When hovering over a wall to place a column, ArchiCAD 27 now shows a "Ghost" preview of the column's bottom constraint relative to the top of the wall, and vice versa.
But let’s be honest: the flashy features are great for marketing, but the real magic lies in the —the small, tucked-away tools and quality-of-life updates that save you hours of clicking. Here is your guide to the best hidden gems (Goodies) in ArchiCAD 27 that you probably missed during the launch hype. 1. The "Find & Select" Overhaul (The Time Thief Catcher) This isn't your father’s Find & Select anymore. The goodie hidden inside ArchiCAD 27’s selection engine is the ability to save complex selection Queries as permanent palettes.
Have a wall that needs to look like a "Demo" element? Use the dropper on an existing demo element to copy its graphic override rules, then "paint" it onto the new wall. This visual, click-based workflow is revolutionary for existing users who hate digging through nested dialog boxes. 4. The "Attribute Manager" Filter Bar If you have used ArchiCAD for more than a year, your Attribute Manager (Fill patterns, Surfaces, Line types, Composites) is probably a mess.
Every year, Graphisoft rolls out a headline feature for ArchiCAD. Version 27 was no different, with the spotlight firmly on the Virtual Building Experience (improved 3D navigation and graphical overrides).
Previously, you had to re-enter criteria every time. Now, create a palette called "All external doors over 2100mm" or "Walls with wrong composite." One click, and they are highlighted across 50 floors. This turns a tedious audit process into a two-second task. 2. Slanted Column & Beam Offsets (The Structural Sanity Saver) While the press releases focused on "curtain walls," the goodie for architects dealing with complex roofs or angled facades is the new slanted column offset logic.
You can now offset slanted columns and beams by absolute or relative vectors from the reference axis. No more doing trigonometry to figure out where the top of a slanted column sits relative to a rotated beam. It just works, and it works perfectly with the improved structural analysis workflow. 3. Graphic Override "Dropper" Tool Graphic Overrides got more powerful, but the goodie is the new interaction model: the Paint Bucket and Dropper analogy.
The Find & Select queries, the Attribute Manager cleanup, and the Ghost Snaps in ArchiCAD 27 reduce the "friction" of modeling. They are the tools that make Friday afternoons productive rather than frustrating.