This blog is about using BIM on a day to day basis. I cover ArchiCAD tips and tricks, BIM and management thoughts, and occasionally how this all relates to the Minnesota ArchiCAD Usergroup (which I started in 2009). The specifics are about ArchiCAD—that’s the software I use and sell—but the overall themes are relevant regardless of your software. Programs are just tools. BIM is a mentality.
Posted: January 11th, 2012 | Author: Kristian Bursell | Filed under: Guest Bloggers, Long Posts | Tags: BIM philosophy, GDL, Modeling, Objects | No Comments »
I officially entered the building design realm through the Architecture and Environmental Design course at the University of Canberra. After constantly being told that my ideals were that of a dreamer I became unsure of myself and decided the safe option was to follow the notions of friends, family and university Lecturer’s on “what life is”. However I felt nothing when I reached the milestones they said would bring fulfilment; and in the space of two weeks all I was told to aim for crumbled, and I found myself in a deep dark hole. So I threw their notions to the wind, clawed my way out of the hole and began beating my own path. Lesson 1; follow your heart not your head, because others will fill it with rubbish that does not apply to you.
Within my first year in the industry I had taught myself ArchiCAD and was already much faster than the experienced ArchiCAD users around me. My deeper understanding of the program meant that I was relied upon for maintaining and developing ArchiCAD systems within every company I worked for.
While delving into the capabilities of ArchiCAD I began to explore the wonderful world of parametric objects. I then began teaching myself all the nuances of ArchiCAD’s GDL scripting language. GDL, at its peak, is a very well organized series of geometric equations with a maze of variables. I discovered that creating parametric GDL objects gave me a great deal of satisfaction.
There is something very fulfilling about seeing parametric 3D objects come to life through mathematical equations. Perhaps it’s that overwhelming urge to create and understand form that many of us from the non-child-bearing gender experience. Whatever it is, I knew I had found my calling.
When I moved to Brisbane the head and the heart battled again; I was running out of money and my head was telling me to take one of the many jobs I was offered, but my heart, for no apparent reason, was set on working for Cottee Parker Architects. A couple days before my funds ran dry the call from CPA finally came and I was hired before the job interview was over.
My heart new best; the 3 years I worked for CPA was the best opportunity I could have to develop my skills. I spent the first year in CPA’s Brisbane office assisting with the development of their impeccable ArchiCAD template. Working on large scale projects taught me more about exploiting ArchiCAD’s full potential. I was also relied on to develop a series of intelligent parametric GDL library parts.
Being a small town boy at heart, one year in the big smoke was all I could bear. Also, my ArchiCAD development work for CPA was still only, at best, 50% of my workload; my speed made me far too useful as a documenter. These two factors prompted me to move from Brisbane back to a small coastal town. However, when I discussed this with Robert Cottee he asked me to continue doing ArchiCAD development work for CPA from wherever I planned to move to. I jump at the opportunity and for the next two years I worked as a remote ArchiCAD manager, developer and trainer for CPA.
Two solid years of GDL scripting was a great opportunity to learn what is possible with ArchiCAD library parts. It helped me to isolate the best scripting methods to ensure the parts I create are of the highest standard. When my role with CPA was terminated in October 2008 due to the Global Financial Crisis, I began working on my advanced set of GDL Library Parts.
 Swift Joinery |
 Swift Gutter Plus |
In the last few years I have consulted to a large number of small, medium and large architectural firms, optimizing their ArchiCAD systems. I have discovered that the majority of people, and companies, do not use ArchiCAD very well.
My goal with ArchiCAD is the same as it was in the beginning; to automate as many processes as possible simply by modelling building elements. The only way to do this effectively is through GDL Library Parts. You are not working efficiently if you use a tool to model an element and then have to add in lines and text and other manual 2D information to complete the representation of that element in all views and schedules. Modelling will be tedious if you have to use a boring parameter list to configure each aspect of the modeled element. With moveable hotspots in 2D and 3D and polished user interfaces, my library parts bring joy and speed back into modelling.
The idea of BIM is information in a model, the idea of Swift library parts is enjoying modelling every building element and having ALL required information in the modeled element. I will continue to develop intelligent design tools through GDL and help everyone enjoy the BIM process as much as possible. Visit CADSwift to learn more.
 Swift Car Ramp |
 Swift Vehicle Paths |
Posted: November 6th, 2011 | Author: Jared Banks | Filed under: Short Posts | Tags: BIM philosophy, Challenge, Endless Path of Improvement | 4 Comments »
A while ago I saw a job posting. Here are some highlights. If you could hire someone tomorrow, would your job posting look like this? Why not?
Small, award-winning firm seeks licensed Architect/Project Manager. 60% multi-family housing, mainly for non-profit developers of affordable housing. 40% single family residential, commercial and institutional work. 100% thoughtful, beautiful design. Our work is varied, exciting, and creative. Everyone from drafters to the Principal use BIM (ArchiCAD -not AutoCad- on Macs) to design in 3D and to produce presentation drawings and construction documents, always pushing at the edges of available technology to explore architectural design. As a small firm, everyone must “work up” and “work down”, doing everything from marketing, to CD’s, to dealing with clients. It’s a great opportunity for taking responsibility and broadening your experience. We completed a LEED-Platinum affordable housing project last year, and incorporate sustainable strategies in everything we do. We also have a commitment to Universal Design in every project we undertake, and are experts in it. Our design work is meticulous and our office environment is creative, and offers great growth for the right person.
There’s a lot of nice statements in there, but the two highlight passages, in my estimation, are super critical to a healthy, engaged, forward-thinking firm.
What do you think? How does your firm measure up? What are you doing to make both of those statements a reality?
If you’re a sole practitioner, do you do a good job of working up and down? Or do you avoid one of those directions?
Posted: October 22nd, 2011 | Author: Jared Banks | Filed under: Short Posts | Tags: BIM philosophy, Endless Path of Improvement, Events, Other Blogs and Articles, Zombies | No Comments »
Miguel Krippahl has been blogging about ArchiCAD since October 2006. Back then I’d been using ArchiCAD for only 9 months. Miguel has decided that after blogging for so long, the BIMx competition is a turning point. If his readers don’t help him win by liking his entry, he’s going to stop blogging. If no one is willing to make the gesture, then his blog isn’t having a significant impact on the community and he’ll spend his time focusing on other endeavors. You can read his explanations here: Architruques (or here in the original Portuguese).
Our ArchiCAD community is not huge. There are not enough active bloggers talking about how we use ArchiCAD on a day to day basis. We can not afford to lose any. While I don’t agree with Miguel’s tactic of “if I don’t win, I’m done” (I prefer the carrot over the stick), I completely understand where he’s coming from. When I entered the competition, I was VERY optimistic about winning. I know I have a large, grateful readership and a ton of friends, family and followers on Facebook. And my BIMx entry was full of zombies! Who doesn’t love zombies? I assumed that if I could get 10% of my readers over the next two weeks and 10% of my facebook contacts to like my entry, I’d easily rocket up to 200 to 300 likes. That seemed like a winning range. And in fact within 30 minutes of posting my entry, I had 14 likes. It was very exciting. I prepared my 50 likes reward post, expecting to post it when I woke up the next morning–and I was even a little nervous that I wouldn’t have time to prepare my 100 likes reward post. Turns out the following morning I only had 18 likes. As we approach the one week mark, my total likes is a humble 58 (which is closer to 3-4% of my traffic). Needless to say, that was not what I was expecting…
I would love to win this competition. An iPad 2 would be an awesome treat and it’d be nice to see the likes pour in, as I had assumed and hoped they would. However I started Shoegnome not to grab all the glory, but to help grow the community and make us all better. Come November 1st when the voting is over, I’ll still be blogging regardless of the outcome. After all, this is my motto:
A poor cobbler had enough leather for one pair of shoes. He left it out overnight and returned to find shoes so beautiful a customer paid him double their price.
The cobbler, thinking carefully, reinvested the money and learned to make beautiful shoes. His reputation grew and he prospered thereafter.
Take a moment and let Miguel know the community needs more bloggers, not less, by liking his entry.
Here’s the link.
And while you’re at it, here’s another entry that could use some more likes.
Thank you.
Posted: October 11th, 2011 | Author: Jared Banks | Filed under: Short Posts | Tags: BIM philosophy, Frustration | 20 Comments »
- 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 are a fad or something to humor the younger staff
- Too many coworkers aren’t on Facebook, have never heard of Google+, and only know about Twitter because of Ashton Kutcher.
- Your office smells like ammonia and you’re the only one who can change the plotter paper.
- Your coworkers don’t understand what Wi-Fi is.
- SketchUp is one of the BIM platforms that people are arguing for.
Got more? Let’s hear them.
Posted: August 28th, 2011 | Author: Jeroen de Bruin | Filed under: Guest Bloggers, Long Posts | Tags: ArchiCAD-Talk Forum, BIM philosophy, GDL, Modeling, Objects | 3 Comments »
My adventure started after finishing a bachelor in architecture and working in several architects’ offices. I found that drafting in 2D really annoyed me: First draw the floor plan, then the elevations, manually add in shadows… and then the architect changes the design and you start over again. Those painstaking hours of checking if the elevation matched the floor plan… If only there had been an ArchiCAD feature like Trace and Reference! I was always looking for ways to prevent errors and optimize the program.
In 2006, I started working for the Dutch reseller of ArchiCAD. At the first sight of ArchiCAD I knew that I would never go back to old 2D methods. Pretty quickly I mastered ArchiCAD and was enjoying all the automatic stuff. From there I took my first steps into GDL. By opening the open source objects from Graphisoft ArchiCAD’s Library I studied the code. My first objects were really simple, but it was fulfilling to create something and see it work. And once the first steps were taken, I became an enthusiast. I wrote more objects and overcame many GDL challenges. But the reseller needed more from me besides library-development; I had a lot of other activities like support and training. This meant little time to focus on my many ideas. Since in my spare time I was starting all sorts of GDL projects, I started my own company just for the fun of GDL.
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I started a topic in the ArchiCAD-talk to offer free custom GDL objects. I created a number of objects and posted them on the Object Depository, like the Sea Container. I really liked the contact with ArchiCAD users from all over the world and got many great responses. Besides the user requests I had some ideas of my own, which I started to sell on my website. Slowly the amount of objects grew and now I have 28 objects and counting.
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Good GDL objects are versatile, and they are never more versatile than when you create them yourself. Though GDL is not easy, anybody can create custom objects with the built-in object creators from the File / Libraries and Objects – menu, which is why I made some objects that convert self-made objects by the user into something parametric. For instance, the Object Slicer can create a Floor Plan Cut Plane-sensitive and story-sensitive display of any self-made object. Or the Silhouette, with which you can easily create people or tree silhouettes that automatically turn to the camera, all without any knowledge of GDL.
Lately I have been writing articles for ArchiMAG on a freelance basis. In these articles I describe how to make a parametric object with very little GDL knowledge. GDL can be very overwhelming, but with a few inside tricks you can unlock a great deal of power.
The core objects of Master Script are the BIM objects. ArchiCAD is a BIM program and I love to write objects that retrieve the “I” in BIM: the Information. While creating Label Everything, I discovered the true amount of data that can be extracted from an ArchiCAD element. Besides displaying the data, it can also be processed and show any data in any form you like. To improve the BIM factor of an object, it is essential that it lasts through the whole project. You can put in a lot of information, which can grow during the project. But it is important to be able to show this information in many sorts of ways. To do this I use the Model View Options. This underlying Library Global-technology allows you to store the behavior of an object per view. The object on the floor plan simply retrieves the active settings stored in the MVO and displays it accordingly. This gives the object many possible representations but can also be effectively controlled. I have incorporated this in the Total Zone and Total Marker.
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My next adventure is trying to attract manufacturers of building products. Generally manufacturers offer 2D CAD files as a way of marketing their products. Obviously they should start offering ArchiCAD objects, but the building industry evolves slowly. So I want to take the opportunity to ask of all of you to start asking for it! Write an e-mail to the manufacturer of your choice (or more than one) and ask for GDL objects. You can redirect them to any qualified GDL developer like me or anyone on the developers list of gotogdl.net.
Posted: April 3rd, 2011 | Author: Jared Banks | Filed under: Long Posts | Tags: BIM philosophy, Data Safety | 3 Comments »
Are you saving a backup every day? Your answer better be yes. Data safety and organization is the subbasement/foundation of BIM. Your BIM model is only useful if it’s accessible, readable, and existent. Don’t lose your data.
It’s not just about file corruption and lost computers. Projects change. And change back. A backup a day allows you to copy and paste changes back and forth between files.
- about to add 6 5/8” to a story height? Save a backup first.
- Adding 2 feet to the width of half your building? Save a backup first.
- Cutting out a wing? Save a backup first.
And keep them in an easily accessible and organized location (more on that in a forthcoming post). That wing may return, the building might shrink, a week later you may realize you goofed up when you raised the building. You need that old file immediately. You don’t want to ask IT for a backup that may or may not exist on a tape drive. You don’t always want to admit a mistake was made because it’s quick to fix, not a big deal, part of the design process, and/or will only panic the technophobes. In short, not backing up daily wastes energy and money. Most importantly you will have a baseline to compare changes to if you have a file from everyday. Not every week. Every day. Say it out loud and promise me and whoever is next to you that you’ll start doing this.
A word on accountability. Continuous documentation of backups improves accountability and ass coverage. You have records, dated records of change. A client says you didn’t listen? Prove them wrong. You did listen, right? At the end of CDs you can look at 50 or 100 files and see where decisions were made.
There are ways to automate much of this. And I expect BIM software will eventually incorporate much of this incremental recording. But don’t wait for it. Develop and understand your process. I do all of my backups manually right now. If you think that’s archaic, fine. I’m working on improving it. Use a fancier solution… and share it with me. But unless you can go back in time to any day or major change in the project, even years later, then the fancy solution isn’t good enough. And you’re being lazy and foolish.
Here are some more thoughts and reasons for a healthy Backup Obsession.
Wisdom from the Crowd