DDScad and MEP Designer:
Innovations, Opportunities, Options

Your perspective: Plan with confidence today, set standards tomorrow

As a DDScad user, DDScad will initially continue to be your comprehensive and powerful solution for all plumbing, heating, ventilation, and electrical projects. You maintain full planning security with DDScad – all proven functions and engineering calculations remain fully available to you.

Our new solution, MEP Designer, is currently at the beginning of a multi-stage development process. In its early versions, it’s primarily targeted at those working in MEP disciplines who haven’t yet used specialized MEP software and want to model intuitively and simply without performing discipline-specific calculations with the software. However, for DDScad users who typically rely on comprehensive functional depth with discipline-specific calculation capabilities, MEP Designer will also become a powerful, state-of-the-art solution for MEP system planning.

The modern technological basis of MEP Designer opens up development prospects that wouldn’t be achievable long-term with DDScad‘s current structure. Once MEP Designer enables consistently high-level MEP planning for you, we’ll inform you in good time and offer attractive options for switching from DDScad to MEP Designer.

Whether you’d also like to use the MEP Designer premiere version for your project work is something you should test free of charge. Companies with DDScad HVAC or plumbing licenses and software maintenance contracts receive a test license (conditions: see below). Get a personal impression of the current development status and decide on this basis whether you’d like to use MEP Designer productively at an early stage.

MEP Designer – The next generation of MEP design

With MEP Designer, we’re focusing on an advanced software engine, intuitive operation, and future-oriented software architecture. This gives us more opportunities for further development than would be possible with DDScad in the long term. That’s why we’ve decided to initially develop a new MEP planning solution parallel to DDScad, whose modern architecture will enable comprehensive MEP planning at a high level in the medium term. For the future, MEP Designer is to be further developed so that switching from DDScad to the new solution is attractive and sensible for demanding planning tasks.

Overview:

• Release date: MEP Designer has been available since October 2025 in its first standlone version.
• Initial markets: MEP Designer will initially be available in Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Croatia, Austria, Romania, Slovenia, and Czech Republic. Additional countries will follow.
• Intuitive modeling: MEP Designer is based on the proven BIM core technology that also forms the foundation for our award-winning architectural solution Archicad. This impresses users worldwide with its unmatched usability and ease of modeling. Its quickly learnable, intuitive user concept also characterizes MEP Designer.
• Usage limitations: The first version will already enable modeling of HVAC and plumbing systems and placing corresponding networks in buildings. However, not all functions you’re accustomed to from DDScad will be available yet. Important features that are currently missing will be gradually added in future versions until MEP Designer‘s functionality ultimately meets high professional requirements.
• Calculations: MEP Designer won’t offer the comprehensive calculation options in its debut version that you typically use for complete MEP planning. Naturally, possibilities will be created for the future to perform all relevant MEP calculations for MEP Designer projects.
• HVAC development focus: In the HVAC and plumbing areas, we’ll work intensively to provide MEP Designer with performance and functionality tailored to demanding planning tasks and that will open up new possibilities in the future – potentially also in connection with partner solutions.
• Electrical engineering: In the first development years, the focus of the new solution’s development lies in HVAC and plumbing disciplines. Electrical engineering will initially be considered to a limited extent. The planning solution for electrical building services will therefore remain DDScad for years to come.

You can get a first impression of the current functional status yourself: Test MEP Designer (conditions: see below) and check whether MEP Designer can already be integrated advantageously into your daily workflow at an early stage.

DDScad – Development today and in the future

Despite the introduction of MEP Designer, as a DDScad user you will continue to benefit from innovations and further developments for DDScad. To simultaneously enable the greatest possible development leaps for MEP Designer, we’ll set priorities in developing both solutions:

• DDScad development continues in both general, discipline-independent functionality and electrical engineering functions.
• Users of DDScad licenses for HVAC and plumbing areas will benefit from improvements to general functions.
• Technical support continues to be provided in full scope for all DDScad licenses.
• Once MEP Designer enables comprehensive and powerful planning of modern MEP projects and proves itself in practice as an attractive option for demanding tasks, we’ll offer our DDScad customers with HVAC or plumbing licenses and software maintenance contracts an attractive opportunity to migrate from DDScad to MEP Designer.
• Since electrical engineering – as explained above – will play a subordinate role in the first MEP Designer versions, DDScad Electrical remains Graphisoft’s planning solution for electrical engineering in the coming years. DDScad Electrical will continue to be developed and supported to the usual extent.
• Once MEP Designer enables high-quality and comprehensive planning at a contemporary level in plumbing, heating, and ventilation disciplines, electrical engineering will also be given greater consideration step by step in further development. The goal is to expand MEP Designer into a flexible, cross-discipline solution for all MEP disciplines including electrical engineering. Thanks to the modern technical basis and forward-looking usability concept, possibilities can be unlocked that may partly exceed what’s achievable with DDScad. Once MEP Designer thus represents an attractive solution for electrical discipline planning tasks, we’ll also specifically inform our customers with DDScad electrical licenses and software maintenance agreements about options for switching from DDScad to MEP Designer.

The references to switching from DDScad to MEP Designer are currently still an outlook on the future: MEP Designer‘s development pace depends on many influencing factors. These aren’t all precisely assessable at the moment. Furthermore, individual requirements for planning software functionality vary greatly depending on the user. Therefore, we can’t yet specify the exact time when a switch in HVAC, plumbing, or electrical areas will likely be sensible. Of course, we’ll keep you informed about the new solution’s development.

Free test option for DDScad users with HVAC or Plumbing licenses and software maintenance contracts

As a company with DDScad HVAC or plumbing licenses and software maintenance contracts, you can test MEP Designer for free. This gives you the opportunity to get to know the software now and become familiar with the application. Should you want to switch to the new solution in the future, you won’t need a long startup time and will be immediately productive.

Conditions of this test offer:

• The offer currently applies to holders of DDScad HVAC or plumbing licenses with software maintenance contracts.
  (Holders of DDScad electrical licenses with maintenance contracts will also receive this opportunity once MEP Designer is equipped with electrical functions.)
• Each customer receives one MEP Designer license for each qualifying DDScad license.
• Development suggestions can be submitted via the MEP Designer wishlist.
• The free test option is initially limited to one year.

This practical test will give you the necessary confidence: Test the software and decide on this basis whether you’d like to use MEP Designer productively right after introduction.

Following the official product launch of MEP Designer, we will send DDScad customers with qualifying licenses a separate email informing them about this option.

Questions and answers

In addition to the information provided above, we answer some questions that may arise in this context below.

Conditions of this test offer: