]]> Auckland, New Zealand – 11 May, 2012 – Graphisoft New Zealand

Masterspec recently announced the results from their 2012 Nationwide BIM Survey. With a total of 524 industry respondents (81% architects and architectural designers), the results provide a credible picture of present day standards, attitudes and the progress made towards BIM in New Zealand.

The survey results clearly show Graphisoft ArchiCAD as the BIM software standard among architects and architectural designers.

Key Results:

- ArchiCAD dominates with 37% of the industry using it as their primary tool to produce CAD drawings, this is nearly 2 times more users than 2nd place Revit.

- ArchiCAD would have an even higher percentage of users (around 45%) if the survey were exclusively for architects and architectural designers.

- 75% saw BIM as the future of project information.

- 90% believed that they would be using BIM within 5 years, and 70% believed that they would be using BIM in one year’s time.

Campbell Yule, 
Managing Director of Graphisoft New Zealand says, “we’re rapt with the results. We have seen ArchiCAD sales climb back to historic highs, and 2012 looks like a great year.

The bulk of demand is being led via the Christchurch rebuilds and their need for quality and productivity efficiencies. To us, this survey backs up ArchiCAD as the industry leader in the New Zealand architectural BIM CAD software market.”

We believe you don’t become market leader on software alone. Our focus since establishing in 1991 has always been on service and after sales support. Even though we sell software solutions, our philosophy is to be ‘a customer led company.’ We don’t just distribute software, we help every step-of-the-way and the majority of the Graphisoft team is Architecturally trained allowing us to easily communicate with our customers.

Beyond the recognition from architects and architectural designers, we’re also very excited with the release of ArchiCAD 16 and its comprehensive ecosystem of solutions to help create, share, and find custom BIM Components. Built-in Energy Evaluation also turns ArchiCAD 16 into the “greenest” BIM solution available today.”

Graphisoft New Zealand Limited

Graphisoft New Zealand has been the exclusive distributor for ArchiCAD in New Zealand since 1991.

Graphisoft New Zealand is part of the Cadimage Group which develop, distribute, support and service an integrated range of design and evaluation software for the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry in New Zealand and internationally.

Cadimage Group distributes: ArchiCAD, Artlantis, Solibri Model Checker, Solid Edge and Femap, as well as developing and exporting their own software.

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As you have no doubt already heard, ArchiCAD 16 is due to be released at the end of this month (if you hadn’t already heard about this, you can find out more here).

Here at Cadimage, we are currently working hard on getting our tools all ready to be released at the same as the new ArchiCAD version is.

Any purchase of any tools now will include a free upgrade to the V16 version once it is released, as will any purchase that you made from us since the first of May.

For those of you who already had Cadimage software before the start of the month, you’ll be able to purchase the upgrade from our website once the new version is released.

]]> Most tools in ArchiCAD rely on Attributes. Attributes include Pens, Line types, Fills, Materials and so on. All attributes that already exist are managed by the Attribute Manager. Over time and as you become more experienced with ArchiCAD you will begin to create your own attributes; more than likely you are already in the form of layers. Because attributes remain in the files they are created in, you may find that you want to transfer specific attributes into another project.

To access your attribute manager go to Options > Element Attributes > Attribute Manager

Here you will find tabs relating to all of the attributes held within the ArchiCAD file you have open. (Layers, Pen Sets, Line Types, Fill Types, Materials etc..)

To save an attribute or multiple attributes out of the file for use in another you will need to organize the attributes you want to save.

Using an example, we might have made a material which we put a lot of time into and renders very well, however, it is currently only in the file we created it in. Ideally we would have that material ready to go in our Office template so whenever we started a job we had the material there for use.

To do this you need to go to the Material tab, select your material from the left hand column and choose Append, which will transfer it into the right hand column. You can now choose Save As and save the file externally.

Now open your destination file e.g. Office Template and access the attribute manager as above. Choose Open from the Attribute Manager. Choose your saved file and Append the material into your new file.

]]> ArchiCAD 16 – BIM Components at Your Fingertips

BUDAPEST, May 2, 2012 – GRAPHISOFT® announced today ArchiCAD® 16, the latest version of its premium BIM design software for architects. ArchiCAD 16 introduces a comprehensive ecosystem of solutions to ease the creation, sharing, and finding of custom BIM Components. Built-in Energy Evaluation turns ArchiCAD 16 into the “greenest” BIM solution available on the market today.

“Building projects – by their nature – contain numerous custom building components and structures that may require modeling capabilities beyond the standard BIM tools,” said László Vértesi, VP of Products at GRAPHISOFT. “ArchiCAD 16 introduces direct modeling capabilities and cloud-integration to help users create and find the custom objects, components, and structures they need to make their BIM models complete,” he continued.

MORPH TOOL – Redefining Modeling Freedom for BIM

Custom objects, components, and structures require a tool with extraordinary modeling flexibility. ArchiCAD 16 introduces direct modeling capabilities into the native BIM environment with its brand new MORPH™ tool. MORPH allows element creation with any custom geometry in an intuitive graphical way, featuring popular modeling techniques such as push & pull. MORPH elements can be created from scratch simply by drawing a 3D polygon or by converting any existing ArchiCAD BIM element. The MORPH tool is an optimal solution for creating custom BIM components, custom structures, and custom elements of the built environment as well as custom-designed building interiors.

BIMcomponents.com – Cloud-search for BIM Components

Building components is one of the most dynamically developing segments of the BIM industry. ArchiCAD’s parametric GDL technology has been a powerful tool for professionals to create “intelligent” building components. ArchiCAD 16 fundamentally changes the possibilities  the average user has to obtain custom BIM Components for their BIM projects. ArchiCAD’s new modeling capabilities, connected with the cloud-based BIM Component database allow users to create, search, upload, and download custom BIM components of their choice. The fully-integrated web portal makes sharing BIM components a core community function. BIMcomponents.com also provides a central “marketplace” for all GDL objects to directly reach ArchiCAD users when they need those objects the most.

SUSTAINABILITY – Industry-first Fully BIM-integrated Energy Evaluation

In today’s environment, sustainability is an imperative for all building projects. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the main decisions influencing a building’s sustainability features are made by the architects and not by the building systems engineers. GRAPHISOFT continues to innovate in “green” as well, uniquely offering the best workflow for sustainable design, integrated in its BIM authoring tool. The built-in Energy Evaluation functionality of ArchiCAD 16 is similar to the former standalone EcoDesigner™ product, but is based on entirely new technology (e.g. zone-boundary based building model geometry analysis, analytic weather data input option, etc.). This technology allows architects to perform reliable dynamic energy evaluation of their BIM model within ArchiCAD, relying on BIM geometry analysis and accurate hour-by-hour online weather data of the building’s location.

Together with ArchiCAD 16, GRAPHISOFT also delivers important workflow and productivity updates to its growing portfolio of solutions. These include an upgraded BIM Server™, Cloud-integrated model sharing service for BIMx users with an active maintenance contract, and support for the IFC 2×3 Coordination View Version 2.0 for facilitating OPEN BIM. ArchiCAD 16 will be released on May 30, 2012, with shipment to customers beginning within a few weeks after the official release. Following a tight release schedule, all 26 local versions are planned to reach the market by the end of Q3 2012. For more information about ArchiCAD 16, please visit: http://www.graphisoft.com/archicad. For a live demonstration of ArchiCAD 16, please register for the upcoming “BIM Components at Your Fingertips” webinar on June 19, 2012.

]]> If you have forgotten your password to MyArchiCAD.com, hit the ‘Forgot your Password?’ button from within the Sign Up or Log In tab.  Type in your e-mail address that you registered with and click Send.

You will now be sent an e-mail, within the e-mail click on the “Click here” text and you will be taken to a web page.  Within the web page, type in your new Password and hit Enter.

You will then be able to continue to the MyArchiCAD website by clicking on the “Click Here” text.