UK BIM Standard launches - forgets that ArchiCAD exists

[Anonymous]

So today I read that the AEC (UK) Standards Committee today announced the Phase 1 release of its new BIM Standard documents with accompanying content libraries, however ...

A number of content libraries are currently being prepared for use by companies and individuals to aid in the implementation of a BIM-enabled workflow and standards based on AEC (UK) guidelines and best practices. Initially this includes Autodesk Revit and Bentley Building products. Expanded as and when further involvement is possible... Content libraries will be made available through the aec-uk.org website.

Where is Graphisoft when these kinds of things are being discussed??

(if you are not signed up on Linkedin you can see the original blog post here)

[owen]

Bricklyne wrote:

KeesW wrote:
Any response from Graphisoft? That was Saturday and it is now Monday.

No response.

They really don't give a stuff. Whilst its many (but declining?) loyal users keep feeding them with their subscriptions, Graphisoft continues to ignore the larger market. I'd like to hear them explain their marketing strategy.

Good luck with that.

Fair enough .. i'm sure that Saturday and Sunday are also non-working days in Hungary, just as they are here and in Australia (although in the latter this seems less and less the case these days - an attitude i find refreshingly absent here)

Bricklyne wrote:
And from what I can see, as long as a good number of their smaller-client user-base are more or less locked in with subscription, their (unofficial-official) marketing strategy is that they are going after the Big clients (If AC12 and AC13 are anything to go by) and they can afford to ignore the rest.

Seriously, when was the last time GS used these forums to directly address user concerns? It basically just exists as a conduit for them to dispense Hotfixes, and give users the illusion that they have a role to play in the development of the program (Wishlists - Ha!).

Like I said, good luck with hearing back from them.

Without knowing the breakdown of their customer base i think this large-office focus of late is probably a case of Graphisoft knowing where their bread is buttered, and having an eye on the one competitor capable of killing them, or at least reducing them to a bit part in the field they pioneered. Small practices did not make Autodesk what it is, i imagine they have not with Graphisoft either (although they would be far more significant in terms of seats to the later). ArchiCAD must continue to push to be the best BIM'er available for large practices doing large-scale, complex projects - if not it will be reduced to small scale projects only and then it will be over for Graphisoft and ArchiCAD.

That said small practice is an important market for Graphisoft, and i think they know it too. I would suggest that ArchiCAD has always been quite heavily weighted towards this sector rather than the commercial. Features like the Curtain Wall Tool and TW2 are all babies compared to most of the features in AC.

I do agree with you regarding the wishlist though ... it all seems a bit pointless sometimes. It would be interesting to see some form of table listing all wishes, the date when added, the status and then other 'unwished for' features. Long list with a lot of 'OPEN' flags me thinks ...

[owen]

Peter wrote:
Forgive me for my naivety / stupidity, but these 'BIM standards' just seem to be a layer naming and model naming guide? Why do Graphisoft need to be involved?

...

Looking at the list of people involved in the committee, I can't see anyone directly from Autodesk or Bentley. Why are we bothered about Graphisofts non-participation?

Layer Naming / File Naming is all it is for now. We weren't to know that before and any real BIM standard certainly needs to go beyond these subjects which are very much a carry-over from the 2D AutoCAD/Microstation practices.

The fear (perhaps unfounded) is that any industry standard can enshrine practices that may not be friendly towards certain applications such as ArchiCAD, even if they do not directly mandate the applications themselves. If the only guys at the table come from a Microstation/AutoCAD background then this is very likely to be reflected in their findings.

As for the committee background - you are right that none of them are directly from Bentley/Autodesk. However each of them is responsible for CAD/BIM practices in companies that use either AutoCAD/Revit or Microstation. The Evolve people are Autodesk/Bentley consultants.

So although it is probably no surprise that Graphisoft did not participate directly it does raise the questions - are there are no major practices in the UK using ArchiCAD?

I know there are several in Australia - such as francis-jones morehen thorp and Woods Bagot

Can anyone name any large UK practices using AC? John Robertson was one of the Graphisoft vids once (but seems to have dissappeared)

Peter wrote:
(Slightly off-topic, but I'm curious how these layer naming standards are going to be implemented in Revit as I thought it didn't use layers?)

good question .. something to look into

[KeesW]

Peter
Sometimes Archicad needs to be seen. It isn't always the direct benefit that might flow from these involvements, but the acknowledgement, by others, that it exists as a serious player, instead of being a boutique product.

Graphisoft should be selective in what it gets into but, for goodness sake, do something visible for once! Mayor AUS building conferences always feature Revit but never Archicad (unless, once, when it had a major involvement). Graphisoft, not Revit, invented BIM didn't it, but who'd know?

I love to use Archicad and would like to see the product of my choice trumpeted widely and compared favourable against other, perhaps less able, products. I guess it would affirm my CAD choice made about 12 years ago.

[Alan Baikie]

All that glistens isn’t gold!

To answer some of the comments ….

Firstly, to the best of my knowledge, no one at Graphisoft UK was approached to either participate in this “standards body” nor were we asked to identify/ approach any customers with a view to them participating.

Secondly, this “standards body” is a self appointed group of people with no official affiliation. They have a bias to Autodesk and Bentley because that’s their background. You have to ask what self interests are being furthered, especially as there are consultants involved who, quite rightly, need to tout for work.

It is commendable that they have attempted to produce standards to assist the Autodesk and Bentley communities to come to terms with BIM. I assume they need this fast start process as they have been rather late comers to the model-based design party, unlike Graphisoft and its customers who have been refining their standards for over 20 years. I can’t think of any good reasons why an ArchiCAD user, with years of experience of how to do BIM properly, would want to assist a competing firm to slice through the process and organisational learning they had acquire the hard way!

The standards produced by this “standards body” don’t conform to any recognised standards structure. It would have been useful if they had reflected the requirements outlined in BS1192 but they seem to have largely ignored these.

From a Graphisoft perspective I am interested in having a BIM standard but this needs to be within the auspicious of the BSI (British Standards Institute). I am a member of the buildingSMART UK Board and I have deliberately avoided making any comments on this thread until I had the opportunity to discuss these “standards” with the other Board members (which happened on 2nd December). BSI are aware of this work by AEC (UK) and will contact them (again) to ask this group if they would be prepared to invest their energies into BSI certified standards. However this is a path that BSI have trod before and the outcome will probably be the same. In the meantime Graphisoft will continue to engage with and support the right initiatives, in a vendor neutral way.

Finally far from abandoning the UK we’re very bullish about the future (unfortunately, for economic reasons we are all familiar with, not the immediate future!). By comparison to other countries the UK has become a real laggard in its adoption of BIM which puts us at a significant competitive disadvantage, so whilst the recession is extremely painful it may just create (unfortunately) a “business discontinuity” that encourages architects and designers to review their operational methods. If currently you are an ArchiCAD user, and you have implemented a good BIM workflow with good standards, then enjoy the fact that most of your competition have yet to learn what you have already forgotten!

p.s. to Amonle

John, I guess your initial post may have been prompted by the fact you are a new user to ArchiCAD and therefore are trying to figure out what’s good practice and what isn’t. As you are unknown to either Graphisoft UK, or its channel partners, we have been unable to assist you – it must very difficult getting support from a substantially different time zone, many thousands of miles away, and also from people who are not aware of UK libraries or operating processes/ standards. If you’d like some local support please contact me to discuss how this might be arranged.

[owen]

Alan,

Thanks for clearing that up, and good to hear from someone at GSUK (.. assuming you are from Graphisoft UK - adding info to your signature would help.)

The fact that this group is not really the industry body that should be developing these BIM standards is good to know, but it does raise the question of who else is doing this job? If you search for 'BIM Standards UK' all you get is references to this group. There is no sign whatsoever of the official industry bodies like RIBA, BSI, the multitude of professional Engineering bodies, etc - groups that in other countries such as the US and Australia are putting work into this area together. It is not up to BIS alone. If this work is being done in the UK by the correct groups please point us in the right direction because at the moment there is no sign of it!

Wether or not AEC (UK) is the right group - if they develop a standard that is supported by the 2 major BIM software developers in the UK, then there is a good chance of it getting adopted simply because there is no alternative - even if it is unofficial.

We all know this is not Graphisofts responsibility though - i'm just raising it as a point of discussion. Adoption of BIM does seem to be really lagging in the UK compared to other developed economies in Europe, North America and Australia - anyone from the UK care to share their thoughts as to why this is so? There is quite a lot of research out there now supporting the business case for BIM, but it is all being done outside the UK as far as i can see. This seems quite at odds with the UK's (attempts at?) innovative, creative industry.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the contribution Alan, and I would endorse all of what owen has said above.
Although I am London based I am working on a couple of projects outside of the UK at the moment and recently got a single seat of ArchiCAD in Miami (3DCADCO). But let's keep in touch since I will be dealing with graphisoft uk in the future

[KenMcN]

Alan
Thanks very much for joining the debate, good to hear an opinion from a voice of authority in this topic.

Owen: yes, Alan is from GSUK, I too have no idea which version of Archicad he uses (I'd hope he's using v13 when he gets the opportunity), but I have met him, and he knows what he's talking about when it comes to Archicad and the world of CAD in general 🙂


I've looked through both the AEC (UK) standards document and the "National Building Information Modelling Standard" Alan refers to via the buildingSMART web site.
It's probably not fair to directly relate quantity with quality, but NBIM has 183 pages of detailed discussion, as opposed to the 29 pages of – to anyone with any experience of BIM – pretty superficial guidance contained within the AEC (UK) BIM Standard.

From the introduction to NBIM: "there is a critical need to increase the efficiency of the construction process. Today’s inefficiency is a primary cause of non-value added effort, such as re-typing (often with a new set of errors) information at each phase or among participants during the lifecycle of a facility or failing to provide full and accurate information from designer to constructor." This encapsulates my view of what BIM can add to the design process.

I don't accept that alternative 'UK standard' builds on NBIM, as it claims, rather it goes backwards to try to form a stepping stone for people using 2d CAD who want to go towards the principles of NBIM.
This is not by definition a bad thing, it should just acknowledge that 2d cad (i.e. Autocad) is a long way from BIM and small steps are needed to move in the right direction. Let's not be too hard on those who are following our footsteps, they've got a long way to go

I can't see why we need a UK 'brand' of this standard. From my point of view this is a universal problem (and that includes the comparatively simple matter of translating layer names into different languages). So why don't the authors of this document just join the BSI group, and put their efforts into the creation of a truly universal workflow to let us all work more efficiently, without trying to put us into a straitjacket that denies us our choice of software until their brand has caught up with ours?

[Djordje]

Going back to the LinkedIn discussion, there were statements from the UK users that after years of fighting the flatlanders they can not be bothered to stand up for their product now. The originator of the post also hinted that there was almost no response from the ArchiCAD user groups (if there are any).

Hello?

Exactly the kind of behaviour that brough Graphisoft, the technology leader and the originator of the concept, to almost anonymity. Our product is so good that it does not need advertizing. Yeah, right.

The point is, whoever recently heard of BIM (most of the people) heard it from an Autodesk or a Bentley guy. What happened in the last 25+ years? Why did they not hear it from a Graphisoft guy/reseller/user?

Why?

In the US, it is the lobbying and the "buy 'mercan" attitude - understandable - plus the governement contracts that made everyone know Autodesk. Is it so in the UK?

The UK ArchiCAD users have to stop being complacently burrowed in their comfort zones, because if they don't move, soon their very jobs will be dependent on whether they can export a RVT file or not! If I were there, I would be fighting the big guys tooth and nail, Graphisoft support or not!!!

I am interested in this because the UK style of practice had big influence on the Middle East in general, even the local RIBA chapter has been established recently.

What do you guys from the Isles say?

[KeesW]

I am not sure if the UK is the place to expect the battles that Djordje is speaking of. When I attended Archicad University at Nottingham in 2007 I thought that Archicad users were behaving like threatened species! Very timid and unassertive. Surely it hasn't got worse?

We have a great product and should proclaim it from the roof tops! Users know this - but does Graphisoft really believe it?

[Bricklyne Clarence]

Djordje wrote:
........... The originator of the post also hinted that there was almost no response from the ArchiCAD user groups (if there are any).

Hello?

Exactly the kind of behaviour that brough Graphisoft, the technology leader and the originator of the concept, to almost anonymity. Our product is so good that it does not need advertizing. Yeah, right.

The point is, whoever recently heard of BIM (most of the people) heard it from an Autodesk or a Bentley guy. What happened in the last 25+ years? Why did they not hear it from a Graphisoft guy/reseller/user?

........

This all reminds me of an old episode of that American sitcom "Just shoot me" with David Spade where the joke of the episode was that Spade's character in the series 'Finch' (- who's a notorious dimwit when it came it came to hitting on members of the opposite sex, and on account of his diminutive physical stature -) was accidentally discovered by one of his co-workers to be, how shall we say, really well endowed 'down there'. Unbeknown to him, of course, who merely thought he was average at best, based on all the P0rn0 movies he had seen as a base of reference. Anyway, the whole episode revolved around his co-worker and his boss trying to confirm if this was really true and then at the end of the episode after they had done so in the men's washroom, and then observed another one of his typically disastrous attempts to hit on a female co-worker; his boss sighed before remarking, one of the greatest lines ever:-

"Great product (referring to Finch's sizable member), horrible marketing ( referring to his woeful ladies' man skills)"

I can't help but think of Finch every time I see the dissonance between Graphisoft's development of an undeniably great product - ArchiCAD, and their lamentably anemic (some would say non-existent) marketing strategy. While I will always continue to believe that ArchiCAD is the superior product of all their competitors, I'll never be able to understand GS's inability, unwillingness or incapability to market it and support it's popularization better than they are doing now.

And it's really not the users responsibility to market or advertise the product on GS's behalf especially when that marketing cost is already encapsulated in their exorbitant licensing fees. And most resellers (who typically sell Autodesk and Bentley products side-by-side to ArchiCAD) cannot be expected to have any greater loyalty to one of their suppliers at the cost of other suppliers or products. The same goes with product support and not just marketing. Maybe like you allude to, and like Finch in 'Just Shoot Me', GS are so convinced they have such an amazing product, that they don't really have to work on selling it as much as they do on developing it since it will presumably sell itself.

It's sad really:-

ArchiCAD - Great product, tragic marketing.