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William Sutherland

Architect
 

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House porch modelled in Allplan - simple screendump - click to see a bit more of the scheme currently at the design stage




January to
April 2002.
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Allplan FT user pages
News & views...
House porch modelled in Allplan - simple screendump - click to see a bit more of the scheme currently at the design stage


Mon 22.04.02
Cinema 4D and the rest - maybe it has been the great success of C4D that has shaken up the 3D graphics world or maybe it was going to happen anyway - with Maya, Lightwave and Softimage all reducing prices and/or making demo versions available for download.
Maxon say (with delicious understatement) that they are 'on course' and not troubled by the current upheaval.


Tue 09.04.02
UK offer - there is a chance of a very generous prize for anyone completing the Nemetschek UK survey form - a laptop and a license of Allplan (!) - closing date seems to be end of this month.

Wed 03.04.02
holiday fun - having just returned from a short holiday which included a trip on the 'London Eye' link to BA London Eye site it occurred to me that I was probably the only person on board that was trying to figure out how to model it in Allplan...
sad, I know!
:-)

Sat 23.03.02
corner turned? - interesting press release from Nemetschek the other day - cautious optimism ... all good stuff.

Wed 20.03.02
Service Release 2 for v16.3 - SR2 has just been released for v16.3. It can be downloaded either from the nemetschek.com site (Service->Downloads) or from cadconsulting-usa.com
The accompanying pdf file just says it fixes some problems with copying between files and trimming walls.

Tues 19.03.02
nemetschek.com goes Live! -  the new www.nemetschek.com website is now up and running. A very nice bit of work - more than just a copy of the German site it now has some language specific product options and details. Note the English feature on 'Allready' the precast concrete modelling software. More importantly there is now a fully searchable database of FAQs in English (under 'Services') drawn from this site, cadconsulting-usa.com and Nemetschek's own information.

Go on... make the webmaster's day and click on the 'I love it' option in the vote for the new website survey link! :)


Sun 17.03.02
and finally! - 'New in v17'...
the Nemetschek Webmaster has kindly posted a link to the German version of 'What's new in v17' on the German Allplan Forum... However - if my translation is correct - the link will not be active until they have completed beta testing... which seems fair enough.

Fri 15.03.02
New in v17 beta 1 -  'now you see it, now you don't'... this interesting document has been 'pulled' from the www.hd-plan.de website 'news' section. I assume Munich does not want it circulating. Personally I do not see what harm it does - apart from alert users to the modest improvements in v17 maybe?
Still, we wouldn't want to upset our friends in Munich would we, and so I have taken out the links to my copy also.
more in response to my earlier comments (see Sat 09.03.02) Nemetschek say they are working hard to attend to these issues as soon as practicable.

Wed 13.03.02
Interbuild 2002 -  strange how many CAD vendors have deserted the big shows - at Cebit in Hanover this week no real Nemetschek presence (just Henke & Ptnr with Nemetschek building software) but you can see Vectorworks or Graphisoft or Autodesk. Similarly at the smaller (but large by UK standards) Interbuild 2002 there is only Trial Systems and... you guessed it... Graphisoft! You have to give credit to the guys at Graphisoft, they really stick at it... I just hope they have changed that 'rolling demo' they have been doing for years! :)

Wed 13.03.02
German site revamp -  there seems to be an ongoing revamp of the main nemetschek.de site - which has now reached the FAQ database (click 'Service' on the left of screen for FAQs link). It's all in German of course but you can always run it through the systransoft web page translator for a rough translation.
Perhaps this is part of the 'new look' Nemetschek described in the press release of late last year (10th December) for the beginning of this year...

more: yes, the entire site has now also been done. Quite smart in a corporate sort of way - must have a look around... certainly easier to navigate than the old site - good cross-referencing of pages...
Hmmm, there is now a gallery section... you can send in your projects - free if you have a SSA it seems... lot of emphasis on Allplan LT, there seem to be 2D and 3D versions - the 3D version seems little different in appearance from Allplan FT but I expect something has been left out - it would be interesting to know what they have done with the project structure in these products. You have to wonder where Vectorworks fits into this budget CAD picture?


Sat 09.03.02

Not in v17 Beta 1? - a big disappointment is that as far as I can tell at the moment, nothing appears to have been done about the balustrading in the stairs module - you cannot produce proper balustrading automatically (unlike in Archicad) with a range of alternatives (to meet Building Regulations standards) but you have to model balusters individually for every new stair;

>> There seems little or no hope that they will ever include arrows (or a choice of symbols) on the end of leader lines but it irritates the hell out of me every single day as it takes around 9 clicks to insert an arrow symbol and rotate it into position whereas in my old CAD system it used to be done completely automatically! (On a typical detail drawing there may be 50 arrows on the end of leader lines!)

>> if we can plot live plan views I don't really see why we cannot plot live elevation, isometric and section views? (People actually expect this now of a 3D package - possibly because of Revit - and are surprised when I tell them that Allplan cannot do this.)

>> also long overdue is some help in using the DTM with the built model - the DTM is an engineering tool not an architectural one. Worse, outside of the US it is an expensive add-on anyway.

I am sure everybody will have their own views on this.
Please Email any comments or suggestions for the list... (it's unlikely to make any difference anyway!)
-:)

Mon 04.03.02
new in v17 Beta 1 -  the German text pdf appeared recently courtesy of a link on the webboard. Just for fun I ran it through some software to obtain a VERY rough English language translation. Anyone wanting to have a look at the output file and the original pdf can click here for a link to the files on my mirror site.
more an English language version must be around somewhere as I hear there is a training course soon in v17 and other things for support staff.
more 2 I notice that CDS-Sieber the Swiss distributor is running one of their Allplan User meetings (lucky people!) on 26th April - on the programme is not only Allplan v17 but also I was intrigued to notice mention of Plandesign v 3...

Sun 03.03.02
English language FAQs - Cadconsulting-USA.com have done a great job of setting up a searchable database of FAQs, combining items from this site with original Nemetschek FAQs.
A good framework to build on for the future.
To reach the index place your mouse pointer over 'Support' on the front page of their site and then click 'FAQs' in the list that appears
Notice also that Service Release 3 for Plandesign FT 2.5a has been added to their download page (freeware section).


Tue 26.02.02
a wry smile? - .. most amusing quote of the moment for me in the whole Acad/Revit commentary was by the astute Martyn Day, editor of Cadserver magazine in his article quoted on tenlinks.com when talking about Autodesk's Architectural Desktop product:
"Over the years, I have made it no secret that I loathe the product. Many ADT customers use it for 2D drafting, happy to use it as an AEC flavor of AutoCAD, nothing more. When Autodesk UK was looking for ADT case studies, they couldn't find anyone using it as a 3D SBM system, so have actually had to recruit, train and equip an architect to carry out a pilot project using ADT as its developers intended."

Tue 26.02.02
eventful week - .. it always happens! You go away for a few days holiday (to London) and return to find... (in my case) a dead hard disk, lots of messages congratulating me on a magazine article about this site (that I did not know was out)... oh, yes - and some company called Autodesk announces it wants to buy Revit.
Perhaps I should go away more often? :)

my friendly Engineer tells me that is the 3rd IBM hard drive that has died on him recently at around 12 months after installation. We're now using Maxtor 5400 speed drives.


Fri 15.02.02
download site change- just noticed there is a new download site on www.nemetschek.de for product updates (nice graphics! :)

Wed 06.02.02
v16.3_1 SR - Service Release 1 is available for download from the Cadconsulting-usa.com site - go to 'Support->freeware'
Congratulations - to Horst and colleagues at www.cadconsulting-usa.com on the relaunch of their website. Well worth a visit and browse.
Update - Another redesigned site CDS Bausoftware AG - excellent stuff :)



Tues 05.02.02
Allplan v17 - a certain amount of informed speculation is going on in German language sites about features in v17. My German is not brilliant and I may have mis-translated some of the comments but it seems like Beta testing is just starting and it could be quite a while before v17 is released. Current favourite rumours seem to be an all round increase in speed, corner windows, more pen colours, zooming with the scroll wheel, dynamic animation window (no idea what that means but it's supposed to be good), an assistant window (ditto) and a personal navigator (ditto).
More Different line weights for different construction layers has also been mentioned in the past, as have some improvements to the stair module for dealing with landings (but still no auto balustrading apparently!), some sort of command history feature... Hmmm, sounds like the assistant window allows you to pull up a reference drawing which you can then pick elements or parameters off (?)... the only thing for sure is that the 'Whats new in v17' is 160 pages long!
We will just have to wait and see.


Mon 04.02.02
Wildcat III - 3D Labs announce the new Wildcat III 6210 and 6110 - and, get this.... 416Mb of onboard graphics memory!
UK supply details and spec sheets from Andy Hankins at www.eighty-20.com


Thur 31.01.02
5 star Allplan - review just posted in Cadalyst Magazine of Allplan FT v16.2 gives it 5 stars and Highly Recommended :)

Wed 30.01.02
busy, busy, busy - nothing official to report (although a well known UK architectural magazine asked me today for some Allplan model images from my site to do a feature - no details yet) but very busy modelling in Allplan due to my New Year resolution (!) that all projects should now be fundamentally model-based rather than perhaps drawn in 2D. Over the last 6 months I was drawing in 2D a lot - partly as an experiment and an education in the excellent 2D features of Allplan (I was dealing with many scanned in old drawings at the time.) Now I realise it is much quicker to use the 3D Archit. element tools in most situations.

I think this is a problem generally for Architects brought up in the traditional drawing disciplines to let go of the 2D approach...


Fri 18.01.02
v 16.3 - arrived from the UK distributor today. Apart from the mention of Windows XP on the CD label I cannot detect any differences to v 16.2 in use.

Wed 09.01.02
Capri find - 'Capri' has nothing to do with the island of the same name (from 'CAD Privat') but is a free utility from Nemetschek which apart from being a neat little space planning tool can act as a plan viewer and redliner for users, clients or anyone. Available as a free download from several sites including cadconsulting-usa.com (Support->downloads->non-ssa Area). It may become available in English but for the present the commands are in German... and so it was a nice surprise to find an English language tutorial on the Nemetschek Czech website (thanks, guys :)


Mon 07.01.02
A New Year - Best Wishes to everyone for 2002
What can we expect from Nemetschek this year?
Well, the German home site is already trailing 'Allplan LT' amongst other new products (possibly only for the home market?);
there is the 'new look' Nemetschek mentioned late last year for early this year;
Allplan v17 should be launched during the year and I guess a further push into the English language markets is likely.

A good start - a surge of updates and additions to the German FAQ database

Archive 1 For Archives of February to June 2001
Archive 2 For Archives of July to September 2001
Archive 2 For Archives of October to December 2001
Archive 2 For Archives of January to April 2002
Archive 2 For Archives of May to September 2002
Archive 2 For Archives of October to December 2002
Archive 2 For Archives of January to March 2003
Archive 2 For Archives of April to June 2003
Archive 2 For Archives of July to Dec 2003
Archive 2 For Archives of Jan to Dec 2004


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