but it's definitely transforming my process.