BIMx / KnownIssues

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BIMx Known Issues

BIMx shows only a black screen, a black screen with red lines or you see other display issues

Such errors are mostly related to the graphics cards or to graphics card drivers. Make sure you have the latest driver installed for your card that supports OpenGL. In case device manager indicates Generic SVGA driver you should search for a driver written directly for your card.

Here you can find the latest drivers for the popular cards:

• Download drivers for AMD (ATI) cards

• Download drivers for NVIDIA cards

• or visit the webpage of the manufacturer of your graphics card/computer

Based on our experiences uninstalling the existing driver and installing the latest one usually solves most of the display issues.

Some old graphics cards may not be able to show the model in BIMx even with the latest released driver, these are mostly really old and low performance cards. Many computers with integrated Intel graphics are affected as well. A possible workaround might be running ArchiCAD 15 without installed hotfix 1, but note that without that the new BIMx features won't be available.

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BIMx Add-On/Desktop Viewer gives file error when opening a model

For details see: Bugs/BIMxFileError

Note: this bug is fixed in ArchiCAD 15 Hotfix #2 (3602)

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Save and Share with BIMx Community options are missing in BIMx

This bug may come with certain models, after opening the file some background processes are still running and save is only possible after those are finished.
Workaround: wait and the buttons will appear.

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Save dialog is not displayed on Windows Vista/7

It may happen, that when you when press the 'save' button in BIMx Add-On (BIM Explorer) and try to save, the Windows common save dialog can't come out to the front, it hides behind the application window. The workaround is the following:

• Press ALT+TAB, and the file dialog will display, or:
• When you press save, press Ctrl+Alt+Del - go to Task manager, than you will see next to the Task Manager Window the Save dialog. You can simply click on it, and go on with the saving process.

After that, BIMx comes up again.

As this issue depends on the used graphics card and on its driver: it is strongly recommended to have the latest graphics driver installed.

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Export fails

Possible issue one: In case the current user's My Documents folder points to a root of a partition like D:\ the export will fail. As a workaround use a folder as a target, not the root of any partition. E.g.: D:\Documents should work fine.

To change this:

• Open the current user's home folder
• right click on the My Documents folder (link)
• properties
• define a new target folder there

• choose move to move the full content of the My Documents folder to the new location

Note: this bug is fixed in ArchiCAD 15 Hotfix #2 (3602)

Possible issue two: In case the username of the current Windows user contains special characters which belong to the extended ASCII code, like ä, á, Japanese characters etc. - the export will fail. Until this won't be fixed: export BIMx models using a user account having a name with only standard English characters.

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Pixelated shadows

In some cases the shadows might be pixelated. This is usually caused by large polygon number elements, such as trees and other plants. Their detailed shadow fills up the shadow map and this results low-res shadows. A couple of ideas that might help to fix the representation:

• hide the layer of these elements
• use the marquee tool to only represent a part of the model
• use lower polygon number elements

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Cannot open files containing Korean characters in the filename

In case you save a file in BIMx using Korean characters, the result file (.bimx, .app, .exe) cannot be opened, only a CrashDump file will be generated. As a workaround use only English characters.

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Issue on Mac with virtualized operating systems

Running BIMx (Add-On/Desktop Viewer) may fail in virtualized environments such as Parallel Desktop/VMware Fusion. In some cases it works but global illumination render fails.

Running VBE in a virtual machine is not recommended because BIMx is using the video card in OpenGL mode. The problem itself might also be related to the ATI Mobility Radeon video cards that are used in Macbook laptops, although this has been seen on a Mac Pro system with a desktop ATI card as well.

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Logitech mouse/keyboard is not working in BIMx

Some Logitech mice and keyboards are not working in the OSX version of BIMx if Logitech Control Center is installed.

Possible workaround: Uninstall Logitech Control Center.

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Apple Magic Trackpad does not work in BIMx

Apple Magic Trackpad does not work in BIMx, though the internal trackpad of the Apple laptops works.

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Invisible textures

Textures with alpha channel transparency are invisible in the case they are viewed through another transparent surface.

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Issue with Curtain Wall

At the moment you can walk through curtain walls anywhere, not just through doors in the curtain wall.

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Issue with Screenshots

Screenshot (F5) creates a huge .bmp file (in the ~\Documents\BIM Explorer\Screenshots folder).

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BIMx viewer crashes when trying to save file on Vista

For mor details see: Bugs/NoBIMxFileSaveOnVista

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Categories: CategoryBimx CategoryTroubleshooting CategoryOpenGl

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