Every spring it is fun to look forward to our early introductions to the newest version of Graphisoft ArchiCAD. This year was no different. On the call was Eniko Pauko, Business Development Manager, Graphisoft and Tibor Szolnoki, also Business Development Manager, Graphisoft. Together they walked me through the chief features in version 17.
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As usual in our feature “In-Depths” we are going to dive into many aspects of this application and try to show you as many images from our online meeting as possible.
Getting the Story
Eniko Pauko opened up the conversation by saying that each version of ArchiCAD has a unique story. What this means to Graphisoft is that they look at the ultimate possibilities of what Building Information Modeling (BIM) is all about and tackle an entire major problem that has not yet been solved by anyone in the industry.
In essence, the major groundwork of creating a BIM tool has been solved long ago–at least for Graphisoft. Now they are in the era of perfecting it.
So going back to version 13 for instance, the Budapest-based company solved a major problem hampering BIM from being perfected in creating the “Delta”-based BIM server. Now anyone, anywhere in the world, with even modest Internet connections, could work as part of a team on a BIM project. In version 14 they attacked the design collaboration challenge further with extensive IFC and the “open” design workflow. In version 15, perfectly timed with the CAD industry, they started to focus on breaking the limitations on parametric modeling with the introduction of the Shell tool for freeform design. Then in version 16 they continued this path with the MORPH tool with even more complex freeform direct modeling and also created a content “ecosystem” where users could push up and share their models.
BIM Lives in the Details
Now in version 17 the company has turned its attention to one of the biggest challenges of all–keeping the BIM model “live” from start to finish in construction documentation. In other words, the goal is to eliminate all 2D drawing necessary to complete a BIM process. That’s a lofty goal.
In a playful spin on Mies van der Rohe’s famous saying, “God lives in the details” the company’s tagline for version 17 is “BIM lives in the details.” So what does that mean for Graphisoft?
01 – Once the resolution of BIM models increases to scales at or over 1:50 then the material reality of buildings get under-represented due to the inability of systems to handle both the level fo detail and the resolution of material interfaces. (image courtesy of Graphisoft).
The reality is that in today’s BIM world all BIM tools work exceptionally well up until a certain scale of detail. (see image 01 above) Once the scale of view approaches something greater than 1/4 inch equals one foot (or around 1:50) the amount of detail shown inside a BIM tool is found wanting. To solve that issue rival BIM software makers often provide 2D drawing overlay methods that allow one to essentially cut through the BIM model and then draw on top of that view. In the worse of these cases this type of detailing or sectioning work gets completed in another CAD application altogether.
ArchiCAD 17’s goal is to address this problem entirely, keeping the BIM model live to the end of working drawing means that greater than 90 percent of the details shown in a typical building section can be fully auto-generated in detail form to very high scales with only notation and dimensions left to do. (see image 02)
02 – ArchiCAD 17 now has the ability to handle the detailing of 90 percent or greater of all of these types of conditions. (image courtesy of Graphisoft).
To accomplish this the company needed to do four key things. Firstly, they needed automatic junctions that would prioritize dozens upon dozens of potential interface combinations with differing materials. Secondly, they needed a vast array of materials all highly resolved and integrated into a multitude of assemblies for walls, ceilings, roofs and floors. Thirdly, they needed to have “intelligent stories” so that an architect can easily change the height between stories and the model would automatically adjust. And lastly, even more advanced 3D cutaway views for capturing the details of these various assembly to assembly connections (e.g.: floor to wall). Let’s look at these four key elements one at a time.
next page: Priority Based Connections
Priority Based Connections
New in ArchiCAD 17 is a level of “automatic junctions” that goes beyond the program’s previous abilities. Graphisoft calls this Priority Based Connections. This means that some basic modeling conventions will require being modified. In order for the new Priority Based Connections technology to work it is not good enough for elements to just touch each other, they must intersect. This is one limitation in the new feature that may take some getting used to by veteran users.
03 – A legacy connection option helps users work with models created in prior versions.
04 – Priority Based Connections resolve material assembly interfaces issues like this.
05 – Here is the correct way Priority Based Connections work with model elements.
There is also the issue of using BIM models for projects that were completed in prior versions. In prior versions the way model elements intersected each other were handled a bit differently. Graphisoft has provided a legacy model option for users who are utilizing older models. This prevents the user from having to re-model an entire project. Additionally, any model created in an older version and opened up in version 17 will get this option put on by default. (see image 03)
What Graphisoft has done in version 17 is extend its “automatic connections” technology to the level of the skin elements that layer building elements like walls, roofs, floors, et cetera. Now these materials act more like wall core elements than specialized fills and resolve their interfaces with similar and differing materials based on a priority setting for what material can cut other materials. (see images 04 – 05)
For folks who played the game Rock-Paper-Scissors as a child this will feel very familiar. Except with 999 priority levels, not three. Of course, in order for technology like this to work it also requires more intelligent building materials and user-definable options.
Intelligent Building Materials
What is different about ArchiCAD 17 is that now building materials are assigned to the skins of composite structures instead of cut fills for composite elements. From the Building Materials dialog you can create new building materials but also modify various settings for that material, most importantly as it relates to Priority-Based Connections is the Intersection Priority slider setting which goes from weak to strong.
As Eniko Pauko said in response to my question, “users will have full control over the priority setting of any material in the system.” When I asked her ‘how does an architect know which area on the slider to take a particular material to’, she said that there is a bit of trial and error but also that “types of materials are placed in groups which have particular number ranges.” (see image 06)
06 – Building materials now have more intelligent settings options, including priority connections.
There are a range of other improvements made to materials in ArchiCAD 17, including a new surface over-ride feature that enables the user to individually select parts of a composite structure’s outermost material and have the surface over-ride setting determine how that material looks. This is useful for colors on finishes for example. Say you have gypsum wall board materials in dozens of composite walls. There will be a default appearance for this material. But you can over-ride that appearance with the surface over-ride setting.
Intelligent Stories
ArchiCAD 17 introduces the linking of element tops to stories, supplementing the previous linking of element bottoms. This means you can link the tops of walls or columns to stories with a particular offset value. Now when a story height changes all the linked elements move with it. This change also works for zones. (see image 07)
07 – Asssociated Elements to Story Heights. Elements can have both bottom and tops now associated to stories.
This is a key aspect of the parametric-ization of the whole building, supplementing the new abilities with Priority-based Connections. Despite this new feature architects will still have the option to assign fixed heights to elements. This gives the designer full control. And it is a basic example of how CAD and BIM technology today is addressing the limitations of parametric design.
next page: Real-Time 3D Cutting Planes
Real-Time 3D Cutting Planes
The final element in this grand solution that Graphisoft has focused on (in release 17) is Real-time 3D Cutting Planes. In ArchiCAD 17 purple-colored cut planes are readily available for dragging through the model revealing real-time sectional rendering regeneration. All in OpenGL of course.
08 – ArchiCAD’s new real-time 3D cutting planes can even be set to rotated angles offering architects exciting sectional views for presentations.
These cut planes can be set to accurate points in the model as well as stored as part of the image sets for the project. It is possible to drag the cut planes from every side of the building (eg: top, bottom, sides) reducing the area of the model that is visible to a fraction of the whole building.
09 – Users can always set 3D cutting planes in plan view mode as well, which may allow them more accurate position. You can also use the cutting plane’s snap points to position a section view exactly in the same place.
One of the questions we had right away was can you create a 3D cut plane from a top plan view? The answer is yes. Eniko Pauko of Graphisoft also explained that you can also use the 3D cut plane to establish in 3D where the best sectional cut should be made and then use it as the basis for a standard building section by using its snap points for the sectional view location. Lastly, it is possible to rotate the cut planes in 3D space to provide unique visual 3D sections useful to presentations. (see images 08 -09)
BIM Lives in the Details – What Else?
During our presentation most of the time was spent on describing the four aspects above. But interestingly, we were surprised when Graphisoft told us that as a result of the new Priority-Based Connections and Intelligent Materials there was a net positive result in the material take-off capabilities of ArchiCAD 17.
10 – This view shows all the crevices or void spaces left behind around finish materials when you remove the walls. It shows that even these small differences do add up in material take-offs.
Prior to version 17 ArchiCAD was quite capable of material take-offs and they were considered accurate and workable for real-practice. But of all those cases where materials were not truly interfacing like they do in real-life, some amount of inaccuracy was getting generated. Now, with the far more accurate way in which materials are resolving their collisions ArchiCAD 17 is generating improvements in material take-offs which shouldn’t be dismissed as trivial. (see image 10)
Expanded 3D Capabilities in Version 17
ArchiCAD 17 has fundamental new 3D capabilities which enable many of the items we have already spoken about. Chief among those is the Real-Time 3D Cut Plane. Another feature ArchiCAD 17 gains as part of this additional technology is the Floorplan Based 3D Documents feature.
11 – Floorplan based 3D views are a new feature that gives architects more ways to display their designs.
This feature makes it easy to create a floor plan that has 3D aspects to it because it is in essence a 3D model view looking straight down with a horizontal cut plane established. What results are things like half walls and slices through fenestration. Shadows are cast on the floor from the vertical elements like the walls and a visually appealing view of a floorplan is created. (see image 11)
Additional 3D features include a more powerful MORPH tool. This tool brought to ArchiCAD, in version 16, very powerful direct-modeling capabilities for advanced form-making. In version 17 new features include the ability to list volume and surface areas of single Morph forms and separately by story as well. This is valuable for early stage conceptual design where free-form modeling is done using tools like Push-Pull with the MORPH tool. (see image 12)
12- The MORPH tool ads more capabilities useful in schematic design.
ArchiCAD 17 now makes curved beams easy to produce along a horizontal plane. Additionally, it is also possible to create a grid system with curved beams.
Despite the heavy introductions of simple to advance direct-modeling (aka: explicit modeling) tools in the past two releases (16-17) this version also adds strong support for Trimble’s SketchUp modeling program. You can now save an ArchiCAD model to native SketchUp model format directly, without installing any add-ons. And you can choose which layers and element types to export. The native ArchiCAD file’s textures and colors are kept as they move from the BIM program to SketchUp.
There are many reasons why a user may want to move a model from ArchiCAD to SketchUp. A chief reason is the wide variety of rendering solutions and third-party plugins that do specific functions. Another reason may be to merge a BIM model with an existing SketchUp model, perhaps one of a large urban context.
More importantly, the new direct-connection between ArchiCAD and SketchUp allows the user to bring in SketchUp models directly into ArchiCAD 17. After setting some options the imported SketchUp model is free for continued use after converting the objects to Morph objects. Finally, you can also export ArchiCAD models directly to Google Earth now, as well as import a Google Earth model into ArchiCAD.
next page: Open BIM and Other Improvements
Open BIM and Other Improvements
ArchiCAD 17 continues to offer more IFC support for national standards. New IFC data types are implemented in this release such as IFC System and IFC Time Series Schedule assignments, plus editable IFC Type Product entities. ArchiCAD 17 is IFC 2×3 Coordination View 2.0 certified.
In Publisher IFC models can be exported with various types of content with just one click. This means you can select things like just the load-bearing structure for the SE. Also new in this release is the timed new partnership with BIMObject.com. Now from within Graphisoft’s BIMcomponents.com you can search for and find more than a thousand real, up-to-date, manufacturer specific building components.
ArchiCAD 17 improves its Energy Evaluation engine which now supports multiple thermal blocks. Version 17 uses StruSoft’s VIPcore calculation engines.
BIMx is also now in every single ArchiCAD 17 installation. This interactive tool enables stakeholders to explore the BIM model even if they don’t know ArchiCAD or have a copy of ArchiCAD. It gives folks like clients and contractors the means to experience the BIM model on their desktop or iOS or Android device in a simplified way.
Industry Leading Performance
If the main story in version 17 is about letting the BIM model stay live all the way to the very end of construction documentation, a very big part of what makes that story possible lies in the program’s optimized code. If that wasn’t the case everybody doing BIM would be where Graphisoft is today.
When it comes to industry firsts, Graphisoft has lead all others in the areas of performance every step of the way. They were first to 64-bit computing for BIM. They were first with multi-core support. Now they are first with background processing. Eniko Pauko told us that Graphisoft is truly committed to staying ahead of the industry in the area of absolute performance, especially for very large projects.
ArchiCAD 17 users will now have at their disposal background processing, which leverages multi-core processing in the background as the user is manipulating large and complex BIM models that would otherwise take some time to regenerate. Additionally, the company has worked on optimizing its algorithms further to provide scaling of multi-core CPUs, improving on the raw performance from version 16. And lastly, it has further optimized its code base enabling improved utilization of GPUs to make navigating in OpenGL smoother.
Closing Thoughts
As in past Product In-Depths, we have not touched on every single new feature. ArchiCAD 17 contains dozens and dozens of additional features we skipped over. There are always new Library items for example or new abilities for components. For a detailed complete picture you can scan their product pages here.
As we revealed in our last feature on ArchiCAD, the Hungarian BIM leader has built its solid geometry modeling features on its own modeling kernel. We are continuously impressed with this foundational technology because as we witnessed in our web meeting the program works very smoothly in its new real-time cut planes. We get excited to see each release now as the company manages to deliver in two core areas we think can never fully be satisfied: absolute 3D performance and making the virtual building concept get more and more real. In this release, that latter ambition got a huge boost with the intelligent materials and priority connections. —- ANTHONY FRAUSTO-ROBLEDO, AIA, LEED AP