topic Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans in Documentation

How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Anonymous — Fri, 19 May 2023 13:59:19 GMT

Hello everybody and happy NY!

I need to create detail floor plans and I would like them to be live.
If I simply use the main floor plan 1:100 as source, I then have to create a specific layer combination 1:25 to turn off the 1:100 2D line work/text and turn on the 1:25 2D line work/text.

The problem is that:
-I need to draw a fill to cover everything else around the area I need to detail in order to create a white background for txt and 2D work.
-I need to create separate layer combinations for each of the following detail plans, to avoid overlapping of information.

It would be perfect to have a dynamic detail marker tool that keeps everything live instead of exploding everything in 2D.

Is there any option that I should but I am not aware of?

Hope I have been clear and someone has an answer for it.

Cheers

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Barry Kelly — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 07:29:08 GMT

Layer combinations are the best way to go here.
The detail and worksheet tools as you have discovered aren't 100% live and covert everything to lines and fill.

Create new layers and layer combinations so you can produce your floor plans at the various scales you need.
Generally you will just need multiple annotation layers for the various scales so you can turn them on or off to get the desired level of detail.
I think you have discovered this already.

The trick now is to create more new layer combinations -purely for the layout book and not for working on your plans.
One for just the model with no annotation layers on at all.
Then a new layer combination for just the annotation layers required for you particular scale drwaing - but with no modelling layers turned on.
So if you imagine these layer combinations combined you will have the complete plan at the scale you want.

Now save a view for the plan with each of these layer combinations.
Place each view as a drawing in your layout book and overlay them so they line up with each other.
A hotspot in the Archicad layer is a great way to be able to line the drawings up.

Now you can crop the drawing that shows just the plan model to show just what you need (i.e just one room).
Then crop the annotation drawing to show just the amount of text you need for that room.
No need for white fills and sending things back and forward in display order.

If this doesn't make sense then I might be able to add some images.
I had nothing better to do so added some images anyway.

Barry.

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Barry Kelly — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 07:42:48 GMT

Here is my plan with the model layers turned on and the 1:50 annotation layers as well.
I work with this layer combination but it is not what I use for documentation.
I don't worry that the text & dimensions overlap walls - just ignore that while working (you will see why later).

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Barry Kelly — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 07:45:40 GMT

Create a new layer combination for just the model elements - no annotation layers.

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Barry Kelly — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 07:47:19 GMT

And another layer combination for just the annotation - no model layers.

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Barry Kelly — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 07:50:46 GMT

Save a view of each of these layer combinations and place them as drawings in your layout book.

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Barry Kelly — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 07:55:45 GMT

Crop these drawings to show just the area that you need.
Because they are separate drawings they can both be cropped to different sizes.

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Barry Kelly — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 08:01:24 GMT

Now overlay the two drawings and you have the room detail that you want.
And it is 100% live as it is just views of the floor plan.
All you have to do is re-crop the drawings if the size or position is altered in the plan.
Once you have set this up then everything will update automatically all the time.
Barry.

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 08:28:46 GMT

Hello Barry,

thank you for your prompt answer and all the supporting images.

It's really dumb that ArchiCAD doesn't simply allows to cut a free-form detail marker, which makes everything else around disappearing and leaves the live model to be documented.

It's my understanding that there are two ways of doing it:
- your way: creating 2 layer combinations per each set of scale drawings you need to produce
- our way: create one layer combination per each detail plan we need to produce

With your option you have the advantage that you only create 2 layers per drawings set of the same scale and the disadvantage that when you work on your model everything is on top of model parts, making the annotations difficult to type, read and edit

With our option we have more layers and layer combinations to create, though when I work on the model everything looks correct and clean, avoiding possible mistakes.

The main cons about your option for us, which makes it not suitable, is that the detail plans are next to each other and the text would overlap. That would force us to put the annotations into a separate layers for each room/area that we need to document. Back at base one again. 😕

I wonder what system does Revit have for this!!!

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Barry Kelly — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 09:10:31 GMT

Deviz wrote:
It's really dumb that ArchiCAD doesn't simply allows to cut a free-form detail marker, which makes everything else around disappearing and leaves the live model to be documented.

This would be the best option I am sure.

Deviz wrote:
With your option you have the advantage that you only create 2 layers per drawings set of the same scale and the disadvantage that when you work on your model everything is on top of model parts, making the annotations difficult to type, read and edit

I just use the one layer for annotation.
The other layers are all there for the 3D model.
But I do have 3 layer combinations – one with everything for working on the plan and 2 for the output to the layout pages.
Then if areas overlap I make a new layer and layer combination as mentioned below.

You tend to get used to the annotation on top of the model.
You just have to imagine what it will look like in the end.
I guess you could still add the white fill if that makes visualising it easier.

Deviz wrote:
With our option we have more layers and layer combinations to create, though when I work on the model everything looks correct and clean, avoiding possible mistakes.

But don’t you have the problem with bringing the white fill above the model to mask it but below all the extra annotation.
I always found this a pain.
With a white fill for masking I can achieve the same results with the exactly the same layers but only one layer combination instead of 3 because what you see while you are working is what you get in the layouts.

Deviz wrote:
The main cons about your option for us, which makes it not suitable, is that the detail plans are next to each other and the text would overlap. That would force us to put the annotations into a separate layers for each room/area that we need to document. Back at base one again. :/

That is correct.
I use layers for “Annotaion_1”, “Annotation_2” and on the rare occasion that I need it “Annotation_3”.
Then just the one layer combination for the model only and 1, 2 or 3 layer combinations for just the text.
We have all this (layers, combinations and layout pages) set up in our template so it just works straight away.
There is very little tweaking that we need to do.

I hope this all makes sense as it is "beer o'clock" in this part of the world.
Barry.

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:58:44 GMT

Deviz wrote:
It's really dumb that ArchiCAD doesn't simply allows to cut a free-form detail marker, which makes everything else around disappearing and leaves the live model to be documented.

You can cut a freeform detail or worksheet but then you have to do the annotations in the detail/worksheet window so it's no longer a live model view.

I wonder what system does Revit have for this!!!

Revit has the advantage here (to a point). You can create as many levels as you like with the extents individually set. In other words, plan views are pretty much like horizontal sections. Unfortunately the method is not intuitive and from what I've seen most users don't know how to use it very well. As I recall the extents are strictly rectangular. Managing overlapping enlarged plan views still has its share of complications.

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Laszlo Nagy — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 19:28:36 GMT

This solution deserves a place in the Tips and Trick section so I made a copy of it there.

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 01:57:33 GMT

Well, pretty good job for a beer o'clock one. It all does make perfect sense, thank you.

Now we just have to push Graphisoft to make a tool that does make more sense than us having to work around a non-sense way to create detail plans

Enjoy your week

Claudio

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 03:13:25 GMT

That's a great method Barry. I'll have to recommend it to my clients. To me it seems pretty close to the ideal of live enlarged plans and plan details though it will still require morfe than one annotation layer in the case of separate but adjoining drawings which require overlapping dimensions etc.

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 07:32:31 GMT

I did start creating my detail plans creating one layer combination for each area (1,2,3) and assigned the 5 layers where I put the annotations to it to each one of those layer combinations (dimensions, lines, text, fills and grids).
I then placed my fill over the whole floor plan and cut a hole over the part of plan I want to document.
I thus started documenting it and realized that I need to be very careful not to click on any point over the model by mistake, since it's hidden under the white fill. I then reconsidered the Barry option once again but I personally can stand having the floor plan with all the annotations sitting on top of each other, it just make the editing very complicated and would force me to print much more often to check the final result. Sorry Barry.

To avoid that issue I thought of using the 75% opaque fill and it works just fine.

One thing that Graphisoft should think of implement, is to have the option 'opaque' and 'frame' already available for text, available also for dimensions, and allow the frame around leaders to have its own pen number. That would help Barry's option to be suitable in more situation I guess.

We hope that Graphisoft will take this issue in consideration as priority since detail floor plans are 'normal routine' type of document for architects and exploding everything in 2D using the existing detail marker tool is not coherent with the ArchiCAD philosophy to use the model for documentation.

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Barry Kelly — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:41:18 GMT

Deviz wrote:
I then reconsidered the Barry option once again .....

I like that but can't claim credit for it.
This is the way we were shown some 10 years ago when we started.
I assume it would be a fairly well known method but if not I am happy to share.

Deviz wrote:
..... but I personally can stand having the floor plan with all the annotations sitting on top of each other, it just make the editing very complicated and would force me to print much more often to check the final result.

I agree it looks a bit messy but you do tend to get used to it.
No need to print, just set up your layout page early in the process and keep an eye on it. What you see there is what you will print in the end.

Deviz wrote:
Sorry Barry.

No need to be sorry.
We all should work in the method that best suits our individulal needs.
So long as you get the results you are after and you are happy with your method then all is good.
It is interesting and helpful to see how others in this forum tackle particular problems.
It is good to share all of these methods though because even though it may be a standard method for some of us it seems it may not be so obvious to others.
Especially to those just starting.

Barry.

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Richard Morrison — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 18:56:21 GMT

I do live enlarged plans all the time, and while Barry's scheme works, I'm scratching my head trying to understand the advantages of using an "overlay" in layout.

I just have one extra layer called "Enlarged Plan." Take the 1:100 plan and change the scale to 1:25 (or whatever), and zoom into the room you want to annotate. Add all of the annotation for the enlarged plan on the "Enlarged Plan" layer. (The "Active Layer" toolbar is good for this.) Now save the view and send to layout. You can save a view for each room. What am I missing?

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 20:01:14 GMT

Richard wrote:
I do live enlarged plans all the time, and while Barry's scheme works, I'm scratching my head trying to understand the advantages of using an "overlay" in layout.

I just have one extra layer called "Enlarged Plan." Take the 1:100 plan and change the scale to 1:25 (or whatever), and zoom into the room you want to annotate. Add all of the annotation for the enlarged plan on the "Enlarged Plan" layer. (The "Active Layer" toolbar is good for this.) Now save the view and send to layout. You can save a view for each room. What am I missing?

It comes down to whether you want to mask the area around the rooms or details being enlarged for drawing the notes and dimensions. Since the early days I have used fills or custom drawing frames (2D library parts) for this purpose. The method Barry describes provides the effect without the need for the mask.

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Richard Morrison — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 20:20:33 GMT

Thanks for clarifying that. I guess I have always taken the approach that showing a little "context" is a good thing. And if the enlarged plan has enlarged annotation in an adjacent room that would show up in the view, there's nothing wrong with just showing both rooms in the same enlarged plan. But then, I'm not as fussy (I'd use a different word, though... ) as some.

Re: How to create LIVE Detail Floor Plans

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 20:36:21 GMT

The other issue is when there are adjoining rooms to be noted and dimensioned on separate drawings. This gets even trickier as it requires two (or more) annotation layers.