This is our chance...to bring Autodesk to their knees...

[ares997]

We have a very short window in time and space, and now we have more than enough ammunition to take down goliath. If you think about it...David brought down the giant with technology. It wasn't because he was necessarily smaller than the giant, but more inventive, better long reaching technology, an eye for understanding the means and methods for getting the job done in his current market. That is what Graphisoft has gave us yesterday, though it might not be in our hot little hands. We the Archicad Marines need to start making some frakin' noise out their.

This is the point at which we can sit in our cubicles and say, umm I'm not really sure if it is what I think it is...when it is more than you could have ever dream of.

Ironically enough Autodesk yesterday started to buckle, as well as said that they would be offering inventor as a free download, "no kidding."

Come on guys there should be at least a blog each from all you loyalist who have been here since the beginning. This is our house now go out and take the gorilla by the balls to take him out.

Even with AC12 and AC11 we were still way ahead of the curve and have always been, now let's start sending info to WIRED.COM, ENGADET.COM , USA TODAY, CNN, ETC. Graphisoft has put a lot into this release. Testing it throughly, making sure it works with Snow Leopard (which is why they delayed the release until yesterday, considering Snow Leopard was on Friday so that gives GS 30+ days to get it ready for the MAC kids out there.)

The Graphisoft Team has not only change the rules about what can be done in a yearly release cycle, they have change what will the future be for us.

Graphisoft's "biggest not-so-secret weapon is its staff of developers [who] focus enormous talent on a niche, which Westerners can't match."
Jonathan B. Levine, Business Week, USA

"It's passion, and a good deal of business sense, that helped turn Graphisoft into a global player."
The Wall Street Journal

We are a team based all over the world and need to act like one more now then ever.

This has happened a few times before
1. The cpu and drafting in a machine
2. Going 3d
3. Going Parametric + GDL
4. Going BIM
5. Going in with the DELTA SERVER

If you can imagine what this could mean even outside this industry it is far reaching.

Get out there and make some noise.

Please don't hesitate. We need to start scaring the investors of AUTODESK today and now we have our $5k keys ringing in their ears.

We have ECO designer, we have VBE, we have MEP, our company, our team has brought us the weapons within this year that dominates all other products out there.

Pull your fingers out of your ears and start emailing, witting blogs, witting your congressmen, telling your friends, telling your enemies that we are coming for them one seat at a time.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

Priceless. Thanks for sharing these. Much more professional that the ones I first saw.

And Excel has a Ribbon Interface. Take that Revit users! You should be shaking in your boots. Give up. The BIM War is over.

[Anonymous]

Aaron wrote:
[....]

And Excel has a Ribbon Interface. Take that Revit users! You should be shaking in your boots. Give up. The BIM War is over.

But wait! There's more: For professionals not wanting the ribbon menus, there's Broderbund's 3D Home Deck Designer and the rest of their modular products for US$16 +/- at some of the huge-box stores. I'm not sure if it's less than the Apple s/w mentioned, but it is definitely less than Excel. Could this bring Autodesk to its knee?

[Christiaan]

owen wrote:
I am not talking about a simple cosmetic change which some are calling for on the Mac side. This would be nice but totally unnecessary - the current UI is not exactly broken and you know what they say about fixing things that aren't broken.

It's a mistake to think the push for a more Aqua-friendly GUI is simply about superficial cosmetics.

There's a lot of unnecessary graphic clutter (lines, shades, etc.) and some down right sacrilege (windows icons!) in the Mac GUI and this presents the user (especially new ones) with a certain cognitive load.

The problem of course, as John Gruber might put it, is that if the people in charge of a product have poor taste in user interfaces then that's a problem because if you have to ask for better design, you will lose. You need to be in a position to demand it.

So I don't hold out much hope, but hopefully the decision to make the Mac GUI the same as the Windows is seen as an historic misstep and just a matter of time and opportunity before it is fixed (and hopefully the transition to Cocoa is that opportunity). Because it is indeed broken, especially when it factors into lost sales.

[ares997]

Just because Autodesk has changed their GUI doesn't mean for one second that Graphisoft should. I think in a lot of ways I like that it hasn't changed. I would love to get under the hood and change the colors a little but then again I would mess them up and have to press "default" ever couple of weeks.

Though after reading some of the augi forums autodesk'ers and many among us don't appreciate the fact that GDL is the method that we need to create our own objects. I think GDL is key for all of us to understand and start to wheel around with much more control. I don't really understand the families thing but maybe it's because we have layers and layer combos and I think that is something that is different with our software (correct me if I am wrong).

Another comment that is also well understood though the solution might be a little more than most are willing to endure is the free form modeling aspect that Revit has that we don't have. Though that isn't the case, at least how I run my shop. We use C4D and their really isn't anything that can't be done with C4D and AC12 (soon to be AC13). Not only free form modeling, animation, rendering, scripting, and part generation, but a bunch of other things that can be achieved through C4D.

Going back to the GDL. I think that the "GDL cook book" needs to advance a little and be a little more user friendly via the internet, more like a online class or something of that nature. Every time I try and use his website I get lost in layout. Though that is something I probably have to deal with.

All in all our strength is our GUI, our strength is GDL, our strength is the connections that exist for our software. Personally I know that 95% of our user base only exploits probably 15-25% of the capabilities of the software. We as a group and community should be able to code anything in GDL without the fear of looking at the code. I think the Graphisoft training guide for object creation is great and very useful. Though it would be nice if that was apart of the "cook-book" or vice versa.

There is a lot yet to learn...never let it rest till the good is better and better is best.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Respectfully,

ares997

[Achille Pavlidis]

Aaron wrote:
A friend of mine once showed me the house he had designed with Excel. After creating a square 2D matrix, he filled in the blanks with black space or lines where the wall openings should be.

According to him, he'd been issued his building pemit with these drawings.

He didn't have to learn anything new, either.

I have a client who came to me for his house, and he had his own proposal, all drawn with Excel! I mean everything plans, sections, elevetions fully quoted etc... !!!

[Aaron Bourgoin]

Long Live ExcelliCAD!!!

[I love how this stuff just comes out of the woodwork]

[Anonymous]

Achille, could you show us a sample?

[Anonymous]

Achille wrote:

Aaron wrote:
A friend of mine once showed me the house he had designed with Excel. After creating a square 2D matrix, he filled in the blanks with black space or lines where the wall openings should be.

According to him, he'd been issued his building pemit with these drawings.

He didn't have to learn anything new, either.

I have a client who came to me for his house, and he had his own proposal, all drawn with Excel! I mean everything plans, sections, elevetions fully quoted etc... !!!

LoL, can we see that ???

[ares997]

If you have been watching ADSK stocks in the last month since Graphisoft Announced triumphantly that AC13 was on it's way (with a new shinny website) the ADSK stock has been troubled Here is a link to the chart if you like charts (it's kind of like the autodesk brain wave scanner) http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:ADSK

[Anonymous]

ares997 wrote:
If you have been watching ADSK stocks in the last month since Graphisoft Announced triumphantly that AC13 was on it's way (with a new shinny website) the ADSK stock has been troubled Here is a link to the chart if you like charts (it's kind of like the autodesk brain wave scanner) http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:ADSK

Err, no it hasn't. If you zoom out a bit you can clearly see it hasn't been affected one bit. Quality research.

What makes you think that the release of AC13 has anything to do with the stock price of Autodesk? You do realise that Revit is a only a tiny part of Autodesks software portfolio. (You can count over 100 current and retired products here.)

(Attachment source)