Lumber Pack and Components

[Anonymous]

Can someone please help a newbie out. I have installed AC 10 and am practice/playing with the app. I noticed that in my project navigator under lists I have Components and under there I have various lists, including lumber pack.

When I try and open lumber pack I get a message "Listing is empty. There are items (or zones) to create a list with, but they contain no data to display."

Can someone please tell me what additional steps I need to perform, or what I am doing wrong?

Thanks in advance,

DJ Landreneau

[Karl Ottenstein]

I've copied this topic to the Calculate Forum, where it belongs (although belonging there would not be at all obvious to a new or even intermediate user)... Please continue the discussion here:

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=71345#71345

Thanks,
Karl

[Anonymous]

Ok, thank you I'll do a search there. Thank you for the help.

[Karl Ottenstein]

djlandreneau wrote:
Can someone please help a newbie out. I have installed AC 10 and am practice/playing with the app. I noticed that in my project navigator under lists I have Components and under there I have various lists, including lumber pack.

When I try and open lumber pack I get a message "Listing is empty. There are items (or zones) to create a list with, but they contain no data to display."

Can someone please tell me what additional steps I need to perform, or what I am doing wrong?

This is one of the nearly endless undocumented / poorly documented features of ArchiCAD. In fact... even when you do the steps below to get a non-empty list... the result is wrong/meaningless. GS should just get rid of the lumber pack option if they will not support it.

As with most such things, these forums (and eventually the Archicadwiki) are your best supplementary resource. Always start by doing a search. If you search for 'lumber pack' (in quotes), you'll find message that will tell you how this works.

The trick for new users of 10, is that GS has made this even more challenging to a newbie than ever by deciding that the wall accessories will not be installed from the CD, but instead are an undocumented download.

From your Help menu, click on ArchiCAD 10 Goodies, download, and follow the installation instructions. The one you need for lumber pack is the Accessories - two download: the addons, and the Accessory library (lcf). Place the lcf alongside your 10 lcf in the ArchiCAD Library 10 folder in your AC10 program folder. Copy the actual addons into your Add-Ons folder (I suggest creating a subfolder called Goodies and placing all of the desired goodie addons there - easier to tell which ones were not on the CD.)

Select the wall(s) that you want to be framed first, then from the menu: Design > Design Extras > Accessories > Wall Accessories ... choose the wall framing. After setting the params, click the eyeball on the side of the wall that you want the framing adjusted to.

Now check your component list. Not very useful, but the list is at least not empty! (As noted in this forum concerning the recent 9 builds, the lumber pack gives a meaningless list:

       3 | GROUND FLOOR | 40 x 0 x  0'- 0" |       3.000 | ea. 
       3 | GROUND FLOOR | LUMBER OVERALL   |       0.000 | Bdft
---------|--------------|------------------|-------------|-----

Hmmm.

Alternatively, you don't need to use the framing accessory to provide framing (or at least the framing take-off), but can associate a 'property object' (more GDL programming - search these forums for 'property script' or 'property object') with a wall which will, via forumlas, insert the desired components into the lists. You can learn a little more about all of that on these forums.

Welcome and good luck,
Karl

PS To old-timers: the wall framing accessory has a 'show elevation in 2D' mode now that I don't remember seeing before. This is still somewhat of a toy. The Cadimage framing accessory and Encina's FrameWright each offer more power, although I haven't studied them in enough depth to know if they offer a complete framing solution.

[Anonymous]

Karl,

Thank you very much for the reply, this certainly helps a lot. I've been reading hte documentation and it refers to several things, which I just can't find - now I know why.

Again, thank you very much!

DJ

[Anonymous]

I've been working with this for the past few days... and yes, I will agree, it is in some SERIOUS need of documentation / support.

One note on the Accessories pack... I was having some trouble with mine, something about the lumbercomponents.gsm trying to find the database AC_9_int or something like that...
To fix this (*if your using 10*) the easiest way I found was to extract the accessories container, edit the lumbercomponents.gsm line 87 to say AC_10... instead of AC_9...(you'll know when you see it). Then put the container back together (if you want)

On another note, as I am still trying to learn how to make this work for me. Does anyone have any property scripts they would like to share? So that I may study them to get a basic idea of how I will need to write mine. (ex: how the heck would I go about calculating how many rafters/joists/etc I will need for ceilings and roofs?? (slab, mesh, & roof), and how to determine the lengths of studs based on wall height)
And since this site does not allow such a posted file, just a pdf of the script(s) and/or screenshots would work great.

Does the "Object Making with ArchiCAD: GDL for Beginners" book cover any of this? (or is it worth buying, i'm a GDL n00b so I need SOME supplement )

Thanks a million!

[Karl Ottenstein]

dmoney327 wrote:
On another note, as I am still trying to learn how to make this work for me. Does anyone have any property scripts they would like to share? So that I may study them to get a basic idea of how I will need to write mine. (ex: how the heck would I go about calculating how many rafters/joists/etc I will need for ceilings and roofs?? (slab, mesh, & roof), and how to determine the lengths of studs based on wall height)

A variety of property objects come with the US version that give you an idea of what can be done with property scripts. Not sure what is delivered in other countries. I gave a brief tutorial on these in this thread:
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=33782#33782
a year and a half ago... but the objects are the same in 10.

And since this site does not allow such a posted file, just a pdf of the script(s) and/or screenshots would work great.

You can post anything here - just put it in a zip file.

Does the "Object Making with ArchiCAD: GDL for Beginners" book cover any of this? (or is it worth buying, i'm a GDL n00b so I need SOME supplement )

It is free; the PDF resides on your installation CD for AC 9 and (as far as I know) AC 10. As I recall, it does not address property scripts, but I see in another thread that you are getting Duane and Rick's information... and you've seen that there is a new Calculate book that has been released.

Cheers,
Karl