topic Re: Stair 'draining' display in plan in Modeling

Stair 'draining' display in plan

Paul King — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 05:52:18 GMT

I am trying to show stair gutters in plan views.

They show fine in 3D, but in 2D views there is no clue as to their existence.

There is an (annoyingly) closed topic already on this issue, which appears to be a known bug, that appears to give false or at least superseded workaround information as the 'marked solution'.

The marked solution refers to ensuring the stair has a finish (even in tiny thickness), and adjusting Model View Options (Detail Level of Stair and Railing Symbols=>Structure - Monolithic) setting to show 'Visible and Hidden Parts'.

However doing both these things has no impact at all.

What solutions work in ArchiCAD 29?

Operating system used: Windows 11 25 H2

Re: Stair 'draining' display in plan

Laszlo Nagy — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 22:30:31 GMT

Can you show a screenshot of how it looks and a sketch or drawing of how you want it to look?

Re: Stair 'draining' display in plan

Barry Kelly — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 01:36:33 GMT

To see the drainage in plan, you have to turn the stair structure on in the Model View Options and then set to show on visible and/or hidden parts.

As for controlling the fills and pen colours, I am not having much luck there.

Barry.

Re: Stair 'draining' display in plan

Paul King — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 08:36:49 GMT

Yep, that (the model view settings) is pretty what I am doing, as far as I can make out.

The 3D stair:

The 2D plan view, that ignores the gutters:

The Model View Option settings:

And the selected pens and fills

Re: Stair 'draining' display in plan

Barry Kelly — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 05:13:42 GMT

Also in MVO Stair Options, make sure 'Structure - Monolithic' is ticked.

Barry.

Re: Stair 'draining' display in plan

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 08:38:01 GMT

Re: Stair 'draining' display in plan

Paul King — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 05:27:14 GMT

Thanks @Laszlo Nagy and @Barry Kelly

I also have 'Structure-Monolithic' set as suggested under Stair Options/Stair Symbol - but it does not seem to help

Re: Stair 'draining' display in plan

Barry Kelly — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 08:01:55 GMT

Is your stair object floor plan details set to use MVO?

This is strange.

I just opened a default Graphisoft template (28) and tried with drainage on the stairs.

I can see it is there, but I can't get it to show in plan.

But you can see from my last image from my template it worked, but I couldn't control the pen colours.

And now I open my template and I can't get it to show there either.

I feel we are missing something obvious, I just can't see it.

Barry.

Re: Stair 'draining' display in plan

Barry Kelly — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 08:20:56 GMT

Maybe it has something to do with the grid object being used.

Built-in does not seem to show drainage but the 'Stair Grid' object seems to work.

Barry.

Re: Stair 'draining' display in plan

Paul King — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 03:56:12 GMT

@Barry Kelly Well spotted!

Yes, that Grid Settings selection made a difference (though not clear to me what other implications arise in other view contexts when using 'Stair Grid' rather than 'Built-in stair Grid', or why we are offered two such cryptic yet similarly named options at all).

Also, with 'Stair Grid' active, I think the gutter fill pen you are looking for is here

Re: Stair 'draining' display in plan

Barry Kelly — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 05:24:22 GMT

Yep, I found the pens, thanks.

The 'built-in' objects are just there so the stair (and railings and other objects) will work if no libraries are loaded.

It uses a 'built-in' library that you can't un-load that basically just store default parameters.

But not all parameters as we have discovered.

Barry.