topic Re: Drawing Walls Fast in Modeling

Drawing Walls Fast

Anonymous — Wed, 24 May 2023 10:50:35 GMT

Hello fellow ArchiCADists I was wondering if anyone here could or has posted a You Tube video on how to draw walls fast with ArchiCAD?

I saw this Reviteer shred thru a model at lightening speed, his video is called "Revit From Scratch" Please take a look and see if any of you can shred thru a similar size residential model in ArchiCAD and post it on You Tube.

I was particularly impressed with the drawing walls and the witness line temp dimension when placing openings as well.

Is it time for us to get our productivity going faster and keep the ArchiCADians from departing to the Reviteer camp?

If so can we please have a witness line temp dimension system or the like to speed up our model building?

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Karl Ottenstein — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 04:43:22 GMT

Not sure what you're asking for AC speed... doing the same thing in AC is just as fast... just done differently. All pretty basic stuff. A few things shown are possible only in Revit; AC has other things that Revit can't do. People aren't leaving AC for speed-of-modeling reasons AFAIK, or if they are, then they I don't think they ever fully learned how to use AC.

Yeah, maybe GS marketing should do some similar videos...

The link to the 4 year old video that you mention is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGScnVZwiXs

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:25:43 GMT

Hi Karl,
What does AFAIK stand for?

ArchiCAD is faster and straight forward in many other things for me that is why I have not changed to Revit.

I was being specific about the placing of walls and objects into their exact positions with the help of pop up dimensions that can be clicked and fed the right value and are set.

BTW you can use your left hand with a number keypad to input the right value to set elements into exact positions, very handy when editing or revising plans or models?

I have come from using Chief Architect and I am sure that Revit took this input method from them because they have been around allot longer than them.

If we can make ArchiCAD even better, than why not?

If I and others need to see a speed method of using ArchiCAD in the specific case of drawing walls and placing object please show us You Tube demo or please provide one?

Anyone here game enough to take up the chalange?

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Stress Co_ — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 01:11:59 GMT

mthd wrote:
What does AFAIK stand for?

As Far As I Know

DAMHIK

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Dwight — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 01:26:45 GMT

Never get caught out again, with

Acronym Finder!!!!!

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:55:37 GMT

I use both programs extensively and find ArchiCAD to be faster at most things than Revit, laying out walls included*.

The problem I have with what you are suggesting (besides not having time to do it) is that there are many different circumstances and requirements for laying out walls and even if we pick one that is fairly representative it is only a very small part of the whole design and modeling process. It is also something that both programs are very good at so considering all the factors I not sure the comparison would be all that useful.

*Particularly when the magic wand comes into play. Or using PDFs as a reference. Or when needing snaps, locks and constraints that Revit does'nt manage to do well.

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 02:13:42 GMT

Matthew wrote:
I use both programs extensively and find ArchiCAD to be faster at most things than Revit, laying out walls included*.

The problem I have with what you are suggesting (besides not having time to do it) is that there are many different circumstances and requirements for laying out walls and even if we pick one that is fairly representative it is only a very small part of the whole design and modeling process. It is also something that both programs are very good at so considering all the factors I not sure the comparison would be all that useful.

*Particularly when the magic wand comes into play. Or using PDFs as a reference. Or when needing snaps, locks and constraints that Revit does'nt manage to do well.

Hi Matt,
Thanks for that valuable input. May I ask you, how long have been using Revit in comparison with ArchiCAD? and could it be a factor that because you may have started with one program and spent more time using it and getting familiar with it that you are faster with it?

I find that that is the case with me, I am much faster in Chief Architect than ArchiCAD when it comes to non complicated houses. I wished I started in ArchiCAD then I might be better at it and have more preset templates to work from in order to speed up my productivity.

I would like to see a video or two of how fast some of you guys can work in ArchiCAD it would make for good advertising of the product maybe some of the re sellers could put something together for us.

Matt, you are right the flexibility of ArchiCAD allows for many methods of modeling in ArchiCAD in fact too many to work out what is the best way to do it?

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 18:21:52 GMT

Well I have been using ArchiCAD since about 1988 so it's unlikely my experience with Revit will ever catch up, but I am expert enough in Revit (familiar with it from the beginning, actively using it for over four years) to feel confident that most tasks are faster, easier and/or more accurate in ArchiCAD. Sometimes extraordinarily so.

As far as the videos go. I don't really have the time or interest ATM.

Regarding flexibility, the best technique is what ever gets the job done and puts money in the bank.

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 01:38:02 GMT

Yes it does come down to productivity in the end.

I have been drawing boxes with the line tool to represent rooms and then drawing walls around the edges with the wall tool. This helps with space plannng.

I might try using a method described by Dwight of drawing walls around fills with the majic wand and leaving a rooms gap between the fills so I don't get wall produced over walls.

I will see how I go?

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Dwight — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 02:17:47 GMT

If you use the fills/zones touching method and then magic wand the wall, you'll quickly see which offset wall to select for deletion.

It also pays to use gross floor areas resulting in wall centerline measures. This way you magic wand to the wall centerline.

Another approach to locating overlapping elements is to use the Add-On "Check Duplicates" to find and select exactly overlapping objects. See Archicad Downloads under Help Menu for this secret tool.

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 03:12:21 GMT

The problems produced by the magic wanding of walls around fills not only results in extra walls needing to be deleted but also the walls do not join correctly and also you are driving blind with no temporary dimension indicators to show that the walls and fills are in the right position.

Sorry to say Graphisoft way too many clicks for me and too much editing, you could fix this up to make us even more productive. The wall tool should be able to automatically distinguish between internal and external walls as well.

The magic wand tool should be able to be controlled more as to wrapping around a fill and just producing a wall on one side of a fill.

This is my biggest gripe with ArchiCAD namely drawing walls is too long winded apart from that I don't have any major gripes and it is still way better than Revit overall for me.

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Dwight — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 03:16:01 GMT

Set your wall to centerline placement and see what happens.

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 03:44:43 GMT

No worries Dwight will do and thanks for your help and suggestions.

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 06:25:53 GMT

I had a chance to test the "Dwight trick of the trade" with the right settings and I am impressed at how fast this method really is when you know how it's done properly. Thanks Dwight. I learnt how to draw walls in ArchiCAD at technical school and from a training DVD, it had some good tricks in it but nothing like this. Thanks again.

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Dwight — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 06:53:23 GMT

Swell.

Dwight

"On twenty-four hour duty and committed to total performance inside Alpha Launch Control at Maelstrom Air Force Base,
near Hilger, Montana, SIR!!”

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Hmooslechner — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 17:41:18 GMT

Just for the fun...

its in upload now for a Hour or so..

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieuVVPudFdo&feature=youtu.be

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Dwight — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 18:03:40 GMT

Don't forget that for fast draw in Archicad you need to include the Archicad "six gun" object.

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Hmooslechner — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 18:22:27 GMT

You mention the red and green spots in my Vid.. these are the Laserpointers of my pacemaker.. beware!

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

mthd — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 03:42:17 GMT

This was my post from nearly a decade ago. I’m not sure if this post is still active ?

I last used Archicad in 2014, that was my last job after retiring from Architectural work.

I am thinking of coming out of retirement now and I am still very much sold on Archicad.

So much so that I kept my subscription going right up to AC24.

Are there any improvements with the drawing and placing of walls with interactive dimensions in AC 25 or 26 ?

I am thinking of renewing my subscription ?

Sometimes small things improve in Archicad without it being advertised and that’s why I am asking about this from experienced users who may have noticed some slight improvements ?

I will test it out with AC24 but if anything is better in the latest version please tell me.

Thank you experienced users of Archicad.

Re: Drawing Walls Fast

Barry Kelly — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 03:55:22 GMT

@mthd wrote:

Are there any improvements with the drawing and placing of walls with interactive dimensions in AC 25 or 26 ?

If you are referring to the Revit style amend a dimension and the wall moves method, then no, there is nothing quite like this in Archicad.

We have the 'Tracker' as we always have done.

Type the info into the tracker and the wall will draw or move to where you want it to go.

Barry.