topic Re: Best way to show flooring in the model? in Modeling

Best way to show flooring in the model?

Anonymous — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 15:13:33 GMT

What is the best way to show flooring in the "model"?

I tried the zones but, this tool is another disappointment.

Making thin slabs does the trick, however, it is so unproductive and horrible because if you make changes, now you have to "manually" change the slabs, feels like I am back in autoCAD making changes everywhere. ugh.

The zones may have a potential to do the trick, however they are meant to calculate areas, for some reason, like if we need to know the size of a cube.

If you make the zone thin, then, the height shown is useless to the room. like the ceiling heights.

If you leave the zone the proper height, then, when you want to show the room in 3D you see the zone as a big morph object covering the entire space.

By the way, zones also creep up into doorways, openings with no doors, yes, they crawl up to the top of the opening!! no way to stop them!

I hope you people are not just conforming, happy with the way this thing works.

Does anyone use this tool (ArchiCAD for 3D presentations?) Not user friendly at all. They pitch it well, however, it lacks so much

By the way, I have been using ArchiCAD for quite sometime and have managed to get around spitting working drawings that did not need much modeling.

I am now trying to use it to model homes in 3D just to find it at the bottom of the pit for usability. Simple things that are common to most construction practices are so difficult or impossible in ArchiCAD. Yes, some of you are happy working triple creating pieces, who knows, but, I am not.

This BIM tool is broken, it is not intelligent, it does not know we have so many pieces in a home, it can not create them or read them or calculate them.

Re: Best way to?

Laszlo Nagy — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 10:26:50 GMT

You didn't really state what you are trying to do.
What do you mean by flooring? A 2D pattern? A 3D model of the actual floor tiles?

I suppose you are aware of Options\Project Preferences\Zones Dialog. There you can specify how and whether Zones should extend into Wall recesses.

Re: Best way to?

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 20:29:04 GMT

Yes, I did

"What is the best way to show flooring in the "model?"

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Karl Ottenstein — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 22:28:35 GMT

xacto,

Your frustration seems like a lack of hands-on training / knowledge. ArchiCAD is an extremely complex piece of software and requires an investment in training/learning to go beyond the basics and become proficient and fast.

Zones can be made to adapt to spaces in a variety of ways. No, they do not have to be visible in 3D - it is actually uncommon to view them in 3D. Zones are not just areas. 3D zones are room volumes (e.g., conditioned air volume) and more. But, they are primarily used to schedule data about spaces. (They may be used visually to do preliminary space programming/massing.)

Composite slabs can have a top veneer building material that is your floor finish for drawings and presentation, but if you need a schedule of finishes-by-room, that data is typically entered into zone field.

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 00:04:32 GMT

I was afraid to read that slabs are the best choice.

Zones creeping into openings should not be some setting I need to go and adjust, zones should be able to read, oh, wait, this is an opening, I typically don't creep up on doorways. Simple. If the zone can not do that, then, is not doing what is meant to.

Air volume? Energy values are typically taken from an "envelope" not rooms being conditioned. Anyway that is another topic.

Thanks for the input. I will keep fighting this project and moving on to new pastures.

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Laszlo Nagy — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 10:24:19 GMT

Be aware that you are not the only one using this software. There is another 200 000 other people out there. So what may be typical or usual for one might not be that way for others.
I think one of the reasons ARCHICAD is great is because it provides one with a lot of options, in this case to define how Zones should flow into those Wall recesses, and if it should be applied to Door AND/OR Window recesses.

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Richard Morrison — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 16:37:12 GMT

xacto wrote:
What is the best way to show flooring in the "model"?
Making thin slabs does the trick, however, it is so unproductive and horrible because if you make changes, now you have to "manually" change the slabs, feels like I am back in autoCAD making changes everywhere. ugh.

There are shortcuts like eyedropping the slab, deleting it, and then magic-wanding a new slab in the room. Maybe 3 seconds worth of work. Might be nice if it adjusted automatically, but it's far from "horrible."

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 20:55:53 GMT

Thanks!

Yes, I've been "wanding" away for a while, however, it is not what we need.
I may sound out of whack in my posts, but, no, I use ArchiCAD on a daily basis, I need to send these messages out there to get some attention and perhaps, hopefully other people can join in and be heard.

It is the same in all tools, there are a lot of "fans" people that defend with cape and spade, even though they know we need changes.

Get this, If I already have built the "Foundation" floor using a slab, now, I have to layer this thing away and wand new "slabs" fix its thickness, elevation, add the proper flooring, then, pick up the parameters, so the next wanders that get built at least have some of the settings in them, then, go back to them and change the flooring, because the settings picked up got to all of them.

Now I have One main slab, and a heck of a lot of little slabs sitting on top acting as "overlaid flooring"... Just typing all that makes me sweat, lol.

Now, here's my client making changes again, "nothing new" right? Fun stuff this ArchiCAD is, I tell you.

Thanks.
Jorge Araya.
GJ Gardner Homes.

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Richard Morrison — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 01:01:18 GMT

Why don't you just add the predominate flooring (e.g. hardwood) to the main composite slab, and add the slab floors only where it is different (e.g. tile)? That way, you'll only have a few rooms per floor with the slabs. How do you want AC to behave?

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Barry Kelly — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 01:36:28 GMT

xacto wrote:
Now I have One main slab, and a heck of a lot of little slabs sitting on top acting as "overlaid flooring

My motto (and I am sure I am not the first to say it) is to 'model it like it is built'.
If it is built as one main slab and lots of little finish slabs (timber, carpet, vinyl, etc.) for each room then that is how I would model it.
Yes you could model as one large slab and label the floors as a different finish or add the finishes to a zone stamp but you can not see the finish.
If you model it and can see it then you can list it, quantify it, show it in renders and know that it is accurate.

Barry.

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 05:29:54 GMT

Ideally the zone tool would work if it weren't measuring volume.
I modeled one house using zones that are .5" thick and not letting it show the ceiling height, instead I am using a "code" as a keynote to specify what the ceiling heights are for different rooms.

you can show finishes on zones in 3d, if you allow the 3d overrides to do so. In that sense they work, and I don't have to be creating slabs over slabs for that purpose.

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Barry Kelly — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 05:59:48 GMT

I am a bit confused as to why you would want to add a ½' thick zone to a room to represent the floor.
Why not just add a ½' thick slab?

The whole idea of zones is that they can be used to measure areas and volumes as well as inherit the surfaces they touch which can be used to determine areas of surfaces in schedules - that is why they creep into door and window openings.
They also detect the number of openings, lengths and areas and types of openings.
They can be categorized so you can have zones for various usages - i.e. commercial, industrial, conditioned space, etc.
Plus much more.

It seems to me you are finding a use for the zone tool that it is not really designed for.
Not that this is wrong but it may affect your work flow.

Barry.

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 18:00:34 GMT

Because we think outside the box, we use the tools to do what we need them to, not what the intended purpose is, just like we use "slabs" for a whole lot of other things that are not really "slabs" correct?.

Roofs can be used for ceilings, sloped garage floors, sloped stoops, sloped balconies, etc. even for walls if you get creative.

We can have more than just one zone and layer it for another purpose. 😉

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Barry Kelly — Sat, 22 Oct 2016 03:56:33 GMT

If it works for you that is fine.
But a zone is not what I would call a building element (wall, slab, roof, etc.).
A slab will interact with a wall if they intersect - the stronger building materials will automatically over-ride the weaker ones and clean up the intersection (Priority based Connection).
A zone will not do this.
A slab can be made from a composite (layers of different building materials) whereas a zone can not.

But as I said if it works for you then that is fine.
There are many ways to skin a cat in Archicad.

You may also get messages to say you have overlapping zones as elements can only recognize one zone at a time.
Doors and windows can recognise 2 zones - one on each side of the opening so in schedules you can list the 'From' and 'To' room of an opening.

Barry.

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 03:31:07 GMT

The problem is "project" means some kind of abstraction. Software needs to let user make some kind of abstraction. I agree with this user over the issue. There needs some option or another 2d tool for floor finishings...

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Remi Lecomte — Fri, 25 Nov 2022 12:08:42 GMT

Hi Barry, I thought the discussion was interesting.

I'm afraid I shared a lot of views with Anonymous but I don't think that he answered your question in a constructive way after.

The answer in my opinion of why would you use a thin zone instead of a slab is that it would limitate the amount of elements, and therefore the amount of work.

Let's say you have a generic slab in your project for the entire story.

You draw a zone with a pretty stamp for each room.

If you want to add a floor finish visible in plan, section and 3D, re-drawing a new thin slab for each room seems fastidious, especially if you already have nicely delimitated zones that could do the job very well.

Having thin flooring slabs AND zones for each room seems like a tautology to me.. and extra work.

I think that the absolute best would be to have a "flooring option" included in the zone tool, with a composition option, thickness, materials, etc. easily available on plan/section/3D, rather than just a cover fill. That would be a mix of 2d/3d tool but really useful I think

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Laszlo Nagy — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 13:15:16 GMT

There is a Goodie called Accessories, which includes Room Accessories, which can create floor structures based on the geometry of the Zone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiWl7JTeGSE

Goodies download page:

https://graphisoft.com/downloads/goodies/

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Erwin Edel — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 15:21:09 GMT

If your floor finish building material has a fairly low priority, all the wals in your model will just cut straight through it. If you set it up as actual 'finish' in composite settings, it will 'flow' through door openings. The way we tackle this is that we model the 'exceptions to the rule' bits (like floor tiles in toilet/bathroom) and substract these through SEO. That leaves the majority floor finish stuck to our floor composite.

However, often with proper classification the need to model things seperately arises and the problem solves itself. However, minute detailed modelling is never needed if the walls have higher priority building material. Just make sure your slab is displayed all the way to the back in drawing order, or you will see unwanted lines in the floor plan.

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Remi Lecomte — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 16:25:12 GMT

Laszlo: this goodie Accessories seems very interesting, looking forward to trying it.

Erwin: I think that's a good method for New build with not many different floorings.

I often have to work with the renovation tool though, but (the biggest Archicad miss of all time) I don't think that it's possible to assign a renovation status to part of a composite (wall/slab/etc...). For example having an existing composite slab with ceiling/core/flooring, and say put only the flooring as downtaking, or have an existing wall and just add some insulation with the status new. I remember using composite slabs for generic flooring and SEO for flooring exception (bathrooms) but it was a bit of a nightmare combined with the renovation tool.

Re: Best way to show flooring in the model?

Erwin Edel — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 08:46:18 GMT

Partial demolishing of composite is not possible, sadly.

For new elements like added insulation, we do generally model these separately from the existing walls. Sometimes it helps to have a layer with a different intersection group number for the new elements, so they don't interfere/connect with existing elements.