13 May, 2015

Need a füssball object in your ArchiCAD project?

Füssball & TT Tables at the [ShKo] bungalow
A couple of years ago, I needed a füssball (called foosball in some places) GDL object for a project. The clients wanted me to put it alongside a full-sized table-tennis table at their bungalow, which I was designing at the time.

The TT table object has long been part of the built-in library but, of Füssball, there was no sign. It's possible the German library has one but I'm unaware either way. Rather than import a static object from Sketchup, I decided to write the code over a weekend because I wanted better control over the materials (surfaces) used.

Füssball Table Settings
At the time, BIMcomponents had just been launched alongside, so, just to see how it worked, I shared the object there and promptly forgot about it.

Recently I happened to visit the page and found that a number of people had downloaded it--although there were only three comments. Two people complained that they couldn't download the object. I have no idea why--and can do nothing about it--but the comment by Kosuke Masuda from Japan embarrassed me. He'd noticed that one of the teams had 12 players in 2D.

Umm... ahh... oops!

The extra player has been red-carded and will take no further part in any games.  In other words, the object has now been corrected.

It is available at this link.

06 May, 2015

ArchiCAD 19 has been released

ArchiCAD 19
Image © Graphisoft
ArchiCAD 19 was released yesterday and I can't write anything original about it because I wasn't part of the beta program (hint, hint). Instead, I'm going to point you to a bunch of links that you must visit if you haven't already.

Your starting point should be the actual announcement.

Next up, the ArchiCAD channel on YouTube. A number of clips have been uploaded already and they'll give you a very good idea of what's new. Check back for more videos in the coming days. Better still, subscribe to the channel.

If you're interested in seeing how ArchiCAD has progressed over the last few years, this chart has a matrix of features from v.14 to v19.

Finally, here's the story behind the ArchiCAD 19 signature building by Bond Bryan Architects.

From what I can see, there are no template-shattering features this time, which is a bit of a relief actually. Instead, we see a number of useful enhancements across the board. Enjoy.