Round the World : Part 2 UK

Yesterday I arrived in the UK and took the train to Nottingham for the annual ArchiCAD University Summer School.

Last night keynote speaker Graham Brown talked about his discovery of the reciprocal frame – essentially a configuration of beams that are self-supporting.

Graham has obviously presented the concept many times over the last 20 years and it was not only impressive to see the simple concept in reality:

But even more impressive to see the strength of the resulting structure:

Graham’s talked resonated well for me as his use of mathematics and geometry certainly aligned with the concepts behind Cadimage.

Graham’s structures are used extensively in sacred structures (funeral chapels etc) and more recently peace buildings.

For more extensive reading about both the history and the future check out www.outofnowhere.com

Thanks to Til Breton for the photographs.

Stairs Update 14.0.104 Issue

We have found an Issue in Stairs 14.0.104, where error messages pop up which relate to invalid Pen numbers when using the Railing Tool, or editing an Assembled Stair.

We are currently working on a fix and will get that up onto the Downloads page at www.cadimageworld.com as soon as possible.

In the mean time a quick work-around is to set the railing pens to not be ‘(0) Transparent’.  Within the Cadimage Railing Tool, go to Floor Plan Symbol and change the pens to something that is not “less than 1 or greater than 255″.  If you are using the Architecture 100 Pen Set we suggest you use Pen 11 (Stairs – General)

Tags: Stairs

Round the World : Part 1 USA

Thanks to the continued support of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise I am currently on another round the world trip. The main reason for the trip is to take part in the ArchiCAD University but I have also taken the opportunity to visit some partners and customers in the USA on my way to the UK.

On Sunday after arriving in San Francisco I caught up with Tom Simmons, President of ARCHIVISTA and long time Cadimage Partner. As always it was interesting to hear Tom’s take on the current environment in the US and hear how his business is growing. From a sales perspective we talked extensively about our current Essentials Bundle promotion and Tom is revved up and rearing to go – watch out ARCHVISTA Customers!

From San Francisco it was on to Houston where I caught up with our partner JT Burk of CADeshack and we headed off to Energy Architecture.

Energy Architecture is a small firm focused on the Energy Sector. We had a great meeting discussing their business and talking about our Tools. Currently Energy uses our Keynotes tool extensively, but as with many customers wanted to understand best practices for its use. I was able to show them a new online tool we have in development and it was great to receive direct feedback on how the tool should develop.

To be honest it has been quite a while since I had to demo our tools but, like riding a bike, it came back to me quickly and with JT’s prompting we worked our way through a number of our tools. Two hours raced by and we concluded what was an enjoyable, productive and relaxed meeting.

After a quick bite to eat it was off to Kirksey – wow! A large office!

Kirksey have been ArchiCAD customers for well over 10 years and have over 80 seats. A user of our Stair tool for a number of years, Kirksey were impressed to see the latest version where a number of their requests had been implemented (variable landing sizes for one!)

Over the course of a 3 hour meeting I was able to present a number of Tools which sparked some lively discussion. I love the challenge of trying to achieve what a customer wants – I can’t say it always comes off but it is a thrill all the same! Again, I was able to present some ‘in development’ tools and get feedback that was extremely useful in connection with how these tools may develop from here.

Aside from the great discussion, two other things impressed me.

Firstly the projection system in the room we were in:

The above image is only one half of the screen! The system uses two projectors that are aligned perfectly and allows for a super wide screen (2560 x1050 pixels!). It also allows for Picture-in-Picture which was really cool.

The second thing that impressed me can also be seen in the image above – trees! Each year instead of sending Christmas presents to their customers, Kirksey staff plant trees. While this sounds like a great idea, I figured it was a recent initiative so I was blown away to find out this is a 23 year tradition over which time Kirksey have planted 7,880 Trees! Wow! If that isn’t forward thinking I don’t know what is!

Predominantly selling tools via the Internet, we don’t often get to visit our customers so Tuesday was a special day to visit two great customers in the Houston area and catch up with a great partner JT Burk!

Tonight I catch an overnight flight to London then straight up to Nottingham for ArchiCAD University – keep an eye out for more posts.

Interim Release for Coverings

The focus tool for this past week was Cadimage Coverings.

Here are a few of the issues we (think) are now fixed:

• The pick up/inject buttons for the Cadimage Wall Coverings and Cadimage Roof Coverings are now working again. This functionality dropped out at some stage, but it’s back again in this interim release. This is a very useful function for transferring settings from one wall/roof covering element to multiple covering elements.
• Purlins/battens now use the correct pens for 3D outline, and for section/elevation views.
• Various combinations of claddings/flashings/barges etc. were tested to ensure the components no longer become separated in the 3D model.
• Multiple skylights can now be included without noticeable slow-down.
• Roof edges may now be split by adding a node on the edge, with no ill effects.

We also had time to make a few enhancements.

Enhancements to Cadimage Roof Coverings:

• Now has a full complement of section attributes for framing, cladding, flashings and barge/fascia.
• Purlins/battens now use the correct pens for 3D outline, and for section/elevation views.
• A button has been added to the Custom Settings dialog to select all holes (i.e. skylights) so as to edit the edges simultaneously. A second button allows quick selection of all roof perimeter edges.

Enhancements to Cadimage Wall Coverings:

• You can set the battens material for board-and-battens cladding, and the groove material for panel type cladding.
• For panel type cladding, you can now offset alternate rows of panels.

You can download the update from www.cadimageworld.com. Click on the Downloads button and then choose Interim Releases. You’ll see the Cadimage Coverings interim release, with the version number 14.0.105. Click on either the Windows or Mac icon to download the appropriate installer.

As always, please take care when downloading, extracting and running the installer! For more information, see the Help Center article on Downloading and Installing the tools.

Tags: interim

Interim Release for Cadimage Cabinets

Now that we’ve released the first general update of the Cadimage tools for ArchiCAD 14, we plan to work on one tool at a time, making enhancements and fixing issues on a weekly basis. At the end of each week we’ll aim to release an interim version of that week’s tool.

The first of our interim releases is the Cadimage Cabinets. Here’s a list of work we’ve done for the interim release:

• Custom components can now be used for doors and furniture knobs.
• Cadimage Laundry Tub was taking a long time to generate a 3D image if you selected a specific tap style. This has now been fixed.
• Dashed lines in floor plan view at the ends of adjacent cabinets now display correctly – in previous versions the dashes from the adjacent cabinets merged to form a solid line.
• Dashed lines used for arcs on door swings now all start at the cabinet front for a tidier floor plan symbol.
• A tambour/top hung roller door can now be inserted in place of doors or drawers.
• Corner doors now display pivot lines in 3D, section and elevation.
• Corner doors now have only one handle, the extra handle that was being placed has been removed.
• Face frame construction (including overlay doors) can now be modeled.
• The orientation of door and drawer handles can now be controlled independently. The control for this is consistent for both doors and drawers, the angle is measured from the horizontal.

You can download the update from www.cadimageworld.com. Click on the Downloads button and then choose Interim Releases. You’ll see the Cadimage Cabinets interim release, with the version number 14.0.105. Click on either the Windows or Mac icon to download the appropriate installer.

As always, please take care when downloading, extracting and running the installer! For more information, see the Help Center article on Downloading and Installing the tools.

Tags: interim

Cadimage Tools for ArchiCAD 14 : Update 1

We’ve just released the first update of the Cadimage Tools for ArchiCAD 14. This update is intended to fix some general issues with the tools:

• Problems with loading a BIM server library into a solo project.
• Various enhancements to common functionality shared by all the tools.

The update also addresses a number of issues in some individual tools as listed below.

Doors+Windows (for a full list see the release report):

• Can’t change the overall height of a door, either graphically in section/elevation or by entering the height in the Custom Settings dialog.
• More auto-text options are available for the schedule notes. These are listed in the Help Center article
• A masking fill has been added to the Cadimage door and window markers.
• Sashes in the window builder can now open to either the interior or exterior side of the window.
• Smarter control over how the type code and user IDs are displayed in the door and window schedule.
• Some Custom Settings dialog pages were locked even when no preset window was selected.
• A problem with setting the reveal depth for doors is now fixed.
• Glass section attributes are now working correctly for all glazed panels.
• Sending notes back and forth from the schedule now works correctly.
• The inner frame material is now correct for doors.

Stairs (for a full list see the release report):

• You can now create L-shaped or U-shaped landings with different widths on each section (view a tutorial movie).
• A new command allows you to miter-join adjacent railings across stories. This replaces the original automatic linking of railings that caused some problems when stairs were mirrored.

Wall Frames:

• Couldn’t edit presets for some partial structures.

You can get the update from the Downloads page of www.cadimageworld.com. As always, please take care when downloading, extracting and running the installer! For more information, see the Help Center article on Downloading and Installing the tools.

Tags: Update

Cadimage Tools for ArchiCAD 13 : Update 3

There’s a new update of the Cadimage Tools for ArchiCAD 13. This update resolves a number of issues including the items listed below.

Cabinet Builder:

• Problems with the cabinets plan view symbol are now fixed.
• Minor 2D symbol enhancements and bug fixes for various library parts.

Accessories:

• Separate pen options for flashings on the Roof Builder.
• The soffit line can be set to a dashed line in plan view.

Rapid Details:

• The break line may now have a break symbol at each end of the masking fill.
• The concrete block detail element now has an option for removing the rake on either side.

Door & Window Builder:

• The control for independent head and sill frame width now works.
• You can now add schedule notes to the Garage Door.
• There is now an option to continue the frame under the door leaves in the Custom Settings dialog.
• Stretching doors in section/elevation views resulted in some odd sized doors – this is now fixed.
• Pens and fill for exterior trims are now applied correctly to the floor plan symbol.

Profiler:

• Some pens and fills were not working in plan view and section.

Key Notes:

• When you edit a note and run the Update Labels tool, labels on locked layers are now also updated.

Landscaping:

• The tools for creating and editing cutout plants now work correctly.
• When creating an area of planting from a fill polygon, you can now choose either a triangular or rectangular planting method.
• Changing the fill polygon of a planting area now correctly calculates the number of plants for the schedule.

The update also addresses a problem common to all the tools, namely that when you started a second instance of ArchiCAD the tools showed up as ‘View Only Mode’. To get around the problem, you had to re-load the libraries. When you install the update, this issue will no longer occur.

You can download the update from www.cadimageworld.com. Click on the Downloads button and then choose Release Archives. You’ll see a list of all the tools, with the version number 13.0.354. Select all the tools, then click on either the Download WIN or Download OSX button at the bottom of the page. It’s important that you update all your tools, otherwise some will not work.

As always, please take care when downloading, extracting and running the installer! For more information, see the Help Center article on Downloading and Installing the tools.

Tags: Update

The Gallery : Submissions Are Open!

Today, I’d like to draw your attention to the Gallery, and to invite you to submit examples of your work for display.

The Gallery @ Cadimage is a place for you, our users, to show off – you can take a look through the gallery to see examples of projects done by users from around the world, or you can submit your own work for everyone to see.

We’re currently re-designing the Gallery page(you can see a preview of it below) and we want your project on display there!

Just send through a couple of images(photos or computer-generated), a brief description of the project, and let me know what Cadimage software helped you make it. Also, please ensure that you actually have rights to distribute any images that you’re sending.

Just email the files and details through to me, josh@cadimagegroup.com

(This is what the new page will look a bit like)

Tags: gallery

Take a (virtual)Tour of Historic Shanghai Buildings

Graphisoft, in conjunction with Tongji University, Pujing Information Technology and BMC, have made available a couple of Virtual Tours of historic Shanghai buildings using the Virtual Building Explorer(VBE).

It’s part of the ‘Art Forum Hungary’ exhibition, which will be running at the Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai(MOCA Shanghai) from August the 23rd to September the 5th.

Amongst the showcases of Hungarian photography, film, fashion and 10 giant Gömböc, visitors will be able to take a virtual tour of several buildings designed by Hungarian architect László Hudec – including the Park Hotel, China’s first tallest building.

For those of us not in the area, Graphisoft have provided the VBE files being used for the virtual tours, so you can take a look yourself from the comfort of your own office chair. Three are available: the Park Hotel, Moore Memorial Church, and the D.V.Woo house. Download them for Windows or OSX from the VBE page here.

MOCA Shanghai exhibition details here: http://www.mocashanghai.org

Graphisoft Press release here: http://www.graphisoft.com

Tags: VBE

Plotmaker : Lest We Forget

It seems like only yesterday, but it’s 4 years since the much-loved Plotmaker passed on.

Sure we can make layouts in ArchiCAD now, but for those of you still mourning Plotmaker’s loss, make him/her/it live on in your memory and on your desktop with this haunting wallpaper.

Just hit the link below for your desktop resolution, or the closest option. Then right-click on the image and choose ‘Set as Desktop Background’  or similar.

1920 by 1200

1680 by 1050

1280 by 1024

(I’m pretty sure these are the correct dates, but if anyone has more accurate numbers, please let me know in the comments)

Tags: plotmaker