So i wasted 3 hours and checked if it is any better and the result are below.
Why Archicad 29 Is Not Suitable for Work
– No oval ventilation ducts.
– Connection splitting problems. Everything is drawn as a continuous chain, so you can’t just delete a single segment easily — you have to cut it manually, which is imprecise and time-consuming.
– No parameter editing for tees. They are generated automatically and their parameters are locked, so you can’t create custom tees (e.g. 20/15/15). In Archicad 25, you could still make your own objects — maybe not perfectly, but at least there were some workarounds. Here, there are none (or I haven’t found any).
– No control over branch height in tees. The outlet position generates automatically, and all its parameters are locked. (It can only be changed in the route specification, but that affects all tees in the entire system.)
– Most MEP objects (ducts, pipes, tees, etc.) are closed-source (from MEP routing tool perspective). You can’t simply add or modify something, because it breaks functionality. Creating custom objects is very difficult and usually causes crashes or other issues.
– Element movement is unreliable. The “offset object” option (shown below) appears only in specific cases. Normally, you have to use “change position – move”, which later breaks connections, causing issues like the ones shown below.
– Strange glitches happen sometimes, e.g. a move point gets locked somewhere and you can’t add a node or move anything, because it automatically snaps to a random 2D/3D point.
– After switching to flanged connections, some elements stop responding. For example, I set the entire route to be insulated, yet one element ignores the parameter completely. Sometimes flanges don’t appear at all.
– You can’t change the flange width, only its diameter.
– When inserting two elbows using the new “double elbow” function and the connections are flanged, the result looks completely unrealistic - there should be 1 flanged and 1 not just like connection works in real life.
– Sometimes things just break — even with the same diameter, inserting a tee can produce something like this (see image).
– Valves can’t be rotated. The ones in the default library always insert in one plane only.
– The “two elbows from one” function doesn’t always work properly — sometimes strange things happen.
– Material reports are still made mainly for architects.
They’ve improved it slightly, and with some effort and templates you can make it work to a degree, but it’s still so complicated that it was easier for me to understand Archicad’s C++ API than to get precise material quantities here.
My solution written for Archicad 25 in 150h using the C++ API (with copilot and grok help) works far better.
Pros
– Drawing on crosssections and pipe connection suggestions sometimes work surprisingly well.
– 2D ducts (e.g. 140×51) maintain their height and width correctly when direction changes to 51×140 — I couldn’t break this with the new MEP tool even though I tried.
- they think about things like callculating air supply etc.. but i didnt have time or will to try it out (so i don know meabe its superb) becouse basic functions dont do what it should.
Still looking?
