topic Re: Real Curves in Archicad in Modeling

Real Curves in Archicad

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 14:46:10 GMT

Happy new Year everyone God Bless you in this new year!

I'm have a problem with segmented geometry in elevation. In the office I work we are designing a classic building with a lot of details and a lot of rounded things (see the attached pics) and all rounded geometry is segmented in elevations and sections, and 1st it doesn't look good, 2nd I can't measure radius of the rounded windows, 3rd this bring workarounds that I need to make to get things right and to look professional.
See the attachments how everything is segmented.

And my question is, Is there a way to make this geometry as real curves without segmentation and that I can take radius from it?
The first pic is the main elevation

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 14:47:08 GMT

This is A close up to a part of the round window

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 14:48:39 GMT

And this is a section of the main crown in the main hall, was made with a beam and complex profile.
See how everything is supposed to be curved is segmented.

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

David Maudlin — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 15:22:46 GMT

arqrivas:

There is not much you can do about the curve resolution in Complex Profiles, see this thread for an example: Custom Profile.
If the Objects and Windows are coded in GDL, then there are a few GDL commands (Resol, Toler, Radius) that control the curve resolution.
Sometimes when needing to dimension a segmented elevation element like you show, I will add an arc (Arc/Circle Tool) over the segmented element, this allows use of the Radial Dimension Tool.

David

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Steve Jepson — Wed, 06 Jan 2016 01:14:23 GMT

You will not need to settle for the unacceptable curve resolution you are showing. I will post some examples soon.

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Jan 2016 14:45:01 GMT

Thank you, David and Steve.
I've been a little busy, that's why my late response.
The custom windows are not made in GDL, but with slabs and besides that there are Details in the facade made with morph that are also giving me problems with the curves.

I also drew arcs to get this radius this time. Arc will be fine from time to time, but in this office the designs are that style and we're going to have a lot of curves and arched windows.
I wish I could find a good workflow in how to work out these designs in Archicad. If someone has any experience with this type of projects I will appreciate some tips and tricks. Thanks for your help.

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Steve Jepson — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 16:07:09 GMT

Smooooooth- yes. Zoom in on this Morph. But the poly count may be off the charts.

http://screencast.com/t/kXnOMYgd

http://screencast.com/t/itwKlm2The

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 20:41:15 GMT

Yes!!! Very Smooth This is great.

The only issue would be the amount of polygons, how slow will the computer move with this amount of polygons just in details!!

I wish GS work in this to make this curves work better and that the curves are translated as curves and not small segments.

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Steve Jepson — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 00:15:05 GMT

Here are some examples.

The first one was made in the Profile Manager - the rounded part is as smooth as possible by stretching an edge of the fill with the Curve Edge pop-up.

The resulting Profile is unusable if you ask me. Not nearly smooth enough.

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 00:28:25 GMT

That's exactly my problem!

Is there any way to solve or workaround that?

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Steve Jepson — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 00:31:38 GMT

this one is a Profile smooth enough to use.

It was made by using the magic wand to create a slab between the lines and the arc, instead of a fill. The slab was exploded, and those lines and arcs pasted into the Profiler, then the magic wand was used to make the fill inside those lines. The arc was then a bunch of short lines rather than a smooth curve in the fill.

The result in the Profile Manager is a fill that is not nearly as smooth as the one used above, however, the resulting Profile is much smoother and is adequate enough to be used.

So the trick is to make the magic wand settings as smooth as possible and use that to make the fill, rather than trying to make the fill smoother by making a bunch of edges in to one smooth curve.

This is because of how the modeling kernel in ArchiCAD works.
The is another good example of why we need a different kind of modeling kernel in ArchiCAD. We need NURBS.

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Steve Jepson — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 00:43:18 GMT

arqrivas wrote:
That's exactly my problem!

Is there any way to solve or workaround that?

You posted between my examples

Both of these are Profiles and can be used like walls, beam, or a column just like any other Profile.

The one on the left is not usable. The one on the right is good enough for most stuff.

The one on the right is the one that was made by result of exploding a slab made with the same very smooth fill that was used in the Profiler to make a bad Profile.

You could do this with other methods as well. Like an exploded morph that was first made as smooth as you can get it first. It's the resulting little tiny lines of the curve that end up being better than a perfectly smooth curved edge of a fill. The ArchiCAD modeling kernel does not process the math formulas for a curve the same way a NURBS modeler does - this is why we
can't have smooth curves in ArchiCAD. Only approximations of a curve made up of little tiny lines.

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Steve Jepson — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 01:39:27 GMT

Here is a very good example of GDL scripting for Resolution in the Molding Curved 02 19 object.

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 13:45:44 GMT

Sorry to post between your examples

And Thanks so much for the explanation. So knowing this, yess AC needs a new modeling Kernel that interpret curves as is(NURBS will be AWESOME, I can Just Imagine... )

BTW, doesn't all those nodes draw lines in elevations? I mean when you have all those small segments, Cause if not I can handle that solution nicely.

PD: is there a wish on this?

PD PD: If write something that doesn't make sense is because English is not my native language. sorry

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Steve Jepson — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:21:57 GMT

The examples are sections.

How does this look to you ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE0oD5fIYPM

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Erwin Edel — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:25:28 GMT

I vaguely remember there was a setting you could change in the registry to allow for more segments on the curve.

Might have been for shells though.

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Steve Jepson — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:47:55 GMT

I would like to use Sub-D, and NURBS in ArchiCAD.
Being able to convert and/or use both is getting more popular in Modeling Programs.

http://www.npowersoftware.com/index.html

If I were a SolidWorks guru I could get a real job.

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 16:30:04 GMT

Yeahh.
I have seen all these videos of the new vectorworks and also the videos of the new allplan that also have great modeling features.

I think this will be a great step for Archicad.
I will also love to see this.

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 19:52:39 GMT

I have question when looking at your detail of the Complex Beam Profile. How do you prevent materials from connecting? Are these all different materials or is there some preference I'm not aware of?

Re: Real Curves in Archicad

Anonymous — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 01:43:56 GMT

Hi, Sjoelte, Check this Tutorial for the Profiles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puqSYH9p4e8&list=PL5ECBFDEA4B6CB1AA&index=50