Today's architects have a lot of choice of BIM softwares to help them in modeling the concept houses which they want to design. Several years ago, engineers used Autocad to draw floor plan of houses. Autocad users need a lot of steps in designing for instance a two-bed room house. But for BIM software users, they only need a few clicks, and drags of mouse to visualize the house in 3D views including its 2D floor plan view. One of the most popular software in house design is Archicad. This powerful architectural software is developed by Graphisoft. The latest version of Archicad is 14.
For home designers who want to design a simple house for their neighbors, the tools and features of Archicad 14 might be too complicated for them. Archicad 8 may be more suitable. Another software is Sketchup which anybody can download for free from the internet. This is not a new version of the Archicad but this is still useful in helping home designers in modeling the house which they want to create both in 2D floor plan and in 3D view. For example, if we are currently in the floor plan view, we can easily see the building design that we are working on in 3D view by right clicking the computer mouse and choosing the 3D window in the context menu.
I personally have not explored in details the tools and features of this old building design software but I think it is much simpler than the latest version 14 that is now available on the market.
Although Archicad of Graphisoft is a very good architectural software for home and building design, it is not suitable for naval architecture. Ship designers usually use Maxsurf or Delftship to design the hullform, calculate the displacement and all of the hydrostatic properties of a ship. Archicad might still be useful for example in designing
Oasis of the Seas rooms or the
interior of passenger ship and cruise ship in general. But it is not a recommended software for naval architects.
Also read:
Archicad and AutocadHow to design roof with ArchicadDesigning round wall room with Archicad
