A little over five months since I first published my ArchiCAD Resources Page it is finally getting its 2nd revision. To know why I started this list, here’s an explanation. And if you think there’s a website I should include e-mail me. So what are the changes? There are now links to guest posts from some of the website owners. I’ve added 4 more free ArchiCAD object sites (see below) and I’m thinking about moving all the free object sites to their own page. Why? Because of a little website called…

BIMcomponents.com

BIMcomponents.com is a game changer. It’ll be interesting to see if all the content from the other free sites ends up on BIMcomponents or if there will still be some rogue objects out there. With direct integration into ArchiCAD 16 (you can search BIMcomponents.com from within ArchiCAD and load objects directly into the embedded library), this site has the potential to make most of the other 3rd party free object repositories obsolete. It is essentially Google Warehouse but by Graphisoft and for ArchiCAD. The big ‘killer app’ being that the website can easily incorporate user generated content. And objects can be uploaded from ArchiCAD, so it should be easy to integrate into your object making workflow.

FREE OBJECTS

Ruby Sktech

This is an interesting looking site. It’s not exclusively ArchiCAD content, but it seems to have a good amount. And stuff I haven’t seen elsewhere. The most intriguing thing I’ve downloaded so far is the the Hunter Pacific fan object. It was actually developed by CADSwift, which suggests that the other ArchiCAD content on this site will be GOOD.

BIMobject

Another new(er) entrant, this site also has content for multiple platforms. My favorite part of this site is the ease of filtering objects down by file type. I don’t care about REVIT families. I just want GDL objects. Like most (all) object repository sites, I see a lot of objects from other sites. But there’s also enough unique objects to warrant checking it out.

National BIM Library

I’m adding this because the concept is good and maybe it’ll develop into a worthwhile site. You can read about this UK group’s loft goals here. But right now there’s not much value for ArchiCAD users and the site is annoying to navigate. I’d wager this is the first site I remove from my list. Let’s check back in a few months.

manuBIM

Ilauszky Endre, the Owner of manuBIMsoft Ltd., wrote a guest post about his company and website. The concept is great, I wish him the best of luck, and the objects he’s already developed are incredible. I look forward to seeing much more from manuBIM.