Anyone Using or Reviewing this BIM software

Corner Bar
#1

Hi Everyone,

Looked that this software about a year ago as a potential alternative to SU / LO and stumbled on this video of their late 2020 seminar of their new product releases… curious if anyone else is interested, maybe Trimble should look carefully at how SU could be enhanced… this company certainly does not seem to be standing still…

PS, yes it is a subscription model… but they understand that cross platformdata exchange is key…

note all the file formats that their browser handles…

and also how easily one exchanges data from SU into their BIM software Edificus (bloody horrible name though)

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#2

Took a brief look but was put off by:

  1. It’s over an hour long;

  2. It’s in Italian;

  3. The talk is being given by someone from Giro d’Italia.

Maybe there’s a shorter English version that gives the flavour somewhere??

#3

It’s Edificius. They have English webpages:
https://www.accasoftware.com/en/architecture-design-software
Some years ago I had to deal with a file done with this. At that time it wasn’t too easy to get a model into Archicad.
When I last looked into it the licenses were permanent and the pricing was quite competitive. Seems they have switched to subscription, with pricing similar to the “lite” versions of Revit or Archicad.

#4

Here is a link:

https://www.accasoftware.com/en/architecture-design-software?gclid=CjwKCAjw3pWDBhB3EiwAV1c5rFZe9Y59BM2Y3598EojoyEAV3jbG3ORaseSABE3cg2EbPEI0I7rFQRoCVc4QAvD_BwE

Yes, Building Smart recommends the use of a universal format in a BIM-model, so every stakeholder or collaborator could use their favorite software package and produce the different kinds of models that are used (Concept-model, Energy-model, Structural-model, etc.)
The choice for a cloud-based solution is inevitable in modern industry, despite all the rejections from more traditionally customers.

That’s why it’s funny to see all the arguments in some of the threads in this forum. (“I don’t need all the Viewers, I don’t need Trimble Connect, why should I pay a subscription for something that I already own”, etc.)

Presenting a new flavoured ‘BIM-app’ is perhaps more sexy and maybe they are developing in a vast range new stuff, but are you willing to pay twice as much? (300 for SketchUp versus 600 for Acca, each year)
From what I have seen, all the stuff showed can be integrated inside Trimble Connect, too, you just have to setup some things differently inside SketchUp, to become fully BIM. All the other stuff (72 different formats-viewing, pointclouds, Maps, VR, XR, open API-access, etc. ) is there for a much more affordable pricing.

If the main point is the ‘lagging inside LayOut’ check to see how Tekla is offering a standard API to produce ‘traditional’ drawings:

It would be nice to have that for LayOut, as well…

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#5

another interesting video…BIM software 2004-2020

#6

Here is a shorter english vid for you Simon

#7

I see a 3D model with documentation as an overlay, as well as links on elements of the model, with attached drawings. I also see that tells is able to auto generate each element drawing.

That is fundamentally different from what we can do with Layout.

I’d like to know how would you envision that for Layout? Or at least what features would you like to carry from tells to Layout.

I’m sure I’ll agree with everything… Automation in Layout would be great.

#8

Interesting graph. Archicad’s index doesn’t match its market share. Its interface is so bloated that even after using it daily for years and being a sort of “expert” in it I still have to search for solutions to problems at least weekly. I gather most of Vectorworks users are more traditional CAD than BIM.

#9

I think it is relative easy to get a set of drawings from one object or it’s Parent Assembly, but it get’s somewhat more complicated for the whole building and from section cuts. Even if you could create a nice elevation drawing from a BIM-model when you place a section cut in the cloud-model, you also want to have some control on how it looks. (BTW. It’s not recommended to upload a model with native section cuts in a shared BIM environment, instead, you create them on the fly in the cloud and save ‘views’ for others to see)

So I am thinking of the desktop app LayOut to set up templates with all the style settings, lineweights, dim settings and titleblocks etc., connect them to a project in the cloud and then let the automation do it’s work.
eg. you link certain templates to certain files or folders in the project and get processed in the background (all models get processed into a special ‘trimbleformat’ that is used for 2d and 3d viewing on all kinds of hardware, desktop, browser, tablet, phone, hololens) when you want to view them, they would be converted already and be visible for all stakeholders of the project (or the ones you have choosen)

The LayOut files are just zipped xml files and @kengey already made an app to write and produce LayOut files without opening LayOut at all. It should be managable for the Trimble Connect team IMO, every month they release new features in Trimble Connect.

The desktop app would just be the generator for templates and the heavy lifting would be done in the cloud.

ofcourse, of the 72 fileformats that Trimble Connect can read and display, .layout isn’t amongst them…

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#10

Interesting. I always imagine layout as some kind of svg visualizer with dimensions and tools to get data from it.

Having a model preprocessed to display in Layout and other apps is indeed a nice idea.

#11

If you think about it, LayOut was actually just a presentation tool for a collection of different filetypes (images, sketchup models, scraps, textblocks and tables)
An early ‘BIM’ tool, completed with annotation tools for markups.

But desktop only.

Real BIM apps have centralized data, accessible at any time and for more than one collaborator.
What happens if you loose the laptop where it resides?
Or lost the email with the latest annotations and markups of the meeting with the client?

#12

But is it possible to create 2D drawing sets from Trimble Connect?

Or is it only possible to relate with the BIM model if you have tech savvy people around you?

I need 2D drawings for everything from meetings to permits and construction site.

#13

Almost there, it (always) starts with Tekla:

#14

It’s still far from a drawing as you’d create in Layout, but the principles are really there.

Transitioning this into SketchUp though…

#15

paperless world is good for the environment…

some developments always go in cycles, first we got nothing, than came the wired telegraph, then the wireless radio, then the wired internet, then 4g (5g is faster then some wired connexions) etc.
That extension (yes, extensions in a browser!) to see annotated views are dependant on two extensions, one in Tekla and one in the 3d web-browser. Both accessible with an open API.

When Tekla started with extensions back in 2011, they implemented the worthy ones in the core app each year, as been requested for SketchUp many times.

We got some talented developers out there that might be interested in developing extensions for the future…

#16

At least in theory… If electricity would be produced cleanly, and if electronic garbage would become a real circular currency, then definitely. Until then…

I doubt we will see the same strategy soon for Layout soon (or even Sketchup at that Level). I’d like to see that though.