Open Source Tools / Open BIM

[Anonymous]

This discussion gets very interesting. I sense a lot of frustration from ArchiCAD user community. I also share that frustration and it is less about terrible new ArchiCAD release and more about diminishing faith that ArchiCAD is the best industry solution for the next x years.
Just a thought that maybe the reality of feasible business model for professional software companies is shifting and Graphisoft (Nemetschek) are too big to be able to adapt.

In many other professional fields new software packages that are super affordable (or free of charge) challenge the giants. Film post-production industry is a good example. New release of Davinci Resolve is equally good (better?) than Adobe Premier and it is completely free. We have Blender in 3D modeling business that in many areas outshines 3D Studio Max and it is completely free!
I am sure there are other cases among different professional fields that pave the way to new business models that will push professional software development further on.

Maybe sooner or later we might expect a new kid on the block that will change the game. What do you think about that?

[jan_filipec]

Duncan wrote:

Podolsky wrote:
No. There is no open source extensions. Standard GDL library is open. Some users can open their GDL scripts. ...

"open" in what way? Could someone make a FreeCAD Workbench that exported GDL scripts to define ArchiCAD objects?

See also the discussion here https://community.osarch.org/discussion/comment/4155/#Comment_4155
Well, the part of a GDL object ("3D script") that desribes 3D objects is fairly straightforward, I don't think it would be very hard to build a GDL exporter for that. There are also other scripts in every GDL object, most importantly a 2D script and a Parameter script, which are not so simple. But I think this concept would simply translate into a more general "representation scripts" - building a Freecad workbench for defining linked parametric representations is a cool idea. It would be more or less a twin to Revit's family editor.

What Podolsky says about global variables is of course true, simply put, interacting with other objects is where things get complicated. So building a nice window geometry that works both in FreeCAD, Archicad and Revit should be fairly easy, on the other hand making it correctly react to the wall it is placed in would require a very precisely tailored translator.

[Anonymous]

What Speckle is doing is fantastic, but it's not so much openbim as it is software interoperability. But I'm sure that will change with time if it isn't already. I know they are working on connections to blender and freecad so that would tale proprietary bim over to opensource openbim which will be great.

[Podolsky]

Duncan wrote:
What Speckle is doing is fantastic, but it's not so much openbim as it is software interoperability. But I'm sure that will change with time if it isn't already. I know they are working on connections to blender and freecad so that would tale proprietary bim over to opensource openbim which will be great.

Yes it looks cool. I've found this interesting software. Very little information about it: https://bimserver.org/
Maybe Speckle is using code of BIM server or it's two completely different developments?

Returning to GDL - there are several technologies. First - User Interface script. It's really user friendly, simple to design and this is where ArchiCAD is winning all another platforms - by having programmable UI that is as simple as HTML and having result very close as building small web-page for each object. It's perfect solution for BIM object libraries.
Then global variables of the project and requests. Some related to project settings, project info databases (as names and contacts of file creators, site address and many more including custom defined, file attributes - as access to information about layer name, pen sets, material colour. Also sea level, additional level references, information about storey, position in relation to project global zero and so on. And at last - Model View Option requests. Model View Option also set as GDL object with programmable UI, where users can set parameters for all objects globally - for example level of details.

I like GDL technology, because it's really simple for user. The language itself Basic-like - and it's very good for architects, who are not planning to be professional programmers and for example don't plan to learn Python or C, but can produce their own libraries for running projects.

[Podolsky]

I forgot to mention that GDL also can make requests to txt and xml files, that suppose to be in project library. Some advanced tools on GDL actively using this system. Using this Add-on user can write / read data in / from txt / xml file, building this way primitive database, that can be exchangeable with another GDL objects.

[leceta]

"Maybe Speckle is using code of BIM server or it's two completely different developments?"

no, speckle team (mainly D.Stefanescu and M.Cominetti) has developed their own platform. Speckle is python friendly, but still of very limited use in ArchiCAD given the current short-sighted implementation of AC's python API (who knows if this could change, but I'm skeptical)

The only problem that Rhino and Grasshopper are commercial product. There is Grasshopper copy called Sverchok on Blender currently under development.

not mix open source with non-profit. Indeed McNeeel, the company behind Rhino/Grasshopper, is developing open source technology/tools. (e.g. OpenNurbs, is as you can guess, open source, Hops is an open source project (that, BTW, has the potential to give archicad user a what is closed on Rhino is all the complex geometrical operations that their API does in top of OpenNurbs) This way of working is perfectly compatible with the idea of open BIM, and in my opinion, it's exactly how it should be put in practice. Interchangeable Open standards used to build value added software tools, which let people earn money with their labour. Instead of openNurbs I could be talking about IFC schema and the rest of standards that Building Smart is getting to the dispose of the industry.
Then, I don't share the opinion that a product being commercial is a problem "per se" for the goals of open bim.
Graphisoft, well nemetscheck, could follow the path of Rhino, and make whatever is at their hand to spread their core technology, in that case GDL, as much as possible. For example, a Python GDL wrapper seems both good for Archicad users, and for external collaboratos...

As a curiosity, GDL is supported by Allplan from Nemetscheck...

saludos from a spanish architect