topic Re: Beam Centerlines Showing Up When Beams are Hidden??? in Modeling

Beam Centerlines Showing Up When Beams are Hidden???

Jeff Galbraith — Fri, 26 May 2023 10:24:33 GMT

Why does the beam centerline show up for a beam that is hidden? ie: We set beams to be visible 'Within Floor Plan range' so that they can be viewed from above for structural plans as well as from below for reflected ceiling plans. This generally works well, with the one drawback that we cannot use beam centerlines. If we turn centerlines on they will show up for overhead beams that are beyond the cut plane settings. The beam itself doesn't show up...just the centerlines. Any way to fix this?

Re: Beam Centerlines Showing Up When Beams are Hidden???

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 13:18:06 GMT

Do you know that there is an MVO setting that can control Beam contour/axis display?
If you use the "Contour Only" option, your axis (centerline) will not be displayed.

Re: Beam Centerlines Showing Up When Beams are Hidden???

Jeff Galbraith — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 21:20:26 GMT

Yes Laszlo, I am aware of that. The problem here is that I want some beams to show up with their centerlines but I want others to be invisible. ie: I want beams above the cut plane to show up in a reflected ceiling plan, while beams below the cut plane should be hidden. And in plan views I want beams below the cut plane to show up in the plan while beams above the cut plane would be hidden.

This is one of the many elaborate work-arounds we have to do to get reflected ceiling plans to work in Archicad.

It seems pretty straightforward that we should be able to achieve this using the 'show to floorpan range' option for beams. Meaning the beams should only show up when they fall within the floor plan's vertical range cut plane settings. Unfortunately this appears to only work for the contours, no the centerlines.

Is this the way the tool is intended to work, or is it a bug?

If it's the way Graphisoft intended I would question the logic. I can't think of a time where I want the centerline visible but not the contours. It also doesn't seem logical that the centerline should ignore the object visibility settings.

Re: Beam Centerlines Showing Up When Beams are Hidden???

Laszlo Nagy — Sat, 24 Jul 2021 12:44:10 GMT

OK, now I think I understand what you are trying to do.
I checked this. I set the top of the Floor Plan Range to -1000 mm below the above Story, so in a Story that is 3000 mm high, the Floor Plan Range is from 0 mm of the Story to 2000 mm of the Story.
Then I placed a Beam that is fully above the 2000 mm upper limit of the Floor Plan Range, and set its "Show Projection" field to "To Floor Plan Range". And true, the contours of the Beam are not visible, whereas its Centerline is.

So, actually, I agree with you that in such a case, the Centerline should not be visible either.
So, I will forward this to Graphisoft so they can investigate it.

Re: Beam Centerlines Showing Up When Beams are Hidden???

Dontknow — Sun, 25 Jul 2021 09:17:47 GMT

I always use these settings:

This way I only see the beams in the section where I want to see them.

Re: Beam Centerlines Showing Up When Beams are Hidden???

Jeff Galbraith — Mon, 26 Jul 2021 15:55:33 GMT

Thanks Laszlo

Re: Beam Centerlines Showing Up When Beams are Hidden???

Minh Nguyen — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 14:15:00 GMT

Dear Jeff and Laci,

Thank you very much for reporting the issue!

With Laci's detailed reproduction steps, we were able to reproduce the issue in-house. I have created a Support Case about this in our system. Once I receive any news about the investigation, I will share it here.

I wish you all a great day!

Best regards,
Minh

Re: Beam Centerlines Showing Up When Beams are Hidden???

Minh Nguyen — Tue, 10 Aug 2021 10:51:41 GMT

Dear All,

After discussing with our developers and designers, we believe that this is a bug. The Axis should not be visible for beam in such cases. We entered it as defect DEF-6045. Hopefully, it won't be a difficult one to fix!

Thank you once again, and have a great day!

Best regards,
Minh