Graphisoft on Tuesday announced ArchiCAD 13, an update to its architectural design software. The latest version integrates BIM Server technology, marking a completely new approach to collaboration between large numbers of users. The system is designed to overcome problems associated with model accessibility, rights management, element control and sharing, and overall reliability.

The company's Delta Server technology is claimed to dramatically reduce network traffic, allowing team members to simultaneously work on BIM models in real time. Along with local networks, the data optimization also enables project access via Internet connections from remote locations.

Instead of syncing entire files as the model develops, the software saves only the changes made by each participant. Graphisoft also claims the revamped architecture is less vulnerable to data corruption or hardware failure.

ArchiCAD 13 offers a variety of other enhancements such as improved object handling and expanded options for exchanging data with engineers. Curtail Wall editing has been revamped, now allowing reference line and element height adjustments. The update also adds intelligent "Soft" insulation, a DWG interface and enhanced automatic dimensioning.

Oriented views can now be used to line up projects by rotating the onscreen view to a perpendicular position, while annotations automatically adjust to the final layout orientations. Door and window previews can be associatively annotated directly from the interactive schedule window, helping to reduce drafting time.

ArchiCAD 13 is scheduled to ship later in September for both Windows and Mac platforms. The initial release initially will be optimized for 64-bit on Windows, although the company expects to extend the support to Mac OS X in future updates. [via Architosh]