ACCELERATING THE DESIGN EXPERIENCE

The best reward for the passionate architect is to see their design ideas take on a physical form. With Graphisoft ArchiCAD® Virtual Building™, you can explore your design ideas with the full confidence that every detail is being captured and all your documents are synchronized. ArchiCAD 12 reinforces its position as the most complete and flexible design solution in the BIM category. ArchiCAD 12 focuses on speed, design and documentation by introducing multi-processor support; the brand new Curtain Wall system and the 3D Document, a first for a BIM application.

ArchiCAD was built from the outset to specifically address the architect’s desire for great design without compromising on practical needs. Graphisoft ArchiCAD’s innovative Virtual Building solution helps you win more business while letting you concentrate on your core skill - creating inspiring designs.

Virtual Building
Working with ArchiCAD, you will discover the pleasures and the benefits of designing in a 3D architectural environment with extraordinary modeling freedom. Based on a profound knowledge of the architectural process, ArchiCAD’s Virtual Building simulates the way a real building is constructed. From town planning to intricate details, from functional study to complex design, ArchiCAD’s specialized tools are always available and extremely easy to use, ensuring that there are no boundaries to your creativity. With ArchiCAD, you create a 3D virtual model: all the necessary documentation and images are derived automatically. The project lives and evolves on the screen simultaneously with your thoughts, allowing you to concentrate on your strength - creating inspiring designs. Virtual modeling is a natural and intuitive process which is both inspiring and enjoyable. Watch your building model evolve before your eyes. With the clarity of 3D, your clients can truly appreciate good design.

Design
Any architect with the passion to freely explore design ideas can fulfill their wish without compromising on documentation precision and quality. With ArchiCAD you can model and shape freely, easily creating the forms you want and change naturally even complex elements in the most appropriate view. Like editing Curtain Walls in an innovative 3D edit mode: based upon a flexible hierarchical structure of schemes, physical members and additional accessories, users can easily change and conrol the entire system or the smallest detail throughout the entire project. ArchiCAD enables you to combine creative freedom with the wellknown efficiency of the robust Virtual Building. A comprehensive set of tools support the creative process within the context of the project - so while you design your project all documents will be generated as a by-product, assuring smooth workflow and realtime evaluation.

Documentation
2D and 3D documentation enhancements such as the new Fill Management and the 3D Document, a first for a BIM application – help users win new business and explain their design intent to owners, consultants and contractors. The innovative 3D Document capability enables users to use any 3D view of the model as the basis for creating a document where dimensions, annotations and even additional 2D drawing elements may be added. This helps designers more easily communicate their design intent. This new level of clarity in communication helps users to spend less time on design iteration with owners and reduce the number of construction issues which increase cost and lengthen project schedule. ArchiCAD 12 introduces new Fill capabilities, including translucent solid and image fills and transparent gradient fills. These capabilities enable architects to remain in the ArchiCAD environment while preparing documents for competitions

Workflow
A typical architectural project can contain multiple models and hundreds of drawings. Creating and managing this mass of information is a major and highly important task in a firm’s workflow. The automation of such procedural tasks is essential to improving this process and making it error-free. With ArchiCAD you will experience a smooth design-documentation workflow and a substantial boost to productivity. Moreover, using the ArchiCAD hybrid 3D/2D environment, you can fully integrate documentation teams into the Virtual Building process and have full control over the balance between 3D and 2D work. ArchiCAD’s fully integrated publishing process enables creation and constant updating of your published documentation sets as soon as the project begins to evolve. As you develop the 3D model, the drawing sheets are automatically updated and ready to be plotted. Working with ArchiCAD, you will be able to quickly perform all routine tasks, dramatically decrease reworking, improve quality and ensure a shorter time to market.

Coordination
The Virtual Building automatic update capabilities make coordination between documents effortless. When you create a 3D model, which all the building components are shown, you can check every part and any aspect of your project. And this is not the only way ArchiCAD supports the crucial goal of coordination. ArchiCAD’s innovative Vitual Trace™ technology enables you to easily coordinate your work and track design changes both internally and with multi-disciplinary teams. Working with ArchiCAD, you can quickly and visually analyze differences between your 3D model, 3D and 2D documents and consultants’ documents. It becomes much easier to detect clashes between different building systems before construction starts. The combination of these comprehensive capabilities makes ArchiCAD an extremely efficient coordination tool.

Control
ArchiCAD’s renowned Virtual Building, together with the industry first Virtual Trace technology, provide unmatched control over the design project within an extremely flexible workflow. Using ArchiCAD, architects can define and control the balance between 3D and 2D work according to their preferences, project type or team members’ knowledge, thus making the most of their team’s expertise and tailoring the technology to fit their workflow. As the project evolves and consultants from various disciplines contribute their data, designers can effectively control their input by virtually tracing changes, comparing drawings and clearly identifying and communicating any design problems. The dynamic nature of design projects requires parallel processes, smooth workflow and tight control. Using ArchiCAD, you can achieve all these with the confidence that your documents are synchronized and you can always use the right document types to clearly visualize your thoughts. You keep control over the process and your clients get the highest quality design.