topic Setting up AC to document 'Stages' of work in Project data & BIM

Setting up AC to document 'Stages' of work

Anonymous — Tue, 30 May 2023 10:44:58 GMT

Hello all,

what are peoples experiences with setting up ArchiCAD to document a project that will be built in 2 or more stages?

In the past I would use Layers and Layer Combinations, with Extensions of Stage 01 and Stage 02 etc, but I am now at a new larger firm which uses a lot more layers and combinations, and to copy all of these into 2 or more stages may not be the best way to go.

Just looking for suggested workflows for this situation.

Thanks,

Mike

Re: Setting up AC to document 'Stages' of work

Erwin Edel — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 09:04:38 GMT

You could draw both stages in seperate .plns and hotlink them together in one 'master' .pln. Make two dedicated module layers like 'stage 1 module' and 'stage 2 module'. You can then create your layer combo's to include or exclude that layer. The layer of the module functions sort of like on/off switch. You might have some issues with layer intersection priorities this way. I recall having issues with that. Stuff intersecting that wasn't supposed to intersect.

This is the method with the least amount of work involved. Personally I make 'module export' layer combinations in my seperate .plns and marque my model and save a .mod file, because linking .plns also links all the sections, elevations, unwanted layers etc. I like a tidy 'master' file.

We use this setup a lot with 'large' scale residential projects, with several different buildings linked into a masterplan.

Re: Setting up AC to document 'Stages' of work

Link — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 09:27:07 GMT

I follow the same method, almost to the letter.

Haven't experienced any intersection issues, but we have quite a sophisticated layer group number matrix that is identical between all files.

Anyway moduling is by no means perfect, but it's the best solution IMHO.

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Setting up AC to document 'Stages' of work

Erwin Edel — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 10:55:40 GMT

The issue I had with hotlinks and layerintersections was that the module layer (and it's intersection number) would override all the intersectionnumbers of the layers of elements contained in the module. If that makes sense.

This was archicad12, it may have been resolved since.