topic Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain? in Collaboration with other software

!Restored: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Thomas Holm — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 18:18:54 GMT

I've got a terrain model, made as a mesh in Archicad. Now I'd like to use Architerra's tools to modify this terrain (especially the Plateau and Road tools). I've got Architerra 2.02, AC9 2172.

Questions:
How do I get Architerra to accept my mesh as an Architerra terrain? Is there some preferred procedure to this? Or is it simply impossble? I've tried the Terrain tool as explained by the Help, but the only thing that happens is that my mesh gets deleted (it's exploded to lines and hotspots). No other Architerra tool accepts the mesh as input. Some tools tell me a mesh has to be part of the selection - but it is!

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:06:03 GMT

Select the mesh
Press the terrain tool
And then i think you must select a checkbox there. Smthg that says explode...

I dont remember exacly but the solution is there

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Dwight — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:07:46 GMT

Those exploded lines and hotspots are ArchiTerra Data points.

Select them and use the terrain tool again to generate the ArchiTerra object.

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Thomas Holm — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 00:11:20 GMT

Thanks for the input. I'm at home now, will try tomorrow. I thought it mght be something simple. But I just don't grasp the Cigraph docs/help. To thin for my simple mind I guess. And their website(s) are a complete mess! I saved backups of the original mesh though.

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Thomas Holm — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 14:06:03 GMT

OK. I tried.
First, to oreopoulos - I did just that (explode). Didn't work. Then, i tried Dwight's tip. Didn't work either. Architerra refused to create "land" from the exploded mesh points. And since the original mesh was deleted (without warning) in the process, my terrain was lost. Luckily, I'm working on a copy of the orginal. I've tried to use Architerra before, and I'm prepared for trouble.

But this!!!!

I found out my version was old (2.02). After some trouble finding out. Cigraph's web site(s) is/are one of the worst I know. There are at least three main sites, and then lesser "about" ones for each plugin they produce. Extremely slow server (is it a Filemaker database in Classic??), cumbersome to navigate, with scattered and differently updated info, some of it very old. On the page where I found the current 2.05 version, the only working link to a manual is to the AT1.0 version, used with Archicad 7.

Well, i installed 2.05 and I also managed to find the 2.0 printed manual here in my chaotic office.

This time AT managed to create a "land" with the terrain tool. Se figure.
The original AC mesh below, at correct +60 meters height, the AT-created land/mesh above, all mesh heights +119 meters off, at around +179 meters above zero.

Please note that I'm working in true real-world coordinates here. The original Archicad mesh (here the backup copy on a different layer is shown) was placed about 60 m above zero (sea level). Project Zero = sea level.

But when Architerra creates its "land" it places the AT mesh relative to a "user origin" at DOUBLE the current Story 0 level of 59.5 meters to the absolute mesh z-coordinates! This is nowhere stated. I'm not sure if it's a bug. I might have moved the original Archicad mesh in z direction some time or another, i don't remember, which the AT manual warns against. It reads the "inner" values of the heights, as it states, and they are always absolute! (but nowhere to be found or edited???)

Also, some bug or other means that wherever a contour line crosses the perimeter of the mesh (the site border), the resulting point gets a z-value of 0 (relative) instead of the current contour height, This is worse, because it can't be cured by a simple z-move.

Ok. I found a statement (page 42) that says "NEVER transfer the land/mesh along the z axis until you have finished all the necessary work to obtain the final result!" (Absurd in itself, isn't it!)

So I decided to use the Architerra point tool to manually edit the height of every point that was wrong. Done after an hour and a half. New check of the 3D window. No change! Seems like AT doesn't respect it's own edits. All points, checked in the floor plan view, now display the correct values. But the 3D view is still wrong. And since the AT tools are not available in the 3d view, i cannot select and edit the points that are wrong.

Now, I've spent about four times as much time as I'd needed to edit the original mesh manually, without AT. But to no avail.

AT may be a good tool to transfer surveyor's point lists to terrain, but that is something I've never needed or tested.

I bought it to use to create and edit terrain meshes in interaction with Archicad's own tools. This is not to recommend, it seems. Actually, this is one of the most frustrating software purchases i've ever done!

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Fabrizio Diodati — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 13:09:41 GMT

I will come back from my vacation on next Monday.
Please, send me your original mesh and I will check it.
I will answer you just on this thread...

Friendly
Fabrizio

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Thomas Holm — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 18:54:54 GMT

OK. Here it is. I saved it out as a module & zipped.

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Dwight — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 19:38:49 GMT

Was the mesh grouped in your project?

it is a little sloppy at the edges, but it did convert okay.

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Fra — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 10:34:19 GMT

My solution:
- select the mesh and explod with terrain tool of ArchiTerra;

- select and copy the fill generated (the fill describe the outline of terrain)

- undo the last operation

- now move all the point coincident with the vertix point of contour lines, see the image

- now explod again the mesh with terrain tool of ArchiTerra palette

- select the mesh and the fill generated and delete it

- paste the fill that you copied before and recalculate the terrain with Architerra
- delete the point outside the the mesh

I attached the mesh recalculate for architerra

Francesco

sorry for my bad english

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Fra — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 10:35:17 GMT

The mesh reacalculate for architerra

Francesco

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Fabrizio Diodati — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 12:01:05 GMT

Dear Thomas,

I checked your mesh and, sorry to say this, the ArchiTerra result is correct!
I don’t know which method you used to build this mesh but there are a lot of duplicates points (overlapping but with different levels) along the perimeter.
ArchiTerra cannot keep these overlapping points during the conversion because they could cause crashes or approximation troubles (the rule we apply is to keep the points belonging to the perimeter).

As you can see in the attached images, where there are two overlapping points with different levels ArchiTerra keeps the lower in the created mesh, where there is no incongruence you have a correct result.

Friendly,
Fabrizio

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Fabrizio Diodati — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 12:02:25 GMT

And the second image...

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Thomas Holm — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 12:42:54 GMT

Dwight wrote:
Was the mesh grouped in your project?

No.

Dwight wrote:
it is a little sloppy at the edges...

That's precisely the problem that makes it unusable!

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Thomas Holm — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 12:46:06 GMT

Fra wrote:
I attached the mesh recalculate for architerra

Thanks Francesco! I would not have thought about that method!

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Thomas Holm — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 13:30:14 GMT

Fabrizio wrote:
Dear Thomas,
I checked your mesh and, sorry to say this, the ArchiTerra result is correct!
I don’t know which method you used to build this mesh...Friendly,
Fabrizio

Dear Fabrizio,

I obviously cannot complain about your support! I do appreciate all help!

But, I respectfully disagree.

The conversion result might be correct as to Architerra's logic, but I think an add-on should respect the master program's logic, which means that an imported and not edited object should by default look the same (and appear at the same location) as in the master program.

If what you've found are problems or faults in the Archicad-created mesh, it's obvious that Archicad handles them without issues when displaying the mesh. I think the Architerra add-on should do the same. But of course it would be nice to have reports and options to correct problems if they exist. Francisco's method isn't self-evident for an occasional user.

I do agree, however, that Archicad's mesh editing options are poor, and do need som attention from Graphisoft - the wishlist has several suggestions already. If Graphisoft are not interested, I think better mesh editing options within Architerra is an obvious development goal!

Edited: I should add /remind you of/ that I discovered the issue you mention (some zero height points along the perimeter) after I'd imported the terrain into Architerra. But instead of using Francesco's method, I tried to edit the height of each point using Architerra's point height tool. That didn't work at all, as I described before. I still don't know why.

For your information, the mesh was created in two stages.
First I simply traced a scanned contour map (1m equidistance), manually creating polylines for each contour. Then I followed the procedure outlined in http://www.graphisoft.com/support/archicad/archiguide/surveyordrawings.html from step 4 and on.

Later, I got a 2D DWG contour map that I received from the local community authorities. It had 500 mm equidistance, and as I needed this level of detail, I imported the 2D dwg and added the extra contours to the mesh, using the same procedure as above.

I have no knowledge of doubling any contours or the outline. I do agree that something might have happened anyway - you do repeat the same procedure a lot of times, and things happen. Also, weird things sometimes happen when you try to move a node or another in the mesh. Of course, such things should not happen when you use standard procedures.

To my knowledge, I haven't grouped the mesh with or without anything else. When i exported it, I just clicked on one edge or node to select it and then "Save selection as module".

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Fabrizio Diodati — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 13:44:29 GMT

Dear Thomas,

"The mesh was created in two stages.
First I simply traced a scanned contour map (1m equidistance), manually creating polylines for each contour."

Stop!
At this point, as ArchiTerra user, you should convert that polylines (better if Splines!) into ArchiTerra contour lines… that’s all!
That ArchiGuide tips is for anybody doesn’t have ArchiTerra.

“an add-on should respect the master program's logic”

This was just we did in the previous releases and the users got so many crashes due to those overlapping points that we had to use a filter to avoid to get overlapping points!!!
Of course overlapping points cannot exist in the internal surface of the mesh but they can exist along the perimeter: the ArchiCAD number approximation causes a lot of trouble along the perimeter because sometime it can consider the internal point as an external one and, quite obvious, a mesh cannot contains a point outside its perimeter!

“an add-on should respect the master program's logic”
I fully agree but, just in the same time: “an add-on cannot workaround malfunctions (or “special issues”!) of the host software”.

Last but not least, from my experience as ArchiCAD add-ons developers the fault is always from the add-on side: I cannot say the trouble is ArchiCAD itself because nobody will trust on me (please, don’t misunderstand: the fact we develop add-on only for ArchiCAD is a clear evidence I trust on ArchiCAD!).

Friendly
Fabrizio

P.S. I “saved” your suggestion: the next release will prompt the user by warning about these overlapping points and asking for keeping the lowest or the higher ones…

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Dwight — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 14:44:37 GMT

Fabrizio.

Thank you for that insight. What a nightmare!

I often sit back and think how easy it might be to create an Add-On. Then I make a moderately difficult GDL object and spend unpaid hours de-bugging it. (Not that I am any good at GDL, but that is how it goes.)

Thanks you again for such a great bunch of Add Ons.

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Fabrizio Diodati — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 14:52:49 GMT

Dwight,

You say thanks to me?
I will never be able to thanks you enough for your unbelievable LW manual!!!

If someone trusts on my AC experience should immediately follow my advice and buy this book:

The book GS will never release because only Dwight knows what AC LW Engine can do...

Friendly
Fabrizio

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Thomas Holm — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 15:07:22 GMT

Fabrizio,

I sit here thinking a lot of your troubles would go away if you re-worked the documentation and help files. (And please use a natively English-speaking person- some things are unnecessarily difficult because of translation issues).

Of course, issues in the master program aren't your fault as an add-on developer. Still, you just have to handle them, or you put your user into the marsh.

An example is the new Architerra terrain mesh I got from you. It displays correctly in Archicad, it's placed at the right location. So Iwas very happy!
But when I checked the program's palettes it's becoming weird. They say the mesh is located at the double height (ca +119 m above zero). And it is! When I check the points with Architerras Point tool, it checks out. Each point has a NEGATIVE z-coordinate (i. e. "-57500"). This means that I have to prepare each edit operation I want with some weird calculations to get it right. It's still too much trouble.

There should be a way to do "global" point transformations to a mesh, so that every point displays correct values even after you move the whole thing in the z-direction.

Just an example of a valuable mesh editing addition that a 3rd party developer could do!

I'll give Architerra another chance on the next project. This time, I'm sorry but I think I've struggled to many hours with it in already. I have a deadline for the project.

But I do appreciate your engaged support!

Best regards,

Thomas

Re: Archicad mesh to Architerra Terrain?

Fabrizio Diodati — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 15:11:59 GMT

Dear Thomas,

"An example is the new Architerra terrain mesh I got from you."

What do you mean?
I don't remember... I simply replied on this post and I didn't send you anything...

Friendly
Fabrizio

About the translation: Our translator is a young USA girl... and before printing the manual we always ask some user to check the translation. Of course anything can (and should!) be improved!

P.S. "There should be a way to do "global" point transformations to a mesh, so that every point displays correct values even after you move the whole thing in the z-direction" unfortunately this is the way in which ArchiCAD works: the nodes levels don't care about the mesh movements along the Z axis.