by Nemetschek Systems Inc.
Background competition in this area :
Previous contenders on this level were ARRIS by Sigma Design, and Project Architect by Intergraph, and, possibly, on a much lower level, ArchiCAD by Graphisoft. Intergraph's and Sigma Design's programs, each requiring Unix on high end hardware, were too high priced and too poorly marketed to succeed in the very competitive Architectural CADD market, and are now both essentially out of the picture. ArchiCAD and their arch-rival Architrion, have, on a somewhat lower level, repeated the marketing mistakes of their high power Unix cousins :
1) too high prices for penultimately cheap Architects, 2) compromising too much ease of use and giving up certain 3D design ability, 3) running only on selected limited hardware platforms or operating systems (Proprietary Unix in Sigma's and Intergraph's case, Macintosh in the case of Architrion and ArchiCAD), and 4) focusing perhaps too keenly only on being a tool for Architects-per-se as opposed to the much broader Architectural CADD area encompassing Architects, Architectural Designers, Interior Designers, Builders, Contractors, Engineers (HVAC, Structural, Electrical, etc.) for buildings, Framers, Architectural Renderers/Perspectivists/Modelers/Animators, Students, Virtual Reality Designers, and the myriad of others interested in easily doing buildings.
Architrion's owners (Gimeor, etc.) have gone chapter 11 more than once, and ArchiCAD has teetered on the brink of obscurity.
Incidentally, both Architrion and ArchiCAD are now on the potential verge of coming back, primarily by totally abandoning their previous marketing strategies. For instance, ArchiCAD is now un-bundled with its auxiliary software and sells for $3700, has greater editing in 3D, runs in Windows95, NT, Mac, PowerPC, and DEC Alpha NT, and includes a Virtual Reality generator (using QuicktimeVR).
Apparently Nemetschek has seen (probably with the help of Malcolm Davies) the mistakes of its predecessors in this particular market, and seems to be addressing them very well. They apparently recognize that the market in Europe, particularly Germany, is entirely different from the fickle, parsimonious, yet demanding market here. Thus, they have taken a number of their modules (which together would sell for some $20,000 in Europe) and bundled them together - rewriting them to appeal to the US market (adding imperial units, English menus, US-type symbols and macros) and offering them at an aggressive price (officially $4,995, but expected to be discounted, and offering "competitive upgrades" as well). This addresses the first mistake the other companies had made (high price).
Secondly, by including an excellent 3D solid modeler with subtractive boolean operations (translation : really good and flexible modeling) as an integral part of the basic package, AllPlan does not suffer the limitations to design that other packages have. For instance, even if AllPlan's automatic roof generator doesn't happen to have a generator for a particular type of shape, a designer can still use the 3D solid modeling portion of the software to achieve that roof. This also means that Interior Designers who need to design specific custom sculptural furniture, or Architectural Detailers who need to create an unusual doorway arch molding, can all use AllPlan very effectively and easily.
The third major mistake others have made - limited platforms - is addressed by Nemetschek by designing their software for the primary upcoming platform - NT - and also creating a version addressing the current temporary favorite standard - Windows95. Leaving the other now-exotic operating systems (Unix, Macintosh, PowerPC, OS/2) out of the picture is not a mistake, as none of those systems have ever had a significant market share in the USA and anyone considering moving up to the power of AllPlan would probably want a new Pentium with NT anyway. [Caveat : We all are, however, still only assuming NT will take the CADD market virtually completely within the next two or three years. Remember that at one time (circa 1987) we were assuming that OS/2 would take over as the operating system for CADD. At present NT still represents less than 1% of CADD installations. If, for some reason, people do not shift to NT as Microsoft expects (possibly with Windows95 along the way) or if a Microsoft competitor (such as Novell or IBM) comes out with a radically good alternative a lot could change.]
The fourth mistake - focusing too much on Architects and not on a "building industry" CADD tool - Nemetschek is addressing by including the 3D solid modeler as mentioned above, by including an excellent animation walk though generator, by including many levels of rendering ability (including a quasi-virtual reality viewer), and including a digital terrain modeler that rivals the best tools that surveyors or landscape architects in this country use.
AllPlan, USA version, includes the equivalents of AutoCAD plus ACIS 3D Modeler plus AutoArchitect plus Blocks and Materials Library plus Accurender plus 3D Studio (animation) plus PhotoShop (compositing,digital imaging) plus CAD Overlay (scanning/tracing) plus LandCADD or Autodesk DTM (digital terrain modeling). It allows a designer to "draw" with a particular wall type (which he can later change the specifications of) insert doors and windows of any given type or style (also dynamically changeable later) and automatically generate stairs, roofs, and dimensions. At any time along the process of generating a design, the designer can view plans, sections, elevations, details, axonometric 3D views, or perspectives (all at the same time if desired) all generated automatically, and all dynamically updating and reflecting changes made in any view. For 2D drafting and production drawings, AllPlan has one of the fastest and most intuitive line editing abilities of any software available. The 3D Architecturally intelligent and parametric macros, walls, windows, and roofs all automatically adjust appropriately as any element is changed. The 3D solid modeling allows a designer to extrude, sweep or rotate any combination of elements which in turn make it easy to model virtually any 3D shape possible.
For rendering a design at any point AllPlan has a variety of tools. The designer can choose line-type hidden line drawings (appropriate to hand sketch upon), color quick shaded views (a fast solid look), or a variety of rendering improvements (transparency, gorould shading, phong shading, shadow casting, texture mapping, bump mapping, etc) each of which may improve the result realistically but take more time to calculate. Additionally, the designer can also place up to nine light sources into a scene to add sunlight and other lights for even more realism. One of the nicest features of AllPlan is the quasi-virtual-reality-like ability under the animate menu. The system pre-calculates an entire building unusually quickly (i.e. a normal house took less than 1 minute on a Pentium120) which the designer can then view all around 360 degrees and zoom in/out to see any part of his design all fully rendered. Finally, there is an entire module with fly-through and walk around animation abilities, which can easily create output to videotape.
In addition to rendering, AllPlan includes a pixel editing ability (akin to Corel's PhotoPaint, Adobe's PhotoShop, or a more powerful version of Windows Paintbrush) which allows a designer to display rendered images, composite those images together with photographs in foreground or background to achieve a more realistic illusion, or to make changes to colors or the design itself (called digital imaging) that may not be possible, or as fast, with the model and re-rendering.
Another module Nemetschek has included with the USA version is the ability to display a scanned in photograph or line drawing so that a designer can trace the design into CADD, which, essentially, is exactly the ability CAD Overlay from Softdesk offers. This technique is usually used by architects to trace in contour lines for site design - a task that is, without this ability, very work and time intensive.
To go even further, Nemetschek has included a digital terrain modeler (or DTM), which means that a designer could then take those contour lines and create a 3D model out of them easily. The DTM can also accept surveyor's points to create the contour lines in the first place. There are also several different ways to display the 3D terrain information, which can help a designer calculate water flow (hydrology), determine the best place for a building (siting), figure out costs and volumes of earth moving (cut, fill), and design the best place for roads and parking lots(road design). AllPlan Includes :
The sophistication of AllPlan is such that the main people who would appreciate its power would be rather advanced CADD users. Although many people could or should use AllPlan, anyone just starting out with CADD will usually turn to an inexpensive drawing-oriented CADD software. More advanced users will appreciate the concept of information linked to elements within a drawing (i.e. attributes in AutoCAD) and the fact that this linked information is the key to initial cost analysis, space planning, facilities management, and so on. Also, after drawing with more primitive CADD packages, designers will eventually crave the ability to dynamically and parametrically change elements of their design such as furniture, fixtures, wall types, door styles, and window sizes, and have all the related elements (such as a wall associated with a door) automatically change appropriately - as opposed to drawing or modifying a whole new set of CADD drawings as is the case with most CADD software.
Designers using the following software are particularly good candidates for upgrading to AllPlan :
DataCAD - at one time the best selling architecturally specific software - primarily 2.5D (extruded lines) but also with an unrelated but good 3D surface (not solid) modeler, poor rendering, and no animation - The company that develops DataCAD (CADKEY) cannot seem to get a version running under any current operating system - still only DOS - with no real hope of doing so before 1997, and thus is bound to loose most of their advanced users to other programs that offer true 3D parametrics - such as AllPlan. There are currently about 100,000 DataCAD users, of which close to 5,000 could upgrade to AllPlan right away. Potentially, AllPlan can be marketed as a sort of super-DataCAD eventual upgrade to all those users.
AutoCAD - never truly 3D until the ACIS modeler of ACAD13, and never actually appropriate for architects or drawing buildings. As Autodesk shifts focus to the more profitable and numerous Mechanical Engineering area, they alienate even more people in the construction industry that wonder why, after 14 years and 13 revisions, there is still not even a "Wall" entity, no way to glue end to end lines, no proper rectangle, no visual symbols, no ease of use, and so on. Prime candidates are AutoCAD 12 (and 11) owners who face $500 per station upgrade cost plus the cost of retraining and replacing third party macros. Since it is estimated that a large number of offices used illegally copied versions (i.e. bought 1 copy for 10 stations), the new copy-protection scheme of AutoCAD13 may stymie many offices enough to look elsewhere (AllPlan). Also, as networks and CD-ROMs grow to be expected in offices, the limited resource of hardware and operating systems are causing problems for most of the architectural add-ons to AutoCAD, particularly AutoArchitect, causing them to crash repeatedly. In an effort to find reliability and stability, many AutoArchitect users are going back to plain AutoCAD, but looking at alternates, a good market for AllPlan.
Medium Size Offices - Many offices in actuality have fewer than 20% of their personnel with CADD software at their workstations. As computer software has gotten cheaper and the need for even supervisors to have CADD at their desks to review what is going on, design offices are in the process of getting CADD or CADD viewing capability on 100% of their desks. Thus, many offices that may think of themselves as an "AutoCAD" firm, may, actually find that they are less ingrained in AutoCAD than they thought.
ArchiCAD - Though not terribly numerous, the users of ArchiCAD tend to be designers who are looking for an integrated 3D automatic architecturally intelligent parametric solution for CADD software. ArchiCAD's weaknesses in 2D construction documents, in 3D modeling, and, particularly in the lack of editing in elevation frequently drive these users to other software such as AutoCAD and FormZ solid modeling as they look for more power and flexibility. Just as DataCAD provides an introductory program to a whole genre of designers, ArchiCAD also can provide a channel to people moving up to the power of AllPlan.
Macintosh and PowerPC users - As the promise of cheap, fast, interchangeably compatible systems fades, NT running on PowerMac's seems further and further away, and IBM and Apple corporations future become more and more in doubt, this fastidiously loyal group of designers looking for automatic systems are starting to spin away from the "Mac-only office" mentality. Many of these people would rather put their fist in fire than demote their office to running the chief enemy king of user-hostile (meaning AutoCAD) but would concede to getting DEC AlphaNT systems or Pentium systems with something like AllPlan. Most of these people see their only other alternative as the Windows95 version of ArchiCAD or MiniCAD. At one time, Macintosh accounted for more than 50% of sales to Interior Designers and Small Firm Architects, so the number of firms this category represents is not insignificant.
AllPlan as software does not have a significant number of problems with the software itself. With very few minor glitches it does exactly what architectural designers need to do, and in a fashion that they need to do it. The primary negative issues with respect to AllPlan arise from two things - its unusual interface due to its Unix origins, and the fact that it is new to the market, which, in turn relates to issues of few users, and other resources available.
The unusual interface is not bat at all once you get to know the program - and designers appreciate how little screen space simple two letter buttons take up - however, to new prospective buyers it looks different, so they worry that it will take a long time to learn (it doesn't).
Review by Geoff Langdon 3/20/96