topic Re: How do you show walls on other floors? in Modeling

How do you show walls on other floors?

rob2218 — Wed, 24 May 2023 06:53:15 GMT

Just curious...besides the 'creating a different viewmap for different ways to show walls".............how would you see walls which are on the 1st floor shown on the second floor if they only travel vertically "ON" the first floor?

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

adamsb — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 16:31:20 GMT

If there is a way to do this, besides using the "show on relevant stories" option, I would like to know this too. I actually just created a wish for this, hoping to have the option within the wall tool to select which stories the wall should show up on.

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

rob2218 — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 16:35:49 GMT

I mean...this would be a common parameter to have in walls?....don't you guys think? I mean, there are times where a wall, 2 or 3 stories down needs to be seen, say from a roof plan or a top floor plan. Where you need to see walls "BELOW" the cutting plane line ALL the way down to the ground level and NOT need to have to use "viewmap cut plane line settings" to accomplish this graphics.

There are certain objects that allow you to select which floor you want this object to be seen on....1st, 2nd, custom, etc...but WALLS, which SHOULD ABSOLUTELY have this functionality.....do not.....dunno. Sometimes I wonder who are the dudes who are programming this stuff......cause they may not be aware of traditional documentation techniques on how to represent a building in plan properly.

adamsb wrote:
If there is a way to do this, besides using the "show on relevant stories" option, I would like to know this too. I actually just created a wish for this, hoping to have the option within the wall tool to select which stories the wall should show up on.

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

sinceV6 — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 17:52:49 GMT

I'd say current display options are more than enough. Having another parameter to control walls' visibility would create more complexity rather than flexibility.

Oh... and a lot of the dudes behind programming are also architects and, as you may know, "traditional" documentation techniques are different from country to country. IMHO, GS has known how to solve the workflow part beautifully and maybe that's why AC has a lot of flexibility... for the most part that is.

Best regards.

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

rob2218 — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 18:00:52 GMT

humm...ok. fair nuff.
though..."walls" in general, you'd think would be the 'first' object type that would have the visual flexibility to be seen on "any" floor chosen by the user....other objects in the box do...why not walls.
Besides...the "viewmap cut plane" adjustability is, well, not that intuitive and I'm not the only one who thinks that either.

But I take your point.
Maybe it's too much to program a wall to be seen "where" the user wants/needs it to be seen.....but I hear what you are saying.

sinceV6 wrote:
I'd say current display options are more than enough. Having another parameter to control walls' visibility would create more complexity rather than flexibility.

Oh... and a lot of the dudes behind programming are also architects and, as you may know, "traditional" documentation techniques are different from country to country. IMHO, GS has known how to solve the workflow part beautifully and maybe that's why AC has a lot of flexibility... for the most part that is.

Best regards.

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

sinceV6 — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 18:39:43 GMT

rob2218 wrote:
humm...ok. fair nuff.
though..."walls" in general, you'd think would be the 'first' object type that would have the visual flexibility to be seen on "any" floor chosen by the user....other objects in the box do...why not walls.
Besides...the "viewmap cut plane" adjustability is, well, not that intuitive and I'm not the only one who thinks that either.

But I take your point.
Maybe it's too much to program a wall to be seen "where" the user wants/needs it to be seen.....but I hear what you are saying.
sinceV6 wrote:
I'd say current display options are more than enough. Having another parameter to control walls' visibility would create more complexity rather than flexibility.

Oh... and a lot of the dudes behind programming are also architects and, as you may know, "traditional" documentation techniques are different from country to country. IMHO, GS has known how to solve the workflow part beautifully and maybe that's why AC has a lot of flexibility... for the most part that is.

Best regards.

Walls do have that flexibility. Having an option that allows the user to show a wall only in certain floors would probably create documentation issues, as in "why does this wall shows in floors 1, 3 and 5; but not 2 and 4?". How far have you played with all available FPCPS&Wall-FloorPlanDisplaySettings combinations? I find the settings quite logical.

If you need walls to show several stories above, in that wall just set:
Show on stories: all relevant stories
Floor plan display: as you need
Show projection: would depend on what you want to show in that specific plan view.

Then change the Relative Floor Plan Range options in FPCPS.

Say you are on level 2, you could set Relative Floor Plane Range in FPCPS to show down to 2 stories below, offset by 0. Your wall (in level 0) should be visible. If you set the show projection (in wall properties) to floor plan range, you would use the Floor Plane Range offset to limit the wall projection (it will ignore the Absolute Display Limit, but the offset would also limit the entire view); set it to Absolute Display Limit, and it will work the other way around, ignoring the offset and using the other value.

Changing to another story, would be...errr... another story Display would be according to FPCPS but related to current story.

All this is easier to understand if you create an inclined wall several stories below, set FPCPS to show down to that story, and set different offset values for Floor Plan Range and Absolute Display Limit; then play with the "Show projection" value in the wall. For very specific cases, there are other things that could be done to document what you need.

I would prefer that FPCPS could also be applied to the tools missing those options, such as slabs. Having the ability to view several stories down is not complete when only some elements are shown.

I think the the programming part is not the issue. I would certainly have some difficulty, but I think the bigger issue would be how to make it work with everything else and not create more BIM problems than it would solve.

Just my 2 cents.

Best regards.

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

rob2218 — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 18:49:26 GMT

thing is is that the FPCPS (I'm assuming you mean "Floor plan cut plane settings"..right?) is limited to a continuation ONLY horizontal cutplane.

Sometimes, walls in particular, need to be shown a certain way where they shouldn't be controlled ONLY by the cut plane rather but a toggle button IN the wall itself that says...just that...."Show on floors 3, 4, 5 ONLY".

that way the user has full control of where and when he shows WHAT walls and how....not by only being dictated by the cutplane plane.

How many times have you wanted to show elements that were in 1/2 stories or 2 or 3 stories below or above...well, plenty of times, yet a "walls" visual displays are governed by the cut plane setting INSIDE the viewmap...where the first line of adjustability should be INSIDE the wall parameter itself.

Just like the "walls" have the option to be shown in "cut only", "projection with overhead", etc.....they should be able to be "shown" in whatever story the user needs them to be.

just "my" 2 cents...and you know what they say about an opinion...."with my opinion and 75 cents..you could by a pack of gum"

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

sinceV6 — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 19:05:21 GMT

This is a great discussion. Do you have any specific examples where you need this functionality? I just can't grasp the concept of a wall that only spans a certain amount of height of a story to be shown in an arbitrary number of views above (as in some you do, in some you don't)

If you ask me, I would change the whole paradigm. I wouldn't have stories as they exist right now (although the current workflow has proven quite useful from an organizational point of view); but I would rather have the building model as a whole and "model" the floor plane and cut plane (with any quirks and level differences it may have); kind of like the section tool, but in a horizontal plane.

But as it is right now (and it´s out of my hands to change it), I take what I have and make the best of it.

Best regards.

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

rob2218 — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 19:38:52 GMT

I think this is the best advise so far....i'll see what I can do.

sinceV6 wrote:
.....

But as it is right now (and it´s out of my hands to change it), I take what I have and make the best of it.......

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

Tim Ball — Sat, 23 May 2015 18:48:58 GMT

I use 2 overlays on the same plot, one shows the plan you want, the other shows a trace reference on the layout behind. You can't plot a trace reference from a layout but you can create the same effect using a layer combination and another pen set with everything set say to grey.

You can then show a structural 1st floor layout over a ground floor layout.

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

rgarand — Wed, 27 May 2015 17:29:54 GMT

We do the same as Tim. This allows us to "grey out" the information below. Sure, you need to create a separate layer combo/view set, but this ultimately gives us more graphic flexibility. We have some layouts with multiple, greyed out views. For instance:

Main RCP over greyed out Furniture Plan over greyed out lighting plan (imported dwg from consultant) over greyed out mechanical plan (imported dwg from consultant)

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Sep 2018 20:06:39 GMT

I would like to know how to show walls on other floors without seeing the wall thickness. I would like only the outer perimeter line to show. Does anyone know how to achieve this graphic?

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

Barry Kelly — Tue, 18 Sep 2018 01:26:59 GMT

Unfortunately you will need to use lines, polylines or fills to show the single line.
Or if you floor slab happens to follow the building extent then you can set that to show on any storey and you have limited line type option in Option > Project Preferences > Legacy settings.
I think lines or fills are best - more control over how they look.

Barry.

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 22:02:14 GMT

Barry,

Thanks for the reply. Perhaps this can be a function added to walls to only show single line outline on other stories. Wish list thing!

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

mendezarcediego — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 03:11:51 GMT

sinceV6 wrote:

This is a great discussion. Do you have any specific examples where you need this functionality? I just can't grasp the concept of a wall that only spans a certain amount of height of a story to be shown in an arbitrary number of views above (as in some you do, in some you don't)

If you ask me, I would change the whole paradigm. I wouldn't have stories as they exist right now (although the current workflow has proven quite useful from an organizational point of view); but I would rather have the building model as a whole and "model" the floor plane and cut plane (with any quirks and level differences it may have); kind of like the section tool, but in a horizontal plane.

But as it is right now (and it´s out of my hands to change it), I take what I have and make the best of it.

Best regards.

Great discussion, In my case I need to show only a few walls several stories below, why not the other walls? because if I do change the FPCPS to show several stories below, other walls might interfere visualy with the ones on the current floor plan (See attached screenshot).

Furthermore, Im currently trying to make all objects below the current story to have a Graphic Override that makes them grayed out, but this has proven particularly difficult to me. This is specially useful if I want to convey to my client those "soft" greyed-out elements are not part of that story but are visible below it without being to overwhelmingly strong.

Re: How do you show walls on other floors?

Barry Kelly — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 04:10:34 GMT

Remember that you can overlay multiple drawings in a layout.
So you can create a view of one storey showing the walls you want with the Graphic override settings you want.
Then create another view of another storey, again showing what you want with he GO you want.

Then in the layouts you add both of these views as drawings and overlay them on each other.
This way you can build up a plan view of what you want.

If you want to see this in the Archicad plan, you can use the trace reference.
For a single storey reference just that storey view, if you want multiple storeys involved, set it up on the layout as above and reference that layout in the Archicad plan.

Barry.