Graphisoft Archicad

Overview

Archicad's argument has always been that architects should be modelling a building, not drawing pictures of one. Everything placed in the model is a real element with real properties: a wall knows its composite layers and their thermal values, a door knows its swing and its schedule entry, a slab knows its finish and its area. The drawings are views of that model rather than separate documents, which means a change made once appears everywhere it should and nowhere it should not.

The modelling tools are shaped around how buildings are actually described. Walls, slabs, columns, beams, roofs, stairs and railings are parametric objects with construction detail rather than extruded shapes. Stairs and railings in particular are generated from rules that respect code constraints and rebuild automatically when a floor height changes, which removes what used to be one of the most tedious redrawing tasks in the profession.

Documentation is where the model pays off. Plans, sections, elevations and details are live views, dimensions are associative to the elements they measure, and schedules of doors, windows, finishes, zones and quantities read directly from the model rather than being maintained by hand. The layout book assembles all of it into an issue set, with revision management tracking what changed between issues so a drawing set can be reissued without anyone auditing it manually.

Collaboration runs through a server based model where several people work on the same building at once, reserving elements as they go rather than passing files back and forth. File exchange with the other disciplines uses the open building model format so structural and services models can be linked in, checked for clashes and coordinated without everyone being forced onto the same application. Rendering, energy evaluation and a scripting interface for custom parametric objects round out the package.

Key Features

• Parametric building elements carrying real construction properties rather than drawn shapes
• Rule based stairs and railings that rebuild automatically when the building changes
• Live plans, sections, elevations and details generated from the single model
• Associative dimensioning that follows the elements it measures
• Schedules of doors, windows, finishes, zones and quantities read directly from the model
• Layout book with issue and revision management across a full drawing set
• Server based collaboration with element reservation for several people in one model
• Open building model format exchange for coordination with other disciplines
• Built in rendering with materials and lighting for presentation output
• Scripting interface for building custom parametric objects and libraries

What Changed in This Build

• Faster model regeneration on large projects with many linked views
• Improved open format exchange fidelity for structural and services models
• Stair and railing rule handling reworked for complex geometry
• Layout book revision tracking made clearer across reissued sets

System Requirements

Processor	Intel or AMD 64-bit, 4 cores minimum, 8 or more recommended
Memory	16 GB minimum, 32 GB for large projects
Graphics	GPU with 4 GB VRAM and OpenGL 4.1 support
Storage	20 GB free plus project and library storage
Display	1920 x 1080 or higher

Release Details

Full title	Graphisoft Archicad
Version string	29.2.1.5101
Publisher	Graphisoft
Category	CAD and 3D
Licence	Full version, no term limit
Platform	Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit
Interface language	Multilingual, 20 plus localised versions
Archive size	6.42 GB
Mirrors	4 active, all reporting online
Listed	refreshed 2 months ago, checked again 40 minutes ago

Installation Notes

• Set up your project template and layer structure before modelling. Retrofitting a standard onto an existing project is painful.
• Keep the object library on a local fast drive. Loading libraries over a slow network share is the usual cause of long open times.
• Link external discipline models through the open format rather than importing them as geometry, so updates reload cleanly.

Before You Start

Read the notes above before running setup. Most of the problems people write in about are covered there, and almost all of them come down to an older version of the same software still being installed, a graphics driver that predates the release, or a security suite quarantining part of the package mid install.

There is no archive password on this or any other entry in the library. If something you downloaded elsewhere claims to come from here and asks for one, it did not come from here. Nothing on this site is behind a survey, a shortener or a countdown either.

If the entry does not match what the page describes, say so on the contact page and include the version string from the release details table. Reports naming a specific version get checked first because the checker can reproduce them straight away.

Frequently Asked