What are new tools for ARCHICAD 13?

[Anonymous]

Hello 🙂
I was wondering if we maybe know what new tools we can expect with the new version of Archicad?
I finaly hope for 3D composite structure layers to be visible, also their 2D representation to be automaticly adjusted to the layer thickness (eg. thermal insulation).
Slab layers and their intersection with wall layers...
Also maybe while defining wall composite layers we can also define each layer height.
Better and more detailed quantity take-off is a must.

[Petros Ioannou]

Rob wrote:

Try to implement BIM functions to a free-form app. Visualize Rhino with archicad's plan- section representation, story handling system and scheduling functions. That would be tempting.

Petros, this is the actually the most difficult way how to do this. How would you extract all this information from a blob of play dough which the model in Rhino or similar virtually is? how would you identify, transform and chop up whole model to pieces which make a sense to a builder / subcontractor / quantity surveyor etc? It would be a tremendous task to address this with current UI. Do you really think this would be possible over one, two or even more years of development? ... and actually can you give me an example who has done it successfully? You have to be kidding yourself mate. We do not have finalised tools for a simple documentation in AC12... get real.

If there was such an software then we would probably be registered in their forum and not here making this discussion. And yes it could take years of development. The question is : wouldn't you pay for it?
As for your question on how to separate different building components... maybe, layers? these things are common in every CAD system around. Do you use the wall tool only for walls? usually no, but you put different element types in different layers and export them accordingly...

[owen]

I don't think this is a crazy idea for an application at all ... its just not realistic for ArchiCAD. Really the capabilities/limitations of the various AC modelling tools are a little bit arbitrary - they define the types of walls, roofs, etc you can model, not necessarily what you can design - which leads to all the workarounds we have in AC. Like using the roof tool to do a simple sloped slab .. or what is the difference between a sloped wall or roof (opening type limitations aside).

I think the idea of abstracting the physical modeling tools from the attributes assigned to the resultant elements has some merit. Use whatever tool you need to model an element and then you can assign its type (wall, floor, roof, etc if this is required) and all its various representational attributes. Presets/Favourites would be used to provide quick access to typical elements and could even be added as customized toolbar/menu items.

However this is such a radical departure from the current AC logic it just would not work unless GS was willing to throw compatibility out the window. The alternative (maintaining compatibility) i would not wish on anyone ...

(not even the GS developers when i am thinking about why another wish is still hanging around)

[Bricklyne Clarence]

Petros wrote:
Well I think one should take a different approach.
Instead of trying to figure out how to implement free-form functions to a BIM application try the opossite. Try to implement BIM functions to a free-form app. Visualize Rhino with archicad's plan- section representation, story handling system and scheduling functions. That would be tempting.

.......actually, if you saw some of the implementations and proposals for Rhino's next version still in Beta (or WIP) along with the stuff from their third-party and adjunct developers (such as RhinoLabs, and the like), one could be fooled into thinking that what you suggested is exactly where McNeel want to take their Rhino3d software. Not in the sense of an architecturally-specific BIM program, but more in the sense of the intelligence of that kind of a workflow for parametrically managing representational information between a robust modeler and the intended output. Obviously they have a more diverse clientbase that Graphisoft, ranging from product design, to Nautical design and the fabrication industry to pockets of architecture; so that would play a role in affecting their decisions.
Version 4 even has the makings or some semblance of a 'History' function or facility for allowing one to go back and edit earlier commands and functions to affect the end model. This is a standard feature in most parametric modelers out there, certainly outside of architecture which makes sense from an information management perspective.

But the big difference here is Rhino already has the underlying technology in place as a robust modeler to allow them to make that leap more easily than it would be for an ArchiCAD-like software to make the reverse leap. Add to this the fact that in its short history, Rhino has already undergone quite a few source code overhauls to bring it up to speed with current hardware technology and improvements, and is even in the process of undergoing another mini-overhaul to allow them to port it into the Mac platform (typically involves rewriting the entire software again). But then again, they have the luxury of not having to conform to a ridiculous 1 year upgrade cycle and can afford to take as long as it takes to get it right - technologically speaking.

ArchiCAD, on the other hand, as we all know has been leaning on decades old software technology and an 80's source code in dire need of a major, if not complete, overhaul. But that's never going to happen on a 1 year cycle. This is a strategic decision on Graphisoft's part, not necessarily influenced by any outside factors (read: technological limitations) and more by their own internal machinations (read: the bottom line; profit margin)

Personally I believe that their current function-based approach (i.e. where a wall is a wall which implies that it cannot be rotated on the Z-axis and still remain a wall) is a dead-end approach that is currently limiting their ability to expand the software's capability. That's why you still can't use the Complex profiler on roofs or sloping objects for example and that's also probably why the Curtain Wall is limited for editing in plan, as it currently is (which is just painfully ridiculous from an Architectural point of view) and also probably why SEO's (which are geometric-based versus function-based modeling) don't show up in plan view.

so that's where we now find ourselves. Stuck with these limitations; stuck with work-arounds; stuck with third-party addons (assuming even they are up to the task), and stuck with a software which will not be seeing any vast enhancements in its modeling capabilities any time soon. All despite the fact that hardware technology has not only caught up with the coding requirements, but at this point far surpassed them.

[Anonymous]

Is it enough to be 93.4% BIM for you?
Seriously this is not a winning solution in a long run mate.

i want to model things and imagine i create spehere and somewhere in sphere dialog i write.

Paper light ball
cost 10 euros

I dont need anything more of BIM for this one

If ihave cube, cylindar, pyramide etc and i can rotate them, change size,materials, section fill i dont need nothing more. I will model all parts of building that i need to model that i cant now (dont ask me what i cant to model plz )

That story about BIM is just stoping me to draw what i need to draw

Biggest mistake is that we have a lot of windows, doors and after all i cant alwys get result that i want. When u look what GS is doing u see that they develop tool for everything (for door, for window,for trapeziod corner window wall, beam, truss, roof, stair etc etc

If they cant see what will happend after time is that they will have to develop tool or object for every architectural part of buildng of all planet earth and thats not possible. Imagine all bugs which will come with every BIM tool or object that GS make and there u go...

The future is to develop up to 10 tools, modeling tools in which i will be able to model all what i need.

I have some contact with student that come to me and asked for lessons in archicad. After while i see that all of them are trying to draw something and they forget what is architecure about. So i always say to students, DONT USE ARCHICAD draw with pencile, what is in your mind...
archicad will limit every designer that use it cos u alwys have problems, how to draw this window, wall, stair (stairs in archicad is tirrble) roof etc

All projects that i finish in my life, only simple small houses are finished in archicad, all others are finished using more programs...
Only program that is giving me possibility to draw what i need is AUTOCAD, Rhino Its not BIM, but i will not loose my time trying to model something. I will draw it instantly and move on, and i will draw it simple, with lines or what ever

And when u asked me, Necko, you are going on Mars and u can bring only one software with u, to make architecture on Mars i will choose AUTOCAD (and it can be autocad 12 ver) cos i will know that i can finish all what i need, no addons, no bugs, 3d modeling etc

this image ilustrate task of coal plant that im working on, still idea, but its to big for archicad, i will need day or days to finish just these color ideas in ac, but in autocad i finished this 15 minutes.

Line drawing vs BIM 1:0

[Bricklyne Clarence]

owen wrote:
I don't think this is a crazy idea for an application at all ... its just not realistic for ArchiCAD. Really the capabilities/limitations of the various AC modelling tools are a little bit arbitrary - they define the types of walls, roofs, etc you can model, not necessarily what you can design - which leads to all the workarounds we have in AC. Like using the roof tool to do a simple sloped slab .. or what is the difference between a sloped wall or roof (opening type limitations aside).

I think the idea of abstracting the physical modeling tools from the attributes assigned to the resultant elements has some merit. Use whatever tool you need to model an element and then you can assign its type (wall, floor, roof, etc if this is required) and all its various representational attributes. Presets/Favourites would be used to provide quick access to typical elements and could even be added as customized toolbar/menu items.

Bingo!!

owen wrote:
However this is such a radical departure from the current AC logic it just would not work unless GS was willing to throw compatibility out the window. The alternative (maintaining compatibility) i would not wish on anyone ...
.......

Actually it's not - such a radical departure from the current logic - the original logic (based on how AC was originally developed) perhaps but not necessarily the last few versions. I'm specifically referring to AC10-AC12 and more pointedly the Complex Profiler which employs this exact kind of logic it it's function.

Draw a generic profile in a 2D Window, assigning whatever material and line-type properties to the various parts and components, and then this becomes a blank template of sorts that can be applied to an existing element type such as a Wall, Beam, or Column. It's the same kind of reasoning. The Profile Manager doesn't know or care whether or not that profile is going to be a wall or even a fake railing; it just manages it, and that includes a kind of 'history' capacity that I alluded to in my previous post that allows one to go back and edit the original profile and have all the instances in the model update. So clearly someone or some people at Graphisoft have been thinking along these lines.

The problem as I see it is that they are hampered and limited by what's already there that to propose the introduction of a blank geometric template or mesh-like object which can be freely modeled to whatever form the designer wants and then attributed the functions and characteristics of the existing elements (like a wall, roof, slab Column) and have it read as one and behave as one in plan, would require having to overcome the current limitations in the existing construction elements that don't allow (or do allow) for certain functions in one element but do in others. For example, you can only insert a window or a door into a wall, and not a slab, and not a roof. Which makes sense from a architectural semantic point of view, but from a modeling perspective where a building like Wright's Guggenheim in NY has ramped winding floors, which would be a nightmare to model and represent without work-arounds in ArchiCAD, this logic presents a serious limitation in design flexibility.

[Rakela Raul]

But the big difference here is Rhino already has the underlying technology in place as a robust modeler to allow them to make that leap more easily than it would be for an ArchiCAD-like software to make the reverse leap

and so microstation since its inception...and still last in any BIM poll

[Bricklyne Clarence]

Rakela wrote:

But the big difference here is Rhino already has the underlying technology in place as a robust modeler to allow them to make that leap more easily than it would be for an ArchiCAD-like software to make the reverse leap

and so microstation since its inception...and still last in any BIM poll

......your point being?

(oh my goodness, even I can pointlessly )

[Eduardo Rolon]

That even though microstation has what you are wishing (3d engine etc) for it is not the top #1 BIM software in the world. Also Catia and Solidworks have a very robust engine with the ability to extract 3D information from it.

pointlessly

[Bricklyne Clarence]

ejrolon wrote:
That even though microstation has what you are wishing (3d engine etc) for it is not the top #1 BIM software in the world. Also Catia and Solidworks have a very robust engine with the ability to extract 3D information from it.

pointlessly

.........soooo, as a counterpoint to my assertion that ArchiCAD does not have a good enough 3D Engine to support the kind of modeling tools improvements that most users have been asking for, you're going to throw back at me the examples of Microstation, Catia and Solidworks; all of which have admittedly good 3D kernels, but all of which (probably less so for Solidworks) simultaneously have godawful UI, and workflows (from and Architectural design perspective) and are all terribly equipped and customized to architectural design, and most importantly all of which are more or less out of the price range of your typical ArchiCAD customer?

Right. That makes sense (Insert pointless emoticon here)


Incidentally, CATIA and Solidworks are not exactly 'BIM' or even architectural software (I personally would have said Digital Project rather than CATIA, but even that's pushing it), and oh yeah, Microstation may not be the #1 BIM software in the world but then again neither is ArchiCAD. On the other hand Microstation does outsell ArchiCAD in terms of seats sold, so again, the point you were making is lost on me.

(unless of course, you (both) meant Triforma, the architectural component of Microstation; but neither of you said that).

[Eduardo Rolon]

I was not making a counterpoint. I was pointing out that Raul meant that even though they having a good or great 3d engine and lacking a good interface or an easy to understand workflow will not solve the problem.

Or that was what I understood from his comment.

I agree that AC does not have a great 3d engine.

Therefore we agree.

AFAIK Triforma does not exists anymore it is called Bentley Architecture and you can buy it with upgrade pricing by submitting your Archicad license.

Also Solidworks works like complex profiles in AC and it has options to create assemblies (like families in Revit) and the drawings work like the Capture Window for 3D Document. It works great for creating stairs and railings.