topic Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble? in Modeling

Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 22:59:56 GMT

www.imageshack.com

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 23:10:43 GMT

Click "Scale all at" radio button at top where it says 100%. You obviously have selected a master different to your desired printer page size. The button you have selected is basically saying "fit to page".

HTH

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

gerd — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 11:41:15 GMT

hi,

perhaps you have diffent sized pages in the layoutbook.
if you have changed the third option (like shown in your picture), plotmaker takes the dimensions of the biggest plan, shrinks it to the paper size and apply the scaling factor to all pages (even to the small ones). so all pages are in the same scale, but in your case not 100% or another useable factor like 50%.

if you want to get 100% take the first radio button and make sure to use a big enough paper and plot only pages based upon the same master layout.

best regards

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 12:36:20 GMT

Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

My answer would be NO!

Now that you can make reasonable prints from Archicad 9, it occurred to me that, for 2D work anyway, it would be easier to dump a scaled-up title box on to a plan, and send to print. Kind of like Autocad before they had paper space!

Next logical step would be to plot the same way. However, when you plot from Archicad you can't select the plot area - so it's not really practical, unfortunately.

I spent half an hour yesterday nudging views around a plotmaker layout - there must be an easier way!

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 15:26:33 GMT

Keith wrote:
I spent half an hour yesterday nudging views around a plotmaker layout - there must be an easier way!

I hear you.

There has to be some book or something out there.

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 16:12:41 GMT

Keith wrote:
Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

My answer would be NO!

Now that you can make reasonable prints from Archicad 9, it occurred to me that, for 2D work anyway, it would be easier to dump a scaled-up title box on to a plan, and send to print. Kind of like Autocad before they had paper space!

Next logical step would be to plot the same way. However, when you plot from Archicad you can't select the plot area - so it's not really practical, unfortunately.

I spent half an hour yesterday nudging views around a plotmaker layout - there must be an easier way!

No way would I go to using titleblocks in Archicad. Your missing out on linked referenced details, auto sheet numbering, different pen mapping for different drawings...
Plotmaker is definitely worth it!

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

TomWaltz — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 16:44:57 GMT

Cole_Construction wrote:
Keith wrote:
I spent half an hour yesterday nudging views around a plotmaker layout - there must be an easier way!
I hear you.

There has to be some book or something out there.

"Archicad Project Framework" by CADImage, available from Objects Online. It's a bit outdated (for 8.1), but very useful for setting up title blocks, templates, and workflow ideas.

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 16:46:12 GMT

Tom, thanks because It is the mail already. I ordered it on Tuesday.

I heard good things about it.

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Steve Jepson — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 21:48:02 GMT

If you are working on a small project. Say a house plan of 6 or 8 sheets, No.
PlotMaker is probably not worth the trouble. All you are doing is placing the information you already made in ArchiCAD into another program and printing it from there. Why? You can publish you view sets. You want several drawings and details at different scales on the same sheet. No problem, thats what resize, x-refs, and modules are for. Just for the AutoText? You can make universal changes to words and phrases in ArchiCAD. Title Blocks? Just copy and paste, make a .gsm, or use a template. Some times it is very convenient to construct everything on the same story so you can take advantage of using witness lines from the floor plan or other things.

Use a different story for each sheet.
Edit-Copy-Paste, some layer combo's, and you will not need PlotMaker at all.

PlotMaker has some clever options but they also add a level of complication that is not necessary for very small projects.
Personally, I like using PlotMaker. The biggest gripe I have with it is the time it takes to regenerate and update.

PlotMaker is a lot of fun to use and that is worth something too.

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Karl Ottenstein — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 02:54:04 GMT

Wow. Interesting thread ... haven't heard printing from ArchiCAD advocated since the old escribe version of ac-talk ... anybody remember Mathilde K.? (PlotMaker was more combersome in those days.)

Certainly, Publisher in AC combined with special 'print' views that display title blocks/etc can get the job done ... but with all page numbering, section and detail number/sheet page references, and more all coordinated manually. IMHO it would take much more time to even edit those numbers than to just set up the PM sheet, if you have a company template already (which everyone does, right?!).

For your 6 to 8 sheet drawing set, Steve, I'll have my PM book completely set up, auto-numbered, auto-texted and linked in less than 5 minutes. Any future changes are fully automatic. If I need ot move a detail or section to a new page in the future ... still all automatic. I cannot imagine working any other way.

Creating hotlinks and xrefs in order to get multiple drawings per page when printing from ArchiCAD is way more complicated and time consuming. And copy/paste? Yikes. I didn't hear that.

But, I hear Cole too: we have always complained about the AC documentation not explaining how to USE the software, but only what each command does. This has left the USE to extra cost training, books, or here.

Cheers,
Karl

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 03:40:22 GMT

Karl wrote:
if you have a company template already (which everyone does, right?!).

Cheers,
Karl

I dont yet.

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Link — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 04:11:12 GMT

And copy/paste? Yikes. I didn't hear that.

Funny stuff Karl.

My assumption has always been that if people aren't using PlotMaker, they simply don't understand it's power!

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Achille Pavlidis — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 13:20:10 GMT

i think Plotmaker is absolutely worth the trouble for all the things already mentioned and for another one which is the possibility to archive your projects. If you produce all your sheets in archicad you have to save .pla files in order to have all the library parts you have used. And what happens with revision 1,2,... etc drawings? you dont keep track of those, or you make a new file (.pla) which is confusing and space-consuming. With Plotmaker you have your book with all the sheets organized comprehensively with all the various revisions, and you can work on the .pln file of your project while someone else is ploting from the book...

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 16:28:18 GMT

Yes I would agree, at first PM can be a wee bit frustrating. After further investigation, I think you will find that it can be a great time saver…., you have a pre-made office template, the sheets can be all set up, numbering is taken care, it's great way to setup CD's…..for both big and small projects….some of the cooler aspects, import any type of file you, autocad, microstation, renderings, etc…the Autotext knocks out Cover sheets and title blocks…..the inter-connectivity between AC numbering and PM is cool….I am discovering the full potential of the "fit all command", you can save a lot time by combing that command with layer combinations…I won't rant on …but I do have TWO MAJOR COMPLAINTS….the updates are SLOWWWWW…..please GS fix this….and I would really like to see more flexibility in the color table import department….but as a whole…it's a great tool

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Rakela Raul — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 16:51:47 GMT

TWO MAJOR COMPLAINTS….the updates are SLOWWWWW…..please GS fix this….

why dont u use the publish to 'plotmaker' feature and when u open pm ur pmk's will be already all updated...(just dont touch/edit pmk's ever)

pm is fine to me; gs, just finish upgrading it (what gs didnt have time for on version 9) to look like and act like ac9 and add a couple o more drafting tools and of course integrate it to work within ac and if possible some features from canvas or corel draw in it.

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Anonymous — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 14:11:35 GMT

PMK updates are fine...in fact thats instantaneous....it's AC View updates....in fact I have put a stop watch on PC to find out how much wait time there is in a day....average is about 35 minutes, some times more....not good....

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Haneef Tayob — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 16:29:38 GMT

Test prints are basically the only times I print out directly from archicad.

The main reason for our office upgrading from ACv7 to ACv8 was the upgrade of plotmaker which combined all previously individual layouts into one layout book.

We recently had a joint project with another group of architects working on another cad system. Although very difficult, we managed to split the workload between the 2 systems.

At the end of the day, when it came to print out drawings, we were able to do it in a fraction of the time. Consistency of our sheet layouts was always there. It was difficult for the other team to keep the consistency. This quality was easily picked up by the client. (if a drawing was lying in the plotter, everyone knew from the consistency who had plotted it)

Conversion to other file formats like pdf is also a breeze with plotmaker.

There's still a lot we have to learn about plotmaker. It's just this year that I learnt about automatic titling - I can't do without it's convenience any more.

regards

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Steve Jepson — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 22:29:15 GMT

Quoting Karl,
Wow. Interesting thread ... haven't heard printing from ArchiCAD advocated since the old escribe version of ac-talk ... anybody remember Mathilde K.? (PlotMaker was more combersome in those days.)

Certainly, Publisher in AC combined with special 'print' views that display title blocks/etc can get the job done ... but with all page numbering, section and detail number/sheet page references, and more all coordinated manually. IMHO it would take much more time to even edit those numbers than to just set up the PM sheet, if you have a company template already (which everyone does, right?!).

For your 6 to 8 sheet drawing set, Steve, I'll have my PM book completely set up, auto-numbered, auto-texted and linked in less than 5 minutes. Any future changes are fully automatic. If I need ot move a detail or section to a new page in the future ... still all automatic. I cannot imagine working any other way. Think outside of the box just a little. When you open an ArchiCAD plan for a new project of this size it already has all of the title blocks for each sheet in place, all of the layer combos are already set, all of the view sets are ready, all of the notes, details, window and door schedules, etc... Remember, i am talking about house plans here, not hundreds of sheets with scores of details. All of the details are already in the drawing. Probably already on the same sheet they are referenced from. If you need something different you just choose one from the bone pile on the side, or drag a copy to where you want it. Each story is for a different sheet. You can change the name and address etc...in the title blocks every where, and all at the same time in ArchiCAD. Why do you need AutoText? Which is faster, to type the words you want for the autotext in the Book Info, add the autotext to the master layout, go back to the layout to see if it fits, move it around a little in the master layout, view again, tweak to make it wrap around correctly, change the font to make it fit the designated area better. Accidently move one of the other autotext that was showing up on top of the one you were trying to edit because they are so close to together....you know the routine, it can take five min. just to place the Autotexts how you need them, or, why not just type it in ArchiCAD where you can see it? If you need to change it, you can make universal changes to text ArchiCAD.

Creating hotlinks and xrefs in order to get multiple drawings per page when printing from ArchiCAD is way more complicated and time consuming. I don't use any hot links. Again, which is faster, importing a drawing into PlotMaker, locating it, moving the drawing title around a little, tweaking the master layout grid for a better cell arrangement, etc...or xrefing a drawing into ArchiCAD? And copy/paste? Yikes. I didn't hear that. What could possible objection could you have to copy and paste. There is no faster way to get a detail or drawing into ArchiCAD than copy/paste. I have two or three similar ArchiCAD plans open all the time so I can copy and paste things in from other projects. Sometimes all I need to do is drag a copy from my other screen.

But, I hear Cole too: we have always complained about the AC documentation not explaining how to USE the software, but only what each command does. This has left the USE to extra cost training, books, or here.

Cheers,
Karl[color=

PlotMaker was made for ArhciCAD, not ArchiCAD for the Plotmaker.

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Stress Co_ — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 23:53:23 GMT

In a word.... Yes.

But, in my case, I needed onsite assistance to realize it's full potential.

Considering the time I wasted trying to get things to work...... Training and template setup was well worth the cost.

An option to consider....

Re: Is plotmaker worth all of this trouble?

Djordje — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 03:34:11 GMT

Steve wrote:
PlotMaker was made for ArhciCAD, not ArchiCAD for the Plotmaker.

Exactly so.

Therefore, it should be used - and, IF you set up your templates like you seemingly already have done in ArchiCAD, you will spend some time NOW, but save the same amount of time with EACH new project.

The key is in the templates - ArchiCAD and PlotMaker both. And IMHO no, it does not take more time to type something in ArchiCAD, especially cross reference data (which sheet is the elevation on for example) then to use a smart section marker.