We’re all abuzz here at Cadimage because the next version of ArchiCAD – imaginatively entitled ‘ArchiCAD 17′ – has been announced! We’re pretty excited about it (and also very busy working with it), as there’s a slew of cool new stuff coming.
ArchiCAD 17 expands on the ground-breaking new features that were added in version 16, as well as adding a whole raft of new features of its own.
Your Building Model lives and dies by its accuracy, that’s why ArchiCAD 17 is focussed on making your model as true to a real building as possible – letting you add in the detail and accuracy you need to be able to take detail drawings directly from the model. It does this with the new Priority Based connection system, which allows your standard building elements (walls, slabs etc..) to contain all the detail they need to produce working drawings.
“The Automatic Model-based Junctions are an awesome addition to ArchiCAD 17. I love that they will improve quantity take-offs AND make my drawings—especially sections and 3D Documents—much more beautiful.” Jared Banks, AIA, Shoegnome, LLC
The Morph tool has been expanded and improved on – it’s still as flexible and easy to use as before, but it now also provides data for scheduling, so you can easily see areas and volumes of your morph-based Mass Models.
There are a trio of new performance upgrades in ArchiCAD 17, further honing its speed and efficiency. The 3D graphics engine has had some major performance updates; further enhancements have been made to take advantage of multiple-core CPUs, and new in ArchiCAD 17 is the addition of Background Processing.
Background Processing takes advantage of the processor speed you already have by pre-calculating things in the background, while you do other work. Then, when you’re ready to change views, some or all of the time to generate the new view is already done, so you don’t have to wait around.
The built-in Energy Evaluation tool has also seen some work – the introduction of multiple thermal blocks in your Building Energy Model allows you to produce even more sophisticated and accurate reports of the building’s energy use.
Management of energy evaluation data has been streamlined, and now there’s also an ability to create model-based solar studies which can take the shading effects of adjacent objects, buildings, and plants into consideration. ArchiCAD 17 will be released internationally in early June, and later on here in NZ, in late July. Details on the Launch and Upgrade Training information will follow next month.
We’ll be covering the new features of ArchiCAD 17 in more depth each day for the next few weeks, so make sure you check back here for your daily fix!
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