topic Re: covering up lines on elevations in Modeling

covering up lines on elevations

Anonymous — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 22:15:48 GMT

Is there a way of covering up some lines that are showing on my elevations and sections?

These lines are from certain walls not intersecting, I don't want them to intersect on the plan to represent different wall types, however on the elevation everthing will be covered with stucco, so there will be no line between them.

(I kind of remember being able to cover them up with an empty fill or a white line at some version back but can't seem to do that any more)

AC9, Win XP

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Eduardo Rolon — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 23:23:38 GMT

Draw the fill
right click
display order
bring to front

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Anonymous — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 23:27:47 GMT

yes, but how do I create a fill that is opaque and non printable?
which hatch and whitch colour do you use?

also in plotmaker I'm setting all colours to black so won't this fill be printed in black even if it looks good on screen?

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Eduardo Rolon — Sun, 01 May 2005 00:00:04 GMT

either solid with a white (91) color selected or airspace.

In PM it is easier for me to change the colors of all the pens (except white and grey) to black and print normally without using the all to black option. This way I avoid the troubles with the fills.

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Djordje — Mon, 02 May 2005 16:51:02 GMT

Hassanen,

Hassanen wrote:
Is there a way of covering up some lines that are showing on my elevations and sections?

These lines are from certain walls not intersecting, I don't want them to intersect on the plan to represent different wall types, however on the elevation everthing will be covered with stucco, so there will be no line between them.

I would advise you to rethink your strategy; you will save time by cleaning the intersections and having clear and correct elevations and 3D, and plan too, than patching up. One always forgets to update ...

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Anonymous — Mon, 02 May 2005 23:18:08 GMT

you will save time by cleaning the intersections and having clear and correct elevations and 3D, and plan too, than patching up.

what do you think the best way to represent this case properly? if I intersect the walls the fills meet at a 45 degree angle as opposed to the way it should be (similar to the picture)

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Djordje — Fri, 06 May 2005 07:05:45 GMT

Hassanen wrote:
you will save time by cleaning the intersections and having clear and correct elevations and 3D, and plan too, than patching up.
what do you think the best way to represent this case properly? if I intersect the walls the fills meet at a 45 degree angle as opposed to the way it should be (similar to the picture)

Try intersecting the walls differently.

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Anonymous — Fri, 06 May 2005 19:01:32 GMT

You might try using the 'intersection hierarchy' setting availiable in the Layer Combinations diaglog box. You would have to isolate the two walls on separate layers, but you could use different numbers for the setting and 'force' the plan to display a 90 degree junction at the intersection if this is what you are after. You may have to have unique fills filling each wall cavity too.

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Aussie John — Sat, 07 May 2005 00:50:07 GMT

Djordje wrote:
I would advise you to rethink your strategy; you will save time by cleaning the intersections and having clear and correct elevations and 3D, and plan too, than patching up. One always forgets to update ...

I agree Djorde but have you never had a line you cant get rid of?

Probably me, but sometimes you just dont seem to be able to fix a difficult intersection.

Occasionally I find you get walls that clean up in 3D but not elevation/section

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Anonymous — Sat, 07 May 2005 18:31:52 GMT

Ted wrote:
You might try using the 'intersection hierarchy' setting availiable in the Layer Combinations diaglog box. You would have to isolate the two walls on separate layers, but you could use different numbers for the setting and 'force' the plan to display a 90 degree junction at the intersection if this is what you are after. You may have to have unique fills filling each wall cavity too.

this works for the plan, but the line between the two walls still shows on the elevation. I agree that it's always better to build things correctly as opposed to covering things up in 2D, but nevertheless sometimes you just need a fast fix.

anyway It seems I might have to resort to defining composite walls with the proper materials and finishings. the reason I didn't do this is because at this stage of the design the wall structure and finishing hasn't been finalized yet, but I just wanted to show which wall is structural and which is not.

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Anonymous — Sat, 07 May 2005 21:04:27 GMT

Hassanen, I agree with you that trying to get the plan walls to intersect a particular way and not having lines show up on the elevations is an issue with Archicad.

As an example, having a concrete wall intersect correctly with a stud wall requires the two walls not to intersect at the 45 ° angle as two similar walls would intersect. One of the walls must be dominant to be built correctly in the field. ( Never seen a concrete wall cut at a 45° angle to a stud wall)

Of course, you don't want the lines to show up on the elevation since it would not look this way when built.

For me, I have the client approve the elevations from 3D elevation and overview images. Once approved by the client, I then create a patch of the elevation and put all patch lines on one layer(Lines Elevations). I put text, etc on a different layer.

I then turn off all other layers and only use the patch for generating the elevations for construction docs, deleting unwanted lines, etc. I have found for me at least that deleting unwanted lines is the fastest way to clean up elevations rather than trying to mask the lines. Also, in very complex elevations, ones that take more than a couple of minutes to generate, the elevation created from the patch(2d lines) generates much faster versus an elevation created from the model. This can be a big time savings if you are opening the elevation on multiple occasions.

Keep in mind the model is still intact, I have only created a patch from the model.

If the client makes changes to the elevations after I have created the patch, I simply re-do the patch and clean it up. Usually an elevation done properly in Archicad is fairly clean, but there are times when some minor cleanup is necessary. Cleanup typically for each elevations takes less than a few minutes.

IMHO, the patch tool is very useful.

Hope this helps.

Grant

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Anonymous — Sun, 08 May 2005 14:28:25 GMT

NOELDESIGNS wrote:
I then create a patch of the elevation and put all patch lines on one layer(Lines Elevations). I put text, etc on a different layer.

this seems to work fine, the only set back I see to this is that I can't snap to the patch elevation, so if I want to add extra dimension or measure distances I have to always go to the original elevation. of course the other option within this method of work-arounds is also to just copy and paste the elevation to the floor plan thus converting it to lines and doing the cleanups there. obviously I would only do this as a final resort and only if I'm pretty sure there are no more changes to the design..

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Anonymous — Sun, 08 May 2005 17:18:57 GMT

When I create the patch, I drag it 200' south on the page so I don't accidentally do anything with the model, such as deleting lines, etc.

With the patch dragged away from the model, I then explode the patch. Make sure you have grouping turned off. You can then dimension to the lines in the patch.

I usually dimension only after I am fairly sure I won't be making any other changes to the model. Same for adding text and detail tags. I always put diimension, detail tags, text on separate layers so that if I have to re-do the patch for the elevations, the other information will not be lost.

Also, once the dimensions are done and you have to redo the patch, you can always make the dimensions static and they will be get deleted when the patch is redone.

Grant

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Karl Ottenstein — Sun, 08 May 2005 19:02:03 GMT

NOELDESIGNS wrote:
When I create the patch, I drag it 200' south on the page so I don't accidentally do anything with the model, such as deleting lines, etc.

With the patch dragged away from the model, I then explode the patch. Make sure you have grouping turned off. You can then dimension to the lines in the patch.

Another (easier?) method is to insert hotspots into your patch. You have to open the patch object anyway to fix the linework. As long as you're there, use the hotspot tool to snap hotspots at key positions. These will be snappable hotspots in your elevation window after you save changes to the patch, so you can then dimension to them.

Some other benefits to hotspots in patches (for all drawings, not just elevations):

Sometimes, a single patch fits several places in a view. Suppose we're talking about a corner where two walls join. By placing a hotspot in the patch symbol window at the wall corner, you can then use that hotspot to snap (rotated) copies of the patch onto other similar corners. (You can turn off the four bounding hotspots, too, so that they don't get in your way.)

Adding hotspots also provides an easy way to create 2D symbols using any of ArchiCAD's tools. Draw the symbol, marquee it, make patch, remove or edit the background fill, add hotspots. Of course, you can just explode/copy/paste a symbol into a fresh GDL object's symbol window, too. (Or just draw it there if you only need to use 2D tools. But, using a patch - or explode/copy/paste - lets you use the wall tool to quickly draw parallel lines, including multiple parallel lines and/or fills via composites.)

I almost never use 2D symbols these days (except for 2D people, trees, etc to embellish elevations) ... but such 2D symbols could be useful for commonly used elements in 2D details...

Karl

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Djordje — Mon, 09 May 2005 16:58:32 GMT

Aussie wrote:
Djordje wrote:
I would advise you to rethink your strategy; you will save time by cleaning the intersections and having clear and correct elevations and 3D, and plan too, than patching up. One always forgets to update ...
I agree Djorde but have you never had a line you cant get rid of?

Of course I did ...

In the case like Hasannen's, you have to add a bit of the concrete wall that is perpendicular to the main wall and joins with the brick wall. Ref lines on the outside.

Play with small bits of the wall; wreaks havoc in quantities, though, but that one can always be IDd differently and rid of.

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Anonymous — Tue, 10 May 2005 21:53:08 GMT

I then explode the patch. Make sure you have grouping turned off. You can then dimension to the lines in the patch.

I usually dimension only after I am fairly sure I won't be making any other changes to the model. Same for adding text and detail tags. I always put diimension, detail tags, text on separate layers so that if I have to re-do the patch for the elevations, the other information will not be lost.

Also, once the dimensions are done and you have to redo the patch, you can always make the dimensions static and they will be get deleted when the patch is redone.

Grant[/quote wrote:

I am not familiar with the patch tool, and I may be wrong, but isn't just like copy/paste the elevation in the 2d window and then cleaning the lines I don't want and slower since I have to create a patch, than explode, etc. Unless there are other utilities that I missed?

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 13:26:29 GMT

I don't understand why don't you change the Elevations from models to drawings and then cleanup the unwanted lines.
This is what i always do.I create an Elevation ,check it first as a model ,turn it to Drawing and then clean up.
If you still want to have the Elevations as models then Create 2 identical Elevation ,one as a model and one as Drawing.
You can also keep the model Elevations in a separate layer and set it to Hidden.

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Djordje — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 09:13:42 GMT

miker wrote:
I don't understand why don't you change the Elevations from models to drawings and then cleanup the unwanted lines.

Because you then lose all the advantage of working on a Virtual Building. You might as well draft it all be hand.

Fastidious modeling, although it does seem to take a bit more time in the beginning, saves you loads of time at every change.

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 17:23:18 GMT

Connect wall as usual. Then fix it on plan with little line and bordels raster.

Re: covering up lines on elevations

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 21:38:15 GMT

Ok but it won't be necessary to also change any kind of object you add in order to cover something.
Let's say that you but a fill to cover some lines of a wall.What is going to happen if you move the wall or if you delete it,The fill it will be useless then or it might hide some details from you.And you are probably going to forget where are all the fill you add for clean up.
Correct me if i am wrong
Thanx for your patient