Diyane's Top 10 ArchiCAD Features - # 5

# 5 - Import Surveyors Data

Converting Splines to Mesh levels with the help of Magic Wand was one of the "must to have" exercises of ArchiCAD trainings back in Turkey since it is a very mountainous country.

However that was not the case in the UAE. Most of the Emirates are extremely flat. Great for cycling and builders:)) Mesh tools was no longer "must to have" part of our trainings.

Then the 2009 recession came!

Most of the offices located in the Emirates started to look for projects in Libya, Iraq, Saudi, Qatar etc. For instance Iraq's geography is quite different than UAE. Full of mountains!

Image from Luxury House Design Concept

The site and slope becomes a very important design criteria!

A client of us recently got a job in Iraq! They received the surveyor's data and immediately called us.

- Hi guys! I know you showed us this how to import surveyor's data into ArchiCAD in one of the new features trainings but we never used it so far. Do you mind reminding it to us?"

- Well, you are lucky! It is not a complicated command. Design > Place Mesh from Surveyors Data and select the text file. ArchiCAD will do the rest:)

Of course, life is not that easy!

5 minutes later, Jothi received another call saying it did not work. We requested text file to check and noticed that the problem is very very simple but hard to see.

The number of digits decreased after a certain point and ArchiCAD did not read the remaining part. So to fix it, we added "0" to the beginning of each new number.

Later we noticed that this numbering system also depends on the equipment that the surveyor uses. We received the text file of the same site from a different surveyor company and that did not have the same digit problem at all.

Anyway, although it was a small one it still took us 2 hours to find the problem.

After solving this issue, the team finished their proposal for the master planning within 2 days! Yes, within 2 days!

A couple of days later, I came across with their CEO and he said "Diyane, now I truly believe in BIM. Our BIM team finished their proposal for Iraq project in 2 days. It would take 2 weeks if I gave that job to the other teams working traditionally!"

So yes! We love Import Surveyors Data feature very much:)))

Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

Very Big Problem!

I returned from my meeting and while saying hi to everyone I noticed the strange look on Jothi's face.

DK:
"Jothi, is everything OK?"

JS:
"No! Big problem, Diyane, very big problem!"

Oupps! Jothi is normally a very calm person and this was the first time I heard such a sentence from him.

He said our biggest client in the UAE moved their office and IT guys deleted the former user account and created a new one but they forgot to backup the BIM Server. Instead they copied some files which the BIM Server does not have access!

Yes, definitely a BIG problem!

I can freak out with small things such as being late for a meeting but when it comes to really BIG stuff I am usually very very calm.

As you can imagine this time, I was very calm as well:))

I calmly said "Don't worry Jothi! I am sure there is a way to access to those files. Please explain me exaclty what they have done."

This is usually the best way to solve a problem.

While summarizing the problem, he will either find a solution himself or somebody in the office will hear and come up with a genius solution:)

In our case it was both! Jothi solved half of it and Daniel helped with the remaining half.

All these happened last Thursday afternoon and every single person in the office was supposed to travel during the weekend and it would be only me and our office admin who would be left in the office.

Obviously it will be my "pleasure" to fix the problem on site since no one else is in town from the technical team:))

This means I have to learn all these tiny little tricks Daniel and Jothi has just discovered!

Aiaiai!

I took my notebook, sit next to Jothi and start listening!

Oh my god!

I didn't understand anything in the first run! This means many people will have the same experience!

"Jothi, let's make a favor to the ArchiCAD world. Record this as a tutorial please so that we can share. I am sure there will be people who would experience similar problems and this video will save their lives:)" I said.

Of course it saved me from taking pages of notes as well:)))

Here comes the video... I hope you will enjoy it.

PS: I visited our client's office on Saturday and fixed the problem with the help of this video:)) Thanks Jothi:))

Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

Contractors! Please do not fall into the same trap as I did!

Contractors!

One of the strangest organization type in the world!

Especially in the Middle East contractors are gigantic organizations and their internal communication is quite weak!

You would assume a technology such as BIM, which brings clarity to the project and provides better communication would be immediately adopted by contractors.

No! Not at all!

Contractors are usually the latest adopters of any kind of technology. They do not "like" the word "change" at all.

Another thing that I have noticed about contractors is, they prefer micro management to macro management.

Everyone is interested purely on the benefits that BIM can bring to their own project or department. No more no less! They do not care about looking at the big picture!

Let me give you a solid example.

Think about a room of contractors. 100 - 120 attendees listening a 2 days conference on BIM!

They watch presentations about BIM usage for each phase of the project... from design to facilities management...

Guess what is the most popular question at the end?

"CAN WE HAVE ONLY 4D BIM?"

Well, in order to have 4D you need to have 3D model. Once you have the 3D model you can easily go for 5D.

Wouldn't it be wiser to look at the whole picture and see what BIM can bring to the whole life cycle of the project?

"No, I am only interested in 4D"

Well, what to reply to this now?

This reminds me of myself during Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF).

Last year, we decided to buy a TV during DSF. I am not much of a TV watcher actually so I was not very interested in specs. What attracted me was the gifts they were giving with the TV.

One offer was 15% voucher! Yihuuu! I can buy whatever I want:) 300 packs of brownie for instance:))

The other was free PlayStation with Move! Yihuuu! It's really fun!

Another offer was 3D Glasses! Yihuuu! I can watch Nemo in 3D:)) Can I conect it to my computer and view BIMx Models in 3D??

All these toughts were going through my mind and then I noticed that I wasn't focusing on the actual item we are trying to buy for the family but focusing on the item that I would enjoy:))

Very selfish of me:)

Contractors! Please do not fall into the same trap as I did! Remember BIM is a process which can benefit all phases of the project, and not just your project but the whole company!


PS: For the curious ones, we bought the one which gave 15% voucher but I did not buy brownie with all of it:)))

Have a great weekend!
Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

Hiring the right people for your BIM Team!

There is a very popular topic in linked in.

ArchiCAD vs Revit

701 comments so far and it is increasing every day.

At the beginning it was quite interesting.
But after  a couple of weeks I lost interest.

The main reason was comments were basically repeating the same things with different words.

(some comments were too long and boring as well.)

A couple of days ago, I saw few interesting comments and returned back to the popular, old topic.

People were discussing the availability of architects/engineers with the knowledge of a specific software is a criteria for selecting BIM software to use.

Well, if a company hires me just because of the software skills I have, I would be quite offended and probably would not accept the job.

I think an architect or an engineer should be more than the software s/he uses.

Last year, we provided an HR consultancy service for a medium size contractor. Our responsibility was to test the applicant's ArchiCAD BIM skills.

We have interviewed around 10 persons and some of them were quite good actually. We wrote our reports and send with the actual test results?

Guess what happened?

They did not hire any of them. They hired an architect with 0 BIM knowledge!

Yes, he did not know anything about BIM but he was smart, experienced and a very good architect.

I think this was the right decision.

We trained their new architect for 10 days and applied the same test and his result was the highest so far.

So, be smart! Select the best BIM Software based on your company needs and hire good people!

Success will be inevitable!

Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com
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Shell Tool in Action!

Middle East!

Where the dreams of Architects come true!

The tallest, the most slanted, the biggest, the most luxurious, the most sustainable buildings... They all come true in this part of the world!

Our clients... They looove free form designs... My colleague Jothi receives a lot of questions about the new Shell Tool.

We wanted to share one of the recent ones.

This is one of the facade elements that our client designed by using ArchiCAD Shell Tool. At this stage I can not tell / show you more about the rest of the project but we will publish the case study soon.  As you know we need to get approvals etc.

Anyway, our client modeled it but since they were still in the design process

- sketch...
- model...
- nope... let's change here a bit more....
- modify..
- seems ok...
- not really... let's change here...
...
...

They ended up with so many operations and the result element was basically freezing even their super computers.

By the time, we received the model the design was final. So Jothi just made a "reverse engineering" and modeled the same geometry by using the same "Shell Tool" and operations. The result is a lot more lighter tough since he worked a bit more cleaner...

For the curious ones, here you have a video showing how to model it in a few steps.

Enjoy!
PS: The video is uploaded to YouTube but  YouTube is being a bit nasty today. Although it has been more than 8 hours it is still not listed in the searches. Anyway, here comes the YouTube link!

Diyane Koseoglu
Jothi Shanmugam
www.bimes.com