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
Bass Lessons
I've been a bassist for over 20 years (over two-thirds of my life). As college approached and I was deciding what to do with my life, I had two options: professional musician or architect. Much of my life could be
Graphisoft Newsletter, Q3 2010
Graphisoft has relaunched their newsletter. Enjoy.
Graphisoft BIM Bundle helps you go green! (aka ArchiCAD [hearts] EcoDesigner)
Graphisoft is running a promotion through December 15th, 2010. Buy ArchiCAD 14 with a subscription and get EcoDesigner as a bonus! You can see the full promo details here. E-mail or call me if you are interested or have any questions.
When did that happen? / I forgot about that!
I finally started a project in version 14 today. It's probably more accurate to say I got distracted from working on my first version 14 project and spent time transferring over my version 11 template. The task is a little more
Design Sharing in BIM
Graphisoft has produced a very informative white paper on BIM Collaboration. It nicely shows the differences and advantages of the three basic types of BIM file sharing (which could be extrapolated to the original Teamwork, Revit's new Revit Server, and
BIM Breakfast (overdue thoughts)
I went to the September AIA BIM Breakfast. As anyone who's talked to me about BIM knows, I'm a big fan of this group. We were all supposed to bring examples of BIM requirements so we could discuss how they impact
Members In Transition — 10/14/10
I'll be giving a presentation about ArchiCAD to the AIA-MN Members in Transition group on Thursday 10/14/10 @ 4 pm at the AIA-MN office in International Market Square. If you can't make it but are interested, give me a call
Split, who knew?
The split command (cmd + opt + I is my keyboard shortcut, the button looks like a little red axe) works for walls, slabs, meshes, roofs, beams, fills, lines, polylines, splines, arcs/circles, and zones. Why did I just learn this
ArchiCAD Blogs
There are some other very interesting things going on in the ArchiCAD blogosphere. Graphisoft has a growing list of blogs devoted to ArchiCAD here. Don't want to sift through all that? Here's three to look at first: http://www.thebimr.com/ This blog focuses on
ArchiCAD 14 Hotfix released today
ArchiCAD 14 Hotfix (Build 3269)
MNAUG #8 Recap
Last night we had our 8th Minnesota ArchiCAD Usergroup meeting. We're coming up on one full year of meetings (our first meeting was in October 2009)! We'll have to celebrate at our next meeting in November. I'm thinking I'll bring
Frameless Doors
ArchiCAD, from my experience, doesn't like making frameless doors. It seems so obvious, just set the frame dimensions to zero, press okay, and then go to lunch. Try again. If you go the simple route of setting the frame to
BIM Breakfast
The next BIM Breakfast Club is on Tuesday September 21st @ 7:30 am in the boardroom at the AIA Minnesota offices. If you haven't been to a BBC session, it's worth getting over to International Market Square and joining the
Our Next Usergroup Meeting is just around the corner!
Our next Minnesota ArchiCAD User Group is Tuesday September 28th, 2010 at Wilkus Architects in Eden Prairie (6:30-8:30 pm). A lot of us have been using ArchiCAD 14 for the past few months and we are all going to share
Some Kitchens
I model all the major elements in kitchens. However the detail across the kitchen is usually a mix of 2D and 3D. In one kitchen, 08113, we spent a lot of time working on two elevations with the client. We
Dashed Lines, Crazy Ramps, and Trees
The other users on the ArchiCAD-Talk Forum never cease to surprise and amaze me. There's so much to be learned from them. Here's my three favorite posts from the past few days. Dashed Lines on adjoining slabs I never knew ArchiCAD could
A quick word on details, cabinets, and walls
Do I use ArchiCAD to its fullest? Not even close. Is my work a combination of 2D & 3D? of course. Each project is more 3D and less 2D. However, it's not about 100% 3D vs. 100% 2D or 100%
A question asked before I was ready to answer
I was on a panel discussion on BIM in residential architecture during the summer of 2009. One of the audience members, after hearing the four of us talk for an hour, got up and said “But where
10 ArchiCAD tips from Pantera’s Reinventing the Steel
The track list from Pantera's last studio album, Reinventing the Steel, has great advice for any ArchiCAD user. You don't need to love their music like I do to see what accidental BIM geniuses these guys were. Let's look: Hellbound -
Operators
I keep the majority of my operators on a hidden layer called Operators. However it's a pain to turn on the layer when I need it on. In times past I'd either go to the layers, select operator, turn it
Eyeballs and Locks
I've set the keyboard shortcut for the Quick Layers palette to 'control + X'. The filtering capabilities of this little palette are huge and easy to use. I am always isolating layers to do quick moves. When working on a
There are better uses of a machine that sends messages to the past, but…
I'm excited about version 14. I started using ArchiCAD on version 9, dabbled in 8.1, 10, 12, and 13, and have been using v11 since it was released. While working on my first project in v11 back in 2007, I
What have you Unlearned Today?
We all have bad habits in ArchiCAD. Some of this is from how we were taught and some from the version we learned on. As the program evolves, we need to reevaluate how we work. Do we still need to