topic Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand in Collaboration with other software

Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 06:59:32 GMT

I'm trying to create a site contour.

- I've placed a DWG of a site contour as a worksheet.
- I made that Worksheet to Show As Trace Reference.
- On the Ground Floor, I drew a rectangular mesh following the boundary of the site.
- I selected the newly drawn mesh, activated the Mesh tool and made sure the Geometry Method was set to Polygonal.
- I held spacebar to activate the Magic Wand and clicked on one of the contour lines of the Trace Reference.
- A window to Add New Points appears and I click OK.
- No new nodes appear and nothing happens.

What am I doing wrong?

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 08:04:13 GMT

The technique doesn't work on Trace Reference. The DWG file has to be in the same view where you're creating your site contours using Mesh Tool.

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Barry Kelly — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 09:30:08 GMT

It should work as you describe.
It is obviously not recognising the lines in the DWG for you to use the magic wand.
Watch the cursor carefully as you pass over the line - it will change as you touch the line.
If it doesn't then it is not recognising the line.

You can draw some simple spline lines over the contours an use those to magic wand onto the mesh.
This can be better as it give you more control of the number of nodes in the contour.
A DWG can be many thousands of lines for the contour which will equate to just as many nodes when you magic wand.
If the lines are not continuous then the magic wand will not work either.
With a spline you can control the curve and the settings used in the magic wand to determine the number of nodes in your new contour.

Barry.

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Barry Kelly — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 09:34:13 GMT

Aissa wrote:
The technique doesn't work on Trace Reference. The DWG file has to be in the same view where you're creating your site contours using Mesh Tool.

I haven't tried it with a DWG as the trace but certainly works with lines, splines or other elements in a trace.

Barry.

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Barry Kelly — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 09:38:45 GMT

Barry wrote:
Aissa wrote:
The technique doesn't work on Trace Reference. The DWG file has to be in the same view where you're creating your site contours using Mesh Tool.
I haven't tried it with a DWG as the trace but certainly works with lines, splines or other elements in a trace.

Barry.

I just tried and it does work.
But not if you place the DWG with the 'Drawing' tool.
If you do that you have to explode it.

Barry.

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 10:00:30 GMT

Thank you for your replies.

1. I've tried putting the DWG in the same view and it still does not work
2. The cursor does change when I pass over the line. It still doesn't do anything

I'm currently tracing over the DWG with the Polyline Tool which is quite tedious as there are so many lines But yeah, the Magic Wand recognises the Polyline.

Is there a way I can convert my DWG into these types of lines straight away?

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 10:06:22 GMT

I've found the answer to my own question!

I right-clicked the DWG that was placed on the Ground Floor, clicked Explode into Current View and then deleted the actual DWG.

Now all those lines are selectable!

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Barry Kelly — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 10:07:23 GMT

How did you place the DWG.
I simply merged it into the plan and it worked fine.
If placed with the 'Drawing' tool or maybe as an XREF it won't.
Should work though if you explode it.

Can you select a contour on its own?
Is that what you were showing in that last image or was that a spline you added.

If they are all separate lines you could try the 'consolidate line' tool but they would all need to touch or overlap to consolidate to a single line.

Can you share the DWG?
Also what version of Archicad are you using?

Barry.

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 10:18:05 GMT

Barry wrote:
How did you place the DWG.
I simply merged it into the plan and it worked fine.
If placed with the 'Drawing' tool or maybe as an XREF it won't.
Should work though if you explode it.

Can you select a contour on its own?
Is that what you were showing in that last image or was that a spline you added.

If they are all separate lines you could try the 'consolidate line' tool but they would all need to touch or overlap to consolidate to a single line.

Can you share the DWG?
Also what version of Archicad are you using?

Barry.

Yep, you have to use Merge...and yes, you also have to consolidate. Quite tedious exercise if the surveyors file is in DWG format.

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 10:30:22 GMT

I placed the DWG using the Drawing Tool.
Yes, I can select each contour line on its own.
In the last image, I was only showing the many contour lines there were And that was the Polyline I started to draw.

The Explode into Current View option really helped. I can continue on with my work now
Using ArchiCAD 20 on Windows 10

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Nov 2016 20:40:23 GMT

I've been having exactly the same problem. I am learning Archicad so it is difficult to solve this without knowing the ins and outs of the software.

I am following the Graphisoft Training Videos but am using Archicad Solo V20, so maybe the videos are outdated now.

I have found (as the other posts mention) that this method did work with the full version 19, however does not with V20 solo as you can not import XREFs. So you are stuck with importing using the Drawing Tool then merging.

The problem I now have is that the magic wand tool is only recognising parts of the contour line and not the full lines. It seems erratic to me. This worked fine with V19, what do I need to do?

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Barry Kelly — Sun, 27 Nov 2016 04:29:27 GMT

You can either place the DWG with the 'Drawing Tool' found in the tool bar and then 'explode' it or you can 'Merge' the DWG form the 'FILE menu > External Content' - the you won't need to explode.

Either way you should end up with the DWG in you plan and you should be able to 'Magic Wand' the contour lines.
However those lines need to be continuous with no gaps (no matter how small).

Can you post a screen shot of the contour you are trying to magic wand or better still also post a link to the original DWG file?

Barry.

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Nov 2016 19:21:49 GMT

Hi Barry,

Thanks for your reply - I have found that the problem was with the way I was using the tool. If I moused over, then waited for the line to highlight, then clicked, it would only ever pick up part of the line. However, I discovered that if I just click the line straight away, it does select the whole line. I am sure I didn't have this issue with the trial full version of V19. However, it seems like a slight tweak in V20 Solo, however no problem now, just as long as you know to click the line straight away!

Thanks,

T23

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Da3dalus — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 00:55:40 GMT

TIP TO REMEMBER:
You must EXPLODE a DWG Linked Drawing before you can use the MAGIC WAND to trace it!

Thank you all for the explanation here. I've used ArchiCAD for 20 years, and traced DWG contours on to a Mesh a dozen times, but I forgot that one critical step, Explode. Or did I ever encounter it? Maybe I always happened to be working with Exploded line work. Either way, I was pulling my hair out for an hour before I thought to search ArchiCAD-Talk.

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 07:06:23 GMT

Bumped into topic this while searching for answers about another problem.
Anyway, you can always use trace & reference on a worksheet from your floor plan view to create mesh contours, whether the reference is from A DWG or native archicad lines etc.

Just wanna add notes to other who might have bumped into the same problem, you can try to check for or any gaps on:
-the lines itself
-any intersection between lines

also try converting the contour from dwg into polyline if it's made from spline

-John

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Mar 2020 10:45:08 GMT

Hello!

Having the same problem as OP. Tried to import the DWG fie, didnt work. Then i tried to place it with the drawing tool and then exploding. Now when i choose the mesh tool and hold spacebar nothing happens...
I even tried to make some simple spline lines and use the magic wand on them, but nothing..

Now i made the DWG as trace reference but still the magic wand won't appear...
https://i.imgur.com/lRXqrcZ.png

Nvm solved it and figured out i am a complete idiot.

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 19:52:11 GMT

I seem to be a complete idiot too. What did you discover was wrong?

Joe Simmons
Denver

Re: Creating a Contour Line with Magic Wand

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 22:38:26 GMT

DUH! In addition to highlighting the mesh, the mesh tool needs to be highlighted as well. I love that ArchiCAD unfailingly works and it comes down to operator error.