topic Timber frame and panel fabrication drawings in Modeling

Timber frame and panel fabrication drawings

The Seldom Seen Guy — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 09:52:20 GMT

Hi.

I am trying to figure out if Archicad (out of the box) is really suitable software for producing Oak\Timber frame & Softwood panel fabrication drawings.

Whilst Archicad is great for typical construction methods it doesn’t appear to be a great solution when trying to incorporate Oak framing. At least not without the use of either third party add-ons (additional cost) or GDL coding knowledge.

I would like to produce accurate take-offs/cutting lists and fabrication drawings ideally for Oak/Timber frames and Softwood panels detailing the framing.

There doesn’t appear to be a user friendly (out of the box) method of achieving this, with wall tool object for the latter seeming very clunky.

Perhaps a shift to Revit may be the best solution (research pending).

Any advice or experience with this would be most appreciated.

Re: Timber frame and panel fabrication drawings

Laszlo Nagy — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:52:26 GMT

I am not the right person to answer this because I have never done this type of work in Archicad, but it may be useful if you could post a few screenshots/PDFs that would show the type of output you are aiming to produce and then users would be able to give recommendations.

One thing I can say is that I recommend checking out the capabilities of the Curtain Wall tool (may not be an obvious choice), I think you can achieve a lot with its use.

Re: Timber frame and panel fabrication drawings

The Seldom Seen Guy — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 09:13:38 GMT

Hi Laszlo, thanks for the reply.

The Oak frame side of the fabrication drawings would be a 2D drawing of a frame made up with beams and columns, ideally with each piece/beam/column having a visible number label assigned to it for reference.

I have had a play around with the curtain wall tool for the softwood panel application, but at first glance it doesn't seem overly user friendly and doesn't allow more than one panel/sheathing layer to be applied. i.e I could create a basic panel with stud work and one OSB layer, but not multiple layers.

It may be that I need to explore it a bit further.

Re: Timber frame and panel fabrication drawings

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 10:25:29 GMT

You may need to use the "CW Composite Panel" panel type to achieve those multiple panel layers.

Yes, the Curtain Wall tools is a complex tool but I think it is quite capable.

Re: Timber frame and panel fabrication drawings

The Seldom Seen Guy — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 07:43:32 GMT

That's great, I hadn't spotted that.

I haven't tried more complex shapes yet, but this is definitely one step closer to ticking all the boxes regarding functionality, even if it is a little complex and un-intuitive.

Thanks.