Dear AC-Talkers,
We have sensed some confusion concerning the Option Manager add-on, so let me clarify this issue on the forum. First of all; the basic facts:
Option Manager is an add-on that is compatible with ArchiCAD 9.
It is sold only in North America as a standalone product or as part of the ArchiCAD Residential package
Currently it is only available for the Windows platform.
The suggested retail price is 495 $
Option Manager (OM) was developed as a sales tool for the American home builder market. Builders in the United States usually offer generic house plans that can be tailored to the needs of their customers. The ArchiCAD Option Manager makes it possible to create and manage overlapping options and makes it easy to upsell these options to the client with the help of 3D visualization.
This was our intention with OM but - as it has happened many times with other products - users started to use it for something else, in this case for managing their design options during the design development phase. Although some features of OM makes it suitable for this purpose, there are a few limitations in the add-on that have to be taken into consideration when using for such purpose (these are also in the OM documentation):
TeamWork:
Option Manager does not support ArchiCAD TeamWork. Plan files created with Option Manager can be shared as TeamWork projects but conflicts may occur when more users want to edit options or variations simultaneously. Therefore we do not recommend sharing files until the unused options have been removed.
Hotlink modules:
Option Manager does not support hotlink modules. Hotlinks have to be broken before starting to use OM.
Solid Element Operations :
Solid operations defined for ArchiCAD elements are not saved with variations. When you switch between variations, the solid operations defined for them will be lost. Save result of all solid operations as a GDL object and replace the originals.
Conflicts with other add-ons:
Some add-ons not supplied with ArchiCAD (e.g. Log Home Solution) attach custom data to the AC elements. This information can be lost if you include these elements in an option. Test external add-ons for any conflicts prior to using it with OM.
If you use OM creating sales options once the design & documentation has been finished (as originally intended), the above limitations do not pose any significant problem. However, if you want to use OM for exploring design options (as I recommended in the article in the Cadalyst Magazine:
http://aec.cadalyst.com/aec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=174821 ), you have to keep these points in mind and proceed with care. Generally we recommend the following: NEVER do any edits on the model after using OM (except the ones that are intended for the creation of the variations). Keep a copy of the file prior to the use of OM and if you want to improve the model, return to the original.
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Kurt Ameringer
Graphisoft U.S.
