topic Re: Trace not aligning in Modeling

Trace not aligning

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:36:20 GMT

I have a simple house/garage and want to show the relationship between the two. I go to the house section, and go to trace in the section @ the garage. When I do, it does not align in plan. The heights are in the right alignment, but it doesn't want to align horizontally. I've had this issue on other projects: I'll be in elevation and go to trace in a section, and the section is waaaay off to the side somewhere, aligned vertically but not horizontally. Am I doing something wrong??

Re: Trace not aligning

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:36:46 GMT

Here it is in section...

Re: Trace not aligning

Chris Grantham — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:20:16 GMT

You can drag the reference to align it. Check your trace reference options.

Re: Trace not aligning

Erika Epstein — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:47:36 GMT

The section you show is through the garage which from the stairs in plan is several feet lower/higher than the rest of the house so the sections are aligning correctly. Turn the story levels on to check.

Re: Trace not aligning

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:15:01 GMT

Steven

I have often found similar situations when comparing sections. Although your plan shows the sections to be similar in horizontal - your trace may be picking up the location based on a previous trace.

As Chris said you can simply drag a reference to make it align as you wish.

Right click > Trace > Drag Trace - in my experience once I have aligned similar sections they remain aligned. (At least until I drag a trace to another reference)

Re: Trace not aligning

owen — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:59:08 GMT

Are these sections looking in the same direction? Just thinking they might be flipped around the origin if not .. (can't see where the origin is in the image)

Re: Trace not aligning

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:11:55 GMT

Chris wrote:
You can drag the reference to align it. Check your trace reference options.

I know I can drag them to align, but I shouldn't have to. Trace knows where things are in relation to each other and should automatically align itself.

Re: Trace not aligning

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:12:59 GMT

Erika wrote:
The section you show is through the garage which from the stairs in plan is several feet lower/higher than the rest of the house so the sections are aligning correctly. Turn the story levels on to check.

Yes, the issue is not with the vertical alignment, but with the horizontal alignment. Everything is fine with the story settings.

Re: Trace not aligning

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:23:09 GMT

owen wrote:
Are these sections looking in the same direction? Just thinking they might be flipped around the origin if not .. (can't see where the origin is in the image)

Yes, the sections are both in the same direction.

Most of the time, trace aligns itself. For example, I have a section cut through a certain part of a building. Let's say I go to the elevation of the building looking the same way as the section, and I turn the section on in trace reference in the elevation, it shows exactly where it should. This is what should happen. But, as you can see in this example, it is not. There is a button in the trace reference palate that says "Reset to default position". Pushing this button should put it to where it's supposed to be, but it does not.

I've found that sometimes trace shows up in the right spot, sometimes they do not. Just wondered if there was a "magic button" to fix all my problems...

Re: Trace not aligning

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:40:24 GMT

Hey Steven,

There is a similar thread to yours where Greg explains the reasoning -

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=142650

The corresponding wish is here -

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=142953

Re: Trace not aligning

owen — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:52:14 GMT

Steven wrote:
owen wrote:
Are these sections looking in the same direction? Just thinking they might be flipped around the origin if not .. (can't see where the origin is in the image)
Yes, the sections are both in the same direction

pretty obvious one i know .. worth a shot though

gkmethy wrote:
Two views can be automatically aligned in both X and Y direction only if one is a direct "derivative" of the other. E.g. a floor plan, and a section placed on that floor plan. Or a section, and a detail placed on that section. Two sections do not have that relationship, so ArchiCAD can not align them. They will be vertically aligned, and placed next to each other. You can use the "drag reference" command to manually align them in X direction.

Greg

i don't know why this hadn't bothered me before but this behaviour is really dumb

Everything in AC is positioned in XYZ space so what on earth would be so hard about automatically align/overlay sections as they should be seen?? I mean it must have occured this is exactly what people will use Trace & Reference for .. they even show it for just this purpose in the GS demo vids!

Re: Trace not aligning

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:44:05 GMT

Ah ha! So I'm not going crazy. Must this also mean that the little green men that come out from under my bed at night are real?