CAD Garage Blog

- BIMulus -

BIMulus: The Stimulus for the rest of us.

Or so my story goes.

It's clear from my travels, meetings and calls to architects that BIM (Building Information Modeling) is beginning a critical upswing within the profession. Clients, both public and private, are asking for BIM models or for teams to work within a BIM process. Contractors are starting to ask architects if they have a BIM model available and even peer pressure from fellow architects (you doing BIM yet?) is taking hold. And with all that we can start to see a future where there are the BIM have's and have not's-and projects will go to those that can provide the services clients are requesting. So in these times of reduced workload it's time to start thinking about becoming a BIM have.

Ramping up your skills now will have a big payback as projects begin to come back on board through either stimulus money or the opening up of credit markets. You'll be competing against a few BIM early adopters but by being able to show your firm has the skills in place and can meet the clients needs you're much more likely to be shortlisted. And many of the public projects receiving stimulus money will require BIM-both GSA and state government funded. In the private sector the ability to provide BIM service, at even a basic level, will set you apart from much of the competition in your marketing and business development efforts. So get BIM'ing!

Here's a few ways to start:

-Download Graphisoft's "BIM Learning Studio":

<https://trialregistration.graphisoft.com>

It's a 30 day trial of ArchiCAD 12 plus a number of tutorials to get you started on your way. Graphisoft invented the Virtual Building technology 25 years ago that we know today as BIM. And it's free!

-Learn ArchiCAD better:

The Virtual Tutor for ArchiCAD 12 DVD will assist you in learning ArchiCAD on a project from start to finish while watching video tutorials. Get the popcorn started!

-Read some BIM books:

It's not just about the software you know? You need to be able to speak about the process and do it if you win the work. So here's a few titles for you:

Building Information Modeling, by William Kymmell

BIM Handbook: A Guide to Building Information Modeling, By Chuck Eastman & others

Green BIM: Successful Sustainable Design with BIM, by Ed Krygiel and Bradley Nies

Those will provide you with more then enough ability to talk the talk while inducing minimal naps.

-Learn another new tool:

Now that you have yourself a fancy little Building Information Model gussy it up with Artlantis Render. A good rendering tools can help you sell yourself and your projects. And really, do you think the client just wants a big old data filled model? They want the pretty pictures too!

-If the entry price of BIM software is holding you back consider a few options:

ArchiCAD 12 PayPerUse (PPU)

Get started with a 300 hour use key for under $500. And credit up to 3 keys towards a full license through the end of 2009.

ArchiCAD Start Edition 2009

BIM for the sole practitioner, small firm or builder with an entry level price.

So wake up tomorrow and say to yourself "I'm going to put a little BIMulus in my firm"

Greg

ArchiCAD Objects: GDL Handbook

Objects are good, objects make the model and don't they say "whoever dies with the most objects wins". Not sure about that last one...

But one of the great strengths of ArchiCAD is it's intelligent parametric BIM objects. And although the ArchiCAD library contains a large amount of library objects to cover a wide range of uses you often need to make custom objects for specific design elements of a project. There are essentially 2 ways to do this:

-Graphical GDL

Which essentially means creating an objects in ArchiCAD's modeling tools. And this is not only easy but what most of us do when we need a special window or lighting fixture. You can also create objects in other modeling tools and import as ArchiCAD objects.

-GDL scripting

This is what you do when you need a higher level object with intelligent parameters. It might be something that you need to intelligently change the size of without distortion, materials of different components or select from an array of options.

-Hybrid objects

That's my term for those that start out as being modeled in ArchiCAD or another program and then have parameters added through GDL scripting.

For those looking to create Graphical or Hybrid GDL objects there is a great tutorial on "Building Objects Creation" on the Graphisoft website.

For you hardcore types there is the new GDL Handbook HERE.

$90 get's you over 500 pages of information on creating GDL objects using scripting that you won't find anywhere else. Amaze friends and family with your ability to do GDL gymnastics. Better yet, impress your co-workers and your boss-maybe there is a raise in the works for you this year!

So cruise on down to the CADgarage and get your GDL tuned up now. And buy $10 more of stuff and you get free shipping!

Greg

Cool clients: designLAB architects...

designLAB architects, an ArchiCAD firm from Boston just keeps hitting home runs. Their first ArchiCAD project, the world headquarters for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) just won an AIA Cote award for Top Ten Green Projects. From the AIA article on the project ArchiCAD played a strong role in the projects success:

"Using the latest BIM technology helped to accelerate the schedule and ensure accuracy with early estimates."

Photo Credit: Peter Vanderwarker

More importantly they were able to achieve LEED Gold status after further analysis of the project, working as a team with the owners and contractor, showed that a few additional efforts would get the project to that level.

Congrats to Robert Miklos and his team-awesome project for an organization that supports a great cause!

Greg

ArchiCAD Start Edition 2009 : Budget BIM Benefits

ArchiCAD Start Edition 2009 began shipping at the end of January. It's the winter treat that Graphisoft releases each year, sprinkled with exciting new features to fill the needs of practitioners in small to mid size firms  with an affordable BIM (Building Information Modeling) solution. It's not quite like the annual release of Beaujolais nouveau in France but we do have a number of people that have waited in anticipation of the release and, unlike the wine, ArchiCAD Start Edition is based on a mature platform.

The latest release picks up many of the finer features from ArchiCAD 12 including speed (multi-core processor support), 3D Documents, Fill Enhancements and improvement in Stairmaker. At $1995 it's less then half the cost of ArchiCAD 12 and other BIM tools making it an exceptionally affordable tool to get started. Should you later wish to move to the full version of ArchiCAD there is a convenient upgrade path.

What's not in ArchiCAD Start Edition are a number of features aimed at larger firms or more advanced users such as Teamwork, hot linked modules and Lightworks rendering. You can find a feature comparison between ArchiCAD 12 and ArchiCAD Start Edition 2009 HERE.  For those of you that still need rendering you can use a variety of excellent stand alone rendering packages including Artlantis Render and Piranesi.

For those of you looking to get started in BIM and whether your budgets are constrained by the economy or just the desire to make a more affordable intro to BIM, ArchiCAD Start Edition 2009 is a great tool to get you there.

GC

The Piranesi paradigm...

Just a quick reminder that Informatix "Piranesi 5.0" software is on sale through December 31st. The regular price is $750, we've taken their special and knocked a little more off to $555. Nice.

Piranesi 5.0 on CAD Garage

It's a great piece of software for non photorealistic renderings and this price is hard to beat. You can also throw in a Wacom Bamboo tablet for another $69.95 and get a great package deal. The Wacom tablets work greta with Piranesi giving you the tools to sketch and render more fluidly and take advantage of the pen's pressure sensitive feature to control line weight.

These days you need to be better then the other kids so get your skills honed with this fantastic tool, get to rendering and win some jobs!

GC

ArchiCAD 12 Virtual Tutor

The ArchiCAD 12 Virtual Tutor DVD's finally arrived a few weeks back. By then the back orders had piled up and we shipped out most of our first order-probably the most popular pre-order for one of our books or DVD's ever. I still haven't had a chance to sit down and review the tutorial yet but feedback from the initial group of buyers has been good so I think Laz has created another ArchiCAD tutorial masterpiece.

  We have the ArchiCAD 12 Virtual Tutor 12 HERE for $149 ($139 for ArchiPlus members) and students can get it for $45 HERE.

We have been seeing a large increase in training and tutorial materials as a lot of people have a little more free time lately. It's a good time to be positive, hone your skills and be prepared to be more efficient and competitive when design work picks up again. If learning something new saves you a couple of hours it's paid for itself!

GC

Traditional Taste Trio

That tongue twisting title brings us to todays post about 3 products I'm quite fond of-Piranesi, Squiggle and The Architects Font Pack. As the architectural profession has moved from the beauty of hand drawing towards the accurate but often sterile world of CAD drawings there has been a growing call for products that return our drawings to the look of previous times.

The first of these, Signature CAD's Squiggle, has been around for many years and is a great tool for taking 2D vector files, such as plans or elevation in DXF/DWG format and applying Squiggle's filters to get a hand drawn look. There are a number of preset line types or you can adjust to create a style that mimics your own sketch style like a nice shaky "I've been up all night drinking coffee trying to get this project done" style. You know that look...

Next take a look at Piranesi by Informatix. This gem allows you take take 3D views or 2D drawings from your CAD/BIM program such as ArchiCAD, SketchUp, Artlantis Render, AutoCad, Microstation, Vectorworks or  Revit and "paint" to produce non-photorealistic images. It's easy to achieve effects such as watercolor, chalk or pencil drawings using  Piranesi's unique tools and filters. The results are beautiful and easy to achieve. Use a Wacom Tablet to get results that look even more convincing.

Lastly the Architects Font Pack by Urban Forest provide a collection of 6 TrueType Fonts (plus one bonus font) to provide the finishing touch to your drawings. Included are MrHand, Heavy Hand, Glascow, Scribble, Sketcher and Stamped. These are system fonts so they will work with any application that can use them. I like the combination of "Scribble" for notes and "Stamped" for drawing titles.

Piranesi and the Architects Font Pack  are available for both Mac and Windows OS, Squiggle is unfortunately Windows only but can of course run on an Intel Mac with Windows installed. We'll make these available in one big bundle of hand drawn goodness until 12/31/08 for $799. Click on "Traditonal Taste Trio" to go back in time.

GC

MEP for ArchiCAD, ducts rule!

"Hi there. I want to talk to you about ducts. Do your ducts seem old fashioned, out of date? Central Services' new duct designs are now available in hundreds of different colors to suit your individual tastes...."

From the movie Brazil, 1985, director/co-screenwriter Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam had it right-we no longer need to have old ductwork in monotone colors with Graphisoft's new MEP Modeler for ArchiCAD 12! 

Shipping began last week on this powerful new tool for modeling ductwork in ArchiCAD or importing from AutoCAD® MEP 2008/09. It's aimed at architects that wish to take the 2D info from their MEP consultants and convert to 3D for coordination or visualization purposes. I've done this a few times in the past on projects using Graphisoft's previous tool, Ductwork for ArchiCAD, and found 3D MEP modeling incredibly useful. Although we had primarily modeled ductwork for aesthetic purposes to show the client what exposed ducts would look like in their space we ended up discovering a number of potential conflict areas that we were able to resolve before construction. And it took less time to model them then what we normally spent on coordinating 2D drawings. So I'm sold on this whole MEP modeling thing.

If you're working with a consultant in a BIM workflow you can import their AutoCAD® MEP 2008/09 with a special IFC translator and bring the model right into ArchiCAD. Way cool. Add in a robust library of MEP elements, smart routing and automatic collision detection and you have a fine add-on here. For more info visit the Graphisoft MEP page HERE.

Price is $695 for a license or $275 if you have a current ArchiPlus maintenance subscription. And it's available from your local ArchiCAD reseller or us here at CAD Garage: MEP For ArchiCAD

ps: I put myself through my first year of Architecture school working in a ductwork fabrication shop. So me and ducts are close!

"...Hurry now while stocks last to your nearest Central Services showroom. Designer colours to suit your demanding tastes."

GC

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I'll be posting information on new products, changes to the CAD Garage Store, our insights and opinions on products and whatever else strikes me. The CAD Garage team always has something new that we would like to tell you about-product info, guidance on the right software for your business or a tip on how to better use the products we carry.

Posts will be when we have something to say and will vary in frequency but at least a few times a month. So check in again soon!