In-Depth: Graphisoft talks to Architosh about ArchiCAD 16

Just prior to its public debut–and quite early I might add–I had the pleasure of seeing the new ArchiCAD 16 before it was introduced to the world. It is remarkable how easy it has become to conduct business conferences like this over fiber optic lines running thousands of miles under the ocean…clear across Europe and over to its easter edges.

Akos Pfemeter is again joined with Tibor Szolnoki, Business Development Manager and Eniko Pauko, BIM Implementation, of Graphisoft. All three are showing me all the new technology in this latest release, which we’ll cover in quite some detail in a minute. I want to add also that this article began prior to the AIA National Conference in DC but we continued to learn more about the new features there in person.

What is most impressive to me about Graphisoft is the manner of control they seem to have about their vision with BIM. Arguably, the company continues to manage to stay steps ahead of the competition with some of the really big stuff.

Steps Ahead

Let’s first start by talking about how Graphisoft has helped shape the BIM market to begin with. Well, from the beginning–back in the 1980’s–this company put to market first what seems to have been the most affective vision for 3D CAD design in AEC. While there were others, some with very similar visions, Graphisoft had what they called the “virtual building” idea firmly planted and that notion of a real building existing “virtually” in the computer is in essence what the entire AEC industry is now advancing in Building Information Modeling (BIM), complete with capacities for simulation, testing and performance.

Over the years the BIM tool grew and in recent years Graphisoft has beat others to market with some very key BIM ideas and technology. In recent years it was their stunning BIM Server with patent-pending Delta Server technology (in ArchiCAD 13) and their advancements with IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) for interoperability, something the company has been working in earnest on since 1996.

In version 16, Graphisoft has advanced its modeling prowess by quite a lot. It had already done so years ago via its GDL structured format but arguably that technology–while very powerful–required advanced scripting skills. Recently in version 15 the company introduced very useful and capable “shell modeling” features. In this release, however, ArchiCAD 16 ships with powerful surface and solids-modeling tools that may well force users who currently rely on other dedicated modelers to reconsider the need for using those programs at all (and we won’t mention names just quite yet!).

Of course, while many architects may get very excited about the new modeling Morph Tool, Graphisoft has also introduced a community site called BIMcomponents.com. But more about that–and other things–in a bit.

The Morph Tool

When Akos Pfemeter began the discussion about the new Morph Tool he mentioned that for years Graphisoft has had very powerful modeling technology coupled with very powerful parametrics. However, parametrics can only take you so far and no company can ever fully imagine all the modeling needs users may have. From this perspective, Graphisoft knew they needed to create a powerful “direct-modeling” tool to enable designers and architects to fully create whatever form they possibly can dream up. (see image 02 below)

“The new Morph Tool is truly capable of creating amazing new forms,” said Akos Pfemeter. “It is ideal for creating conceptual models early in the design process as well as urban design and sophisticated structural models.”  The Morph Tool will find a home among users who will find it perfect for creating custom furniture. Interior designers will enjoy making free-form shapes. And Architects will find it most liberating for creating radical organic forms or just for creating unique roof, beam and column conditions.

Next Page: More on the Morph Tool

“The real power of the Morph Tool is in its flexibilty,” says Tibor Szolnoki. “This stunning new library building in Norway was a lot of fun recreating from scratch using this technology.” (see image 01 box shot above)

The Morph Tool will bring to ArchiCAD users popular modeling techniques such as Push/Pull with numerical accuracy via the Tracker user interface element. Users can quickly work with basic solids or define basic planes (surfaces) by defining their “edges” in space in much the same manner as Google’s SketchUp. A powerful capability with the new Morph Tool is its ability to go back and forth between solid and surfaces. Another strength is its ability to model curve bodies by utilizing complex splines as edges as well as the manipulation of morph edges. (see images 03-05)

In fact, Graphisoft says that the new Morph Tool has no geometric limitation and there is no longer any need to import special shapes from other 3D programs. Yet the Morph Tool creates “morph” elements which exist as full-fledged ArchiCAD components and appear in all views and lists just like other elements (eg: walls, slabs, etc). Once more, existing ArchiCAD elements (eg: roofs) can be transformed into morph elements and then further edit into any form imaginable. Morph elements can be classified as any building element type for exchanging data with the engineers or can be saved as GDL objects for sharing with the BIM components community.

To demonstrate just how powerful and flexible the new Morph Tool is the company’s first set of videos on this new tool quickly and convincingly model complex chimney’s by famed architect Antoni Gaudi. The set of videos also demonstrate the new Morph Tool’s flexible texture mapping. (see image 06 and here for videos)

Graphisoft’s Morph Tool packages the power of both solids and surfaces modeling functionality into a single tool with various sub-setting options. At the base of it, the new Morph Tool can function much like Google’s SketchUp (recently acquired by Trimble) creating surface-based models or 3D planar objects with editable edges. You can quickly define a polygon on any plane in 3D and create a “morph surface.” Morph surfaces are themselves defined or bounded by “morph edges.” And these morph edges are constituted by “morph nodes.”

As you can see by watching the many short videos on the new Morph Tool, there are many ways to create a morph element, including revolves. Morph element corners can be filleted or chamfered and the user has the ability to set the resolution of the curvature of the fillet. You can also curve any morph edge and several different ways. Editing morphs at the node level provides even greater form-making freedom. And you can edit morph elements in numerous ways and split them, combine (add) them or subtract from them. These boolean operations provide flexibility in the form making process. Morphs can even have bulged faces and you can put bulges on top of bulged faces.

next page: BIM Components

BIM Components

One of the bigger ideas in version 16 for ArchiCAD was the launch of BIMcomponents.com. Akos Pfemeter said that this area–building components–is one of the most dynamic areas within the overall BIM industry. While he acknowledged that many leading manufacturers create standard BIM components architects too often need to create custom components on their own. In an effort much like Google’s 3D Warehouse (which works with SketchUp) the new BIMcomponents.com website will function as a repository and shared community for the location of BIM components for ArchiCAD. (see image 07)

“We did some research and found that are well over 30,000 GDL objects out on the worldwide Web,” said Pfemeter. “So two years ago we said, ‘let’s put all the GDL objects in one place’,” noting that a centralized location can form the basis of a BIM community as well.

“What we would like to do is create a content market for third party developers and users,” said Pfemeter. The best part about BIMcomponents.com is it is not just a website. It is a cloud technology component of ArchiCAD 16 and is built-directly into the user interface. Users inside of ArchiCAD 16 can perform searches for BIM components, download found items and upload their own custom components.

Search fields now search “descriptions” and “keywords” which you can see in the Object Selection Settings dialog. You can use the search field to refine queries with the most relevant place at the top just like a Google search. Community features include the ability to Like or Dislike and to add comments as feedback about the object.

Using the new Morph Tool users can create semi-parametric custom BIM components which they can share through ArchiCAD 16 to BIMcomponents.com. GDL has been around for 25 years for professional programmers but what users can do with the Morph Tool is save their semi-parametric object and share it under public domain licenses. (see image 08-10) What’s going to be parametric for user-generated components will be non-geometry attributes like textures, materials of cross sections of the different parts, and line types, pens and color, for example.

Integrated Energy Evaluation

One of the other big changes in ArchiCAD 16 is the full integration of EcoDesigner, as a built-in energy evaluation functionality within every standard ArchiCAD installation. Unlike other BIM energy evaluation products on the market, when EcoDesigner was launched it was the first BIM energy tool geared towards “architects” and the early stages of design.

Now its integration carries this further making ArchiCAD 16 the industry’s first BIM with design-evaluation oriented energy analysis built directly within. The new EcoDesigner integration also means the technologies are built on top of a new energy analysis engine. Furthermore, Graphisoft  will launch EcoDesigner STAR later in the year, which will be more advanced and be standard compliant with LEED in the United States. (see image 11)

It is important to point out that EcoDesigner’s integration into this BIM product further encourages architects to investigate sustainable design aspects of their buildings by simplifying and integrating such tools directly into their practices. The tool excels not necessarily so much on its technological implementation but on its software design philosophy. EcoDesigner in version 16 is still for architects, still a useful and quick results type of estimation, still graphical and “one-click” oriented. It can be useful in schematic, DD and later construction documents phases.

next page: Graphisoft’s Technological Vision

Graphisoft’s Technological Vision

As it was in the beginning Graphisoft is an “architect’s” software company, creating a BIM software platform oriented directly at the architectural professional. This focus continues in version 16. Graphisoft has its emphasis on three separate solutions areas. The first area is BIM authoring which centers on ArchiCAD. The second area is BIM data management with the BIM Server. And the third area is BIM data access, which addresses the cloud and mobile.

What they have done with BIMcomponents.com is take advantage of both cloud computing trends and the social Web. The technology behind BIMcomponents.com is Microsoft Windows Azure and Microsoft DynamicsNav. This technology backbone will help the company extend both the cloud component and the mobile component. “With the cloud,” says Pfemeter, “we will provide custom offerings for clients.” “Additionally, to extend our mobile platforms we will be coming out with BIMx for Android as well.

Pfemeter said Graphisoft’s approach to the cloud is similar to Apple’s. “We want to keep core functionality in the thick client,” said Pfemeter. “This is pretty similar to Apple’s iCloud approach, trying to keep the cloud quite silent in the background…be it desktop, iPad or iPhone.”

In terms of BIM data management the company is advancing its industry-leading BIM server technologies. There is now a unified format for server-side backups and regular backups in PLN format. The improved data safety also includes non-project data backups like “users” and “roles” and the inclusion of even external locations for all backups.

“One of the benefits of what we are doing is creating frequent backup strategies for different disaster levels,” said Pfemeter, “such as project error, server software error and the server computer itself.” We will be backing up everything.

“Our delta server technology in Graphisoft BIM Server is already proved to be the most advanced in the industry for real-time collaboration,” said Pfemeter. The company has some far-reaching plans for its server technology but isn’t ready to share those plans just yet.

Closing Thoughts

We have not touched on every item new in ArchiCAD 16 but these issues discussed above are the big ones. Clearly the company is very committed to interoperability and you can read more about their OPEN BIM movement and support here. In terms of productivity there is a slew of new capabilities. There are for instance new improvements to the library of elements. Libraries are organized in the software. There are a lot of 3D user interface interaction improvements which go hand and glove with the new Morph Tool.

In our view perhaps the biggest thrust in the changes to ArchiCAD 16 center around the new “direct modeling” capabilities. In our BIM 2010 Survey Report here at Architosh “better design” was the aspect about BIM adoption that most appealed to architects, over “virtualization”, “faster documents”, “visualization”, “anti-drafting” and finally “democratization” within the studio. It was “virtualization” and the ability to test and simulate within BIM models that secondly most interested architects about 3D BIM versus 2D drafting.

From this vantage point we see the new Morph Tools following up on the recent other modeling improvements with ArchiCAD truly timely. Moreover, its integration of EcoDesigner further fosters testing and simulation as part of practice and the goals of making more credible good architectural design. This is why ArchiCAD 16 won AIA Best of Show for the Desktop category.

One of the more stunning realities behind Graphisoft as well is this little known fact. Those new Morph Tool modeling capabilities–like the rest of the program–are built on top of its own home-grown 3D geometry modeling kernel. We learned about this back when the company introduced MEP Modeler. Advancing a geometry kernel by yourself is tough work, and it’s a testament to just how advanced this company’s software prowess really is. —- ANTHONY FRAUSTO-ROBLEDO, AIA, LEED AP