topic Extracting element settings in Parametric design

Extracting element settings

martyna_ — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 14:23:19 GMT

Hello everyone, I’m in desperate need of help.

Is there a way to extract the width and height of windows from an Archicad model using the Archicad–Grasshopper Live Connection? I need these values in Grasshopper for further modeling, but I cannot find where these parameters are exposed.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Operating system used: Mac Apple Silicon

Re: Extracting element settings

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 04:17:30 GMT

I think it is not possible directly. In Grasshopper, there is a group of Archicad components called "Deconstruct", and if you use the Deconstruct Window component, you can get the geometry of the Windows into Rhino/Grasshopper.

Unfortunately, this component does not have and output that would give you the Width and Height of Windows.

Maybe you could generate a Window schedule in Archicad, export it to Excel, then use a plugin within Grasshopper to get the width/height data of the Windows from the Excel file.

Re: Extracting element settings

Ahmed_K — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 08:37:56 GMT

Create two properties in the properties manager, one for height, and another for widh,

Then you can get the properties values in grasshopper

Re: Extracting element settings

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 14:17:50 GMT

Good point, I did not think of that possibility.

You would still need to extract the numeric value from these Width and Height properties in Grasshopper, but that is a relatively small task.

Re: Extracting element settings

martyna_ — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 20:29:30 GMT

Thank you so much, it's exactly what i needed!

Re: Extracting element settings

martyna_ — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 20:03:26 GMT

one more question, how do i get a normal vector of a window or a plane that the window lies in?

Re: Extracting element settings

Laszlo Nagy — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 23:50:48 GMT

I am not very proficient in Grasshopper so there may be a faster way to achieve this. I wanted to get the plane of the Window's host Wall, and get its Normal vector. I did the following, going from left to right in the image:

I have a Window component that stores the geometry of one or more Archicad Windows. This example has one Window.
I used the Deconstruct Window component to get geometries related to the Window, and used the Wall output to get the geometry of the Window's host Wall. Notice that the Flatten option is ON for the Wall output.
Then I used the Decostruct Wall component, and used its Curve output (Flatten option is ON again) to get its Reference Line.
I used the End Points component to get the Start Point and End Point of the Reference Line.
Then I used two Vector 2Pt components to generate two vectors. The first one goes from the Start Point of the Reference Line to its End Point. For the second one, first I used a Unit Z component to generate a Point vertically above (by a Unit Z distance) the Start Point of the Reference Line. Then I used the Start Point of the Reference Line and this Point above it to generate the other vector, which is basically a vertical vector. (You can see the three dark red X-es in the Perspective view of Rhino that shows where these Points are.)
I used to Construct Plane component and used the Start Point of the Reference Line and these two vectors to construct the vertical plane along the Reference Line of the Wall.
Then I used the Face Normal component with this Plane as input, and the Normals output gave me the Normal of the plane.

This will work only for straight vertical Walls, so if you are using it in curved Walls or in slanted Walls, this will not give a correct result, you will have to work more on it to solve those cases.