The Artlantis Attitude
Are you familar with Dwight Atkinson's books? He's got two great ones for ArchiCAD users. There's the Artlantis Attitude which obviously covers rendering with Artlantis. And for people looking to do all their rendering within ArchiCAD (yes it's possible), he also has
Little Clues
You say "you know what you're doing in ArchiCAD". You might not be the best, but you've got a really good system. You're fast and efficient. But how quickly can an ArchiCAD Expert tell if you're a good judge of
Pantheon of Workmonsters
In a world of shoegnomes, there are workmonsters
Tips, Tricks, and Cheats… ArchiCAD Dimensions
Dimensions in ArchiCAD are super basic, right? Well here's a video on some tips, tricks, and cheats regarding this essential tool. I cover about 15 to 20 different aspects of ArchiCAD's Dimension Tool. So clearly not an exhaustive or comprehensive
Frustrating ArchiCAD Things That Need to be Changed: You
Okay that title is a little facetious. But you should expect that from me by now. There is a wonderful thread on LinkedIN that was started two weeks ago on the ArchiCAD Residential Designers Group. You need to be a member
Fixing Error Messages and Ugliness with the Attribute Manager
This is the first time I'm cross posting something I wrote on BIM Engine here as well. If you use ArchiCAD, you'll want to read about the Attribute Manager. And you'll also want to download the .aat file that I
How BIM can Bankrupt Your Firm
Why do some firms embrace BIM and rave about its benefits while other firms try BIM and fail miserably? We all know this diagram: But here's another diagram. This is the one that describes firms that panic, firms that succumb to
More lessons from children’s TV
Don't talk about the brontosaurus in a room full of dinosaur lovers The other day on Sesame Street they did a segment on dinosaurs. They mentioned a brontosaurus. Dinosaur Train would never mention a brontosaurus. Why? Because it's not a real
My first overtly ArchiCAD vs Revit Post, sort of.
I'm trying some new things on the blog, now that I have more time and more outlets for writing about ArchiCAD. So just like last week, I'm trying for 5 posts in 5 days. And to have them all within
Advice from one of my ArchiCAD Heroes
Remember my recent ArchiCAD Heroes post? In it, I mentioned my five favorite posters on the ArchiCAD-Talk Forum. If you haven't taken the time to start searching out their posts and learning from their experience, that's okay. In time I
ArchiCAD Heroes
Shoegnome would never have existed if I wasn't such a huge fan of Onland.info. I've gushed over James Murray's blog before. He stopped updating his site about the time I started writing mine, so I feel a responsibility to carry
Morph Pet Palette Madness
While doing some experimentation on an ArchiCAD 15 file that I'd opened in ArchiCAD 16, I came across a weird quark with the Morph Tool. The pet palette for the Morph Tool wasn't showing me all the options. I was
Redlines vs Pinklines
Redlines We all know what Redlines are. Either digitally or by hand, someone is reviewing a set of drawings and marking them up to be corrected. Redlines are a critical part of the chain of command. A younger staff member can
ArchiCAD, AutoCAD, the Amazon Kindle, and my parents house
Greetings from Connecticut So my wife, daughters (Madeleine, 3, and Phaedra, 1), and I just drove from Minnesota to Connecticut in about 72 hours. We're now relaxing at my parents house in Connecticut for a few days before heading on to
New User Trouble
Mr. New User, Don't forget that you still need to produce printed documents I find many new users get obsessed with modeling and don't want to hear about the 2D world. This is both great and a disaster. I love to
THREE graphic shortcuts for Sections and Interior Elevations
Over the past year and a half of blogging I've had many small ArchiCAD tips and tricks that I wanted to share, but could never find the proper way to write about them. The aggregate of these tricks help me
Want to Annoy a BIM manager? Ignore the Template.
As a CAD / BIM manager, there is one vein of questioning that I just hate. It's not so much the actual question, which is a variation of: "Why isn't this working right?" It's the answer that angers me: "Because you're not following
Not every firm is ready for BIM. (Ten reasons) Your firm might have trouble implementing BIM if…
Not everyone owns a cellphone Not everyone in the firm has their own computer You sign out conference rooms by hand using a clipboard Your boss has his secretary printout e-mails for him You have hand drafters who never 'got' CAD Your boss thinks computers
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 -