Have You Tried Turning it Off and On Again?
Is ArchiCAD not acting properly? Object movement or 3D navigation is sluggish. The cursor keeps disappearing. Have you tried turning it off and on again? My brother is in IT and I've learned it's a truism of computers. Don't
MNAUG #11 Recap
Winter Usergroup meetings in Minnesota are an adventure--snow, ice, sub-zero temperatures. I'm always so glad to see a mixture of new and old faces make the trip. This month, even with a location snafu, we had about 1/3 newcomers. Below
Zonematic
Micro Aided Design, the Graphisoft Reseller in Finland, has a really cool Add-On for ArchiCAD. They actually have a couple, but Zonematic really stands out. It will create zones from a text file--which from a programing and planning standpoint is
January Usergroup Location Change
Unfortunately we ran into some complications and couldn't get a room at the UofM for our meeting. No worries. We'll just meet at the offices of SALA Architects in Minneapolis. I'll work on getting us onto campus in the future.
Black & White Hidden Line Renderings
I like adding 3D views of the major facades on my cover sheets. I first did this about 3 years ago using the sketch rendering engine. I knew it was a good move when in a client meeting we hardly
Pen Sets, Part One
History lesson. My two favorite changes between version 9 and version 10 where the merging of Plotmaker into ArchiCAD and the arrival of multiple pen sets. There is a lot of power and utility with multiple pen sets. At SALA Architects,
January 26th Minnesota ArchiCAD Usergroup coming fast!
Date: Wednesday January 26, 2011 | 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM | Location: SALA, Minneapolis In January we're inviting students from the UofM to join us. This will be a great opportunity for professionals and students to share insights about ArchiCAD. If there's
Old Files in need of opening?
December must have been the month of old files. I've had a few people ask me about opening up ancient projects. If you want to open a file from before v8.1 and only have v14 installed (I'm pretty sure even
Thanks for the Tip Julia Child
My wife and I were watching Baking with Julia tonight. The episode co-starred Bread Machine Wizard Lora Brody of West Newton, Massachusetts. Julia Child, a bread machine skeptic, had a killer quote: You're the boss of the machine It's a wonderful mantra
Paintings and Frames
There are a couple ways to hang a picture in an ArchiCAD project. There is an object which I can never find in the library when I look for it. There's also the object mentioned in this forum post. My
Aligning 3D Textures on Slabs
Aligning 3D textures in ArchiCAD should be easier. It needs to be done in 3D and this can be tricky if you don't have a node in the right place to snap to. Sometimes I'll make a temporary object or
Assigning Information in ArchiCAD for Material Takeoffs
This AECBytes article by Thomas M. Simmons of ARCHIVISTA is great. Material takeoffs are a lot easier and closer at hand than I thought. Worth a read. I have some experimenting to do.
MNAUG #10 Recap
Although the meeting was focused on new users, there were some great questions and discussions that have value for all users. As in most of our meetings, a fair amount of time was spent discussing complex profiles. For anyone who's
A Really Good Deal
Graphisoft is running a very nice promotion between now and the end of 2010. The full details are here. The basics are below: DEAL 1: Buy any new ArchiCAD 14 commercial license with a subscription and get Virtual Building Explorer as
ArchiCAD 14 Hotfix released yesterday
ArchiCAD 14 Hotfix (Build 3477)
Top 20 Keyboard Shortcuts
All new users I work with invariably ask me a question followed by a request. Is there a list of all the keyboard shortcuts? Yes; go to Work Environments, Shortcut Schemes, Keyboard Shortcuts, click Show Shortcut List in Browser. Once
Some Early December Ramblings
One of the promises of BIM is to help us architects spend more time designing and less time documenting. The lion-share of our fees are typically on construction documentation. Wouldn't it be more fun if we
Paste in Reference Location
Paste in Reference Location is an option I never noticed until recently and it's surprisingly useful. I had structural information form another file that I needed to copy into place. Essentially I was referencing in an
December 13th Minnesota ArchiCAD Usergroup (ArchiCAD Basics)
Our next Minnesota ArchiCAD User Group is Monday December 13th, 2010 at SALA Architects in Minneapolis (6:30-8:30 pm). We're having a special Usergroup meeting in December. It's going to be all about the basics. This meeting will be ideal for: -
Shop Drawings, an intermediate solution
Many years ago when I was an intern at Gensler in Houston, one of my jobs was transferring redlines on shop drawings. The lead architect marked up the original and then I made 5 copies by hand. Some shop drawings came
Bridging Continents – Online BIM Collaboration around the World
Graphisoft is hosting a webinar on Teamwork 2 and how it facilitates collaboration. You can learn more and register here: Bridging Continents - Online BIM Collaboration around the World And watch a nice 35 second trailer here.
MNAUG #9 Recap
We had a good turn out last week for our 9th Minnesota ArchiCAD Usergroup. To celebrate a full year of meetings we had pizza (thanks, Graphisoft). We covered a lot of topics at this meeting. Many of them--like Solid Element
Digging Tunnels through Mountains
A former colleague of mine, who was in the process of starting her own one-person firm, told me “I never liked drafting, I'm hoping to get someone else to do that.”
The November ArchiCAD Usergroup is almost here
Our next Minnesota ArchiCAD User Group is Tuesday November 9th, 2010 at SALA Architects in Minneapolis (6:30-8:30 pm). November's meeting will cover a wide variety of topics that have been suggested at recent meetings and subsequent e-mails. Some of
ArchiCAD 14 Patch for Java Update on Mac OS X 10.6
It looks like there are some issues with the latest Java Update on Mac OS X 10.6. You can learn about the issue and get the ArchiCAD 14 patch here and the ArchiCAD 13 patch here. Future hotfixes of both