Morph Top Surface Area ?

[Steve Jepson]

Is it possible to schedule the top surface area of a morph ? I don't think so.

I am trying to schedule some driveway slabs for surface area and volume. Roofs work fine for most of it, however, if the surface has compound slopes it has to be modeled as a morph or mesh.

How do I get the correct volume and top surface area for something like this into a schedule ?

I need it to be a single element so I can see the ID, Volume, and Surface Area in the Label that is supposed to match the schedule.

I am so tired of work-arounds using a mesh surface for surface area and something else for correct volume.

We need to be able to schedule the top surface area of a morph. Labels for a morph can be configured to show which surface areas of a morph you want to have added together, so the idea is there, it just doesn't work.

As far as I know, you can not show the volume and top surface area of a morph in a Label, and you can't show in a schedule the top surface area of a morph.

[Eduardo Rolon]

scheme settings

[sinceV6]

Hi.
I see you are in v19. Why don't you use the new surface schedules? You could easily set the criteria needed to show the area of a certain material you assign to the top surfaces of your driveway...

Also... not entirely sure, but I think the Area By Story works only if your morph is solid so AC can slice though it on each story.

(oh... and I think the pictures for area and volume are swapped in the help

http://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/guides/archicad-19-int-reference-guide/views-of-the-virtual-buildin...

)

Best regards.

[Steve Jepson]

sinceV6 wrote:
Hi.
I see you are in v19. Why don't you use the new surface schedules? You could easily set the criteria needed to show the area of a certain material you assign to the top surfaces of your driveway...

Also... not entirely sure, but I think the Area By Story works only if your morph is solid so AC can slice though it on each story.

(oh... and I think the pictures for area and volume are swapped in the help

http://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/guides/archicad-19-int-reference-guide/views-of-the-virtual-buildin...

)

Best regards.

When something is modeled as a morph it is probably because there is no other option. It was probably some other element that was converted to a morph for the sake of editing some thing that can not be done in any other way. The down side is that you can not get the top surface area of a morph into a schedule. And, that is not the only quantity I need for the morph element in a schedule. I don't want a bunch of separate schedules. One for top surface area, one for volume, etc.... I want one schedule that has three very simple things. ID, Volume, Top Surface Area. And I want to extract that data from one element, not 2 or three by virtue of using 3 or 4 solid element operations. That is not too much to expect from ArchiCAD.

In the case of my driveway slabs I can make the roof/driveway slab as a mesh, I can make that mesh a surface only element, adjust the nodes for z elevations to fit the top surface of the morph, and I can get the top surface area of that mesh into a schedule.

I am frustrated because I can not get the surface area of a morph into a schedule which would make so may things easier. What you can get in terms of area for a morph is not the top surface area.

Try it yourself. Model a simple square mesh. In 3D adjust the corner nodes for z so that all for corners are all at a different elevation. Now convert that mesh into a morph. Now try to make a schedule that will show the top surface area of that morph. It can not be done just by adding a parameter for that in the schedules. There is no such parameter to add.

Now make another mesh the same size. Use the surface only setting for it and adjust the corners for z so them match the surface of the morph.

You can schedule the surface area of that mesh no problem, and it will be accurate. Now compare that true surface area with any area you can get for the morph - you will see that the "area" you get is not the top surface area of the morph.

Also, if you convert the mesh into a morph so you know you have an identical geometric replica, notice that the schedule will report different volumes for each.


When you make a copy of a Mesh and convert one of them to a Morph they should give you identical quantities in the schedules. They do not.

See attached picture.

[James B]

sinceV6 wrote:
...(oh... and I think the pictures for area and volume are swapped in the help...

Thanks for the heads up on this, we've fixed it now

[Steve Jepson]

James wrote:

sinceV6 wrote:
...(oh... and I think the pictures for area and volume are swapped in the help...

Thanks for the heads up on this, we've fixed it now

And what is your experience James, with getting the top surface of a morph into a schedule? Can this be done or not? I can't do it so I assume that no one else can either but I am hoping there is some way to do this.

And what do you make of the difference in calculated volumes when you copy an identical mesh, convert it to a morph, and the schedule says they are not the same volume. Is that a bug or is that some kind of user error?

[sinceV6]

Hi.

You won't find a "top surface area" parameter for listing for a morph like you do for a mesh because they work so differently that in theory, any surface from a morph could be its top surface. Mesh only has one (given it may have a lot of polygon faces...). In any case where AC would give you an option to "select" a surface to "be" the top, how would it keep track once you split that face in two? How would it know which one -either left or right- is now the top surface?

Sometimes it is easy to forget that when working with tabular data (aka spreadsheet information), whenever you include parameters that are specific to the different elements that your criteria filters, you'll need specific columns for them. For instance, you could have a simple schedule that includes both walls and columns, and list their area (floor plan) and height using the parameters from the general category. You could also include the type, and area and height will still appear for every item. If you include the height from the column category, you'll see that it fills the height of each column you list, but height of walls will be empty, as that parameter is exclusive for columns.

This is why, in your schedule, you will get separate columns for mesh volume and morph volume. You can place them in the same schedule, but won't mix as they are parameters specific to certain tools.

For slabs, roofs and meshes, I assume you can get what you want with schedules. For a morph, if you end up using it to model you driveway, do as I said and use the surface schedules. You can use only one schedule and get what you want: ID, volume and top surface area - provided you give the top surface a specific surface (material) so that you can use it to filter the result you want. Your criteria would be element->morph, surface->the material you assign (and any other that will filter to that driveway morph); your parameters would be the ID, volume and exposed area.

Hope that helps a bit.
Best regards.

[Steve Jepson]

ejrolon wrote:
mine does. so it must be something else

Does it? What you get when you schedule "area" of a morph is not the top surface area. Your schedule is probably showing the entire surface area of the morphs. Check and see.

[Steve Jepson]

sinceV6 wrote:
... I assume you can get what you want with schedules.

That much is correct. I can always get what I want from ArchiCAD one way or another.

The solution here was to drag the driveway slab off to the side and use it in the schedule and drag it's Label over to the place where it was. The morph is used in the model for visual needs and not included in the schedule.

I was just surprised to know that you can not schedule the top surface of a morph.

As for assigning the top surface of a morph a Material, and scheduling the surface area of that Material ... you lost me at the last Field.

Exposed Area. What Parameter is that from? I couldn't find it with the search tool.

[James B]

I'd suggest to use the new (AC19) Surface schedule, and use the "Exposed Area" field, and apply a unique Surface to just the top Surface of the Morph (or apply a different one to all the other faces).

[Laszlo Nagy]

The reason there is no Top Surface to a Morph is because it is a completely general tool. It is not like a Mesh, which obviously has a Top Surface. Or a Slab that is always horizontal and has a Top Surface.
A Morph can be oriented and rotated in any way in 3D, so how do you decide which is its top surface? I think this is why there are no such schedule fields for Morphs.