Book Image

A BIM Professional's Guide to Learning Archicad

By : Stefan Boeykens, Ruben Van de Walle
Book Image

A BIM Professional's Guide to Learning Archicad

By: Stefan Boeykens, Ruben Van de Walle

Overview of this book

A BIM Professional’s Guide to Learning Archicad is a comprehensive introduction to all that Archicad has to offer for creating 3D models, 2D document extracts, and related outputs. This book is not a click-by-click series of recipes, but rather focuses on helping you understand why and how Archicad works by providing realistic examples and expert tips. The book gradually introduces you to Archicad tools using ample examples. It then helps you master its complexity through clear modules, allowing you to start your first project quickly, gain useful skills in subsequent projects, and keep using the book as a source for insights into the software. You’ll start with the basic modeling of construction elements and then move on to adding roofs, stairs, and objects to the project. Next, you’ll dive into basic drafting and 2D views for creating 2D output, and grasp how to use attributes and more advanced modeling tools for designing curtain walls and sites. The concluding chapters will show you how to extract and visualize your data and automate the publishing of your extracts and 2D documents into a variety of output formats. By the end of this book, you’ll have gained a solid understanding of Archicad, how to implement it efficiently in your architectural projects, and how BIM can improve your overall design workflow.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1: Getting Started with Archicad – Project Setup and Essential Modeling Tools for Your First Residential Project
9
Part 2: Becoming an Archicad Professional – Learn About Archicad Tools and Settings to Create and Publish Any Type of Project in Full Detail

Understanding the Archicad installation

Let’s look at what gets installed onto your computer, what this all contains, and what the impact of a localized version on all of this could be.

What is installed?

The Archicad installation takes up quite some space... not only for the software and its components but also because of the libraries with content that get installed. The installation process is straightforward but may take a while. Meanwhile, you are greeted with a few nice pictures of projects designed by international Archicad users.

After the installation wizard finishes, you are asked to reboot your computer. This is caused by the drivers for the software protection system and the filesystem integration. Some security messages may also pop up to give Archicad the required permissions for the filesystem.

All in all, the installations on macOS and Windows are practically identical. They have the same folder structure and contain the same library files. Only the...