Tim Ball and Eric Bobrow at the end of 3 days at the Graphisoft BIM Conference, Las Vegas (March 2017)

In this short 4-lesson course, you’ll learn how to create your own custom, intelligent and parametric library parts with GDL to boost your productivity and give you much greater control, flexibility and finesse as you develop your project.

ArchiCAD comes with a fairly extensive library of objects, doors and windows built with an exceptionally powerful object creation scripting language called GDL. However, it’s impossible for Graphisoft to supply everything you need pre-made in the box.

It's easy to create objects that are stretchy, self labelling, highly parametric, to manufacturers sizes where appropriate, or constrained to local building codes as required. And of course make sure they all schedule correctly.

When you take advantage of GDL, all items may be placed extremely quickly, normally no more than 2 or 3 clicks, appear perfectly as appropriate 2D symbols often displaying differently on different stories (stairs and downpipes for example), and very rapidly produce accurate BIM information.

Gary Lawes states that his custom GDL parts save him about 25% of his production time on each project.

Tap into the power of GDL and turbocharge YOUR ArchiCAD use and performance beyond anything you've ever experienced.

ArchiCAD projects run smoother and more efficiently when based on a template that builds in resources and settings that are optimized for your office.

Graphisoft supplies templates with each copy of ARCHICAD, and there are a number of publicly or commercially available products on the market. Most successful ARCHICAD-based offices have customized a template for starting new projects, based on either the Graphisoft version or one of the others sold or distributed online. Some more sophisticated (and dedicated) users have even started from scratch to make something that is exactly the way they want it.

In this course, we start with the fundamentals then voyage into the further reaches of what's possible. I compare the Graphisoft template with a number of public and commercial templates, and explore the similarities and differences.

Back in 2007, I worked with California architect Scott Bulmer to create MasterTemplate, the first widely used independent template for ArchiCAD. Over the years since then, versions have been produced for 12 major ArchiCAD editions, with more than 1,400 registered users in the USA and over 65 countries around the world.

Templates are an increasingly popular topic in ArchiCAD circles. In the last few years, Jared Banks started sharing his Open Template and commercial templates have been introduced by BIM6x, Skewed, MacInteract and others. Recently Graphisoft North America offered an ArchiPLUS training on templates and explained their basic functionality and setup.

This course provides an opportunity to study multiple templates: starting with the Graphisoft USA and International versions, then looking at MasterTemplate, Open Template and BIM6X.

This course shares the unique perspective of Roderick Anderson, principal of SARCO Architects, a multiple-award winning architecture and construction firm well known throughout Central America and the Caribbean.

His knowledge of Design-Build and how to optimize and maximize the information in construction drawings will teach you how to reduce the burden of information requests, RFIs, and general questions from construction projects.

Roderick believes a Design-Build practice is motivated to constantly improve its methods and workflows in the development of design in order to improve its construction processes. This make the construction more efficient and at the same time reduces the stress and burden on the design team.

These same processes can be applied to a design-only practice and will improve its competitiveness and quality of the work produced.

Features of the course:

Lessons from a Design-Build practice and construction drawing sets

• The content in a drawing set - how much information should be there
• Defining content, structure and arrangement of information
• Use of interior elevations and schedules to define and convey specifications and selections.
• Modeling systems and structure and how this improves not only design but execution and issue resolution on site.

Using BIMx as a communication and sharing tool in the design phase

• Definition of publisher sets for client presentation
• How to combine the use of BIMx and renderings in the process of conveying information and defining design.

Using BIMx as a information tool in the construction process

• Sharing information with suppliers, vendors, subs.
• Differences between a BIMx model and a Hypermodel, when to use one or the other
• Constant update of changes during project development and updates to the site.
• Inclusion of modeling details during the process to clarify specific installations and reduce errors and corrections.

How to modify visual setup in Archicad to improve the use of BIMx on site

• Screen size and the change in paradigm of how to prepare drawings
• Use of pen sets to establish visual color coding to improve readability of drawings
• Setup of interior elevation sheets combined with schedules to provide room-by-room detailed information.
• Use of 3D views and live 3D details and their representation in BIMx

Choosing the correct hardware

• Using the right device to maximise the benefits of the information in the model
• Setting up the correct publisher set to go with the hardware you have
• File sizes and model management