Updating Rhino gsm

[Bruce]

I am using Rhino to create some intricate parts on a project I'm working on. Because they are essentially fixed objects, I am modelling them in Rhino, and exporting as a .gsm.

This works pretty well, except when I need to tweak the part - as re-exporting and replacing the old .gsm will create a new GUID, meaning that ArchiCAD then thinks the object is missing (and any changes I've made to material / pens etc need to be changed again).

Is there a way to export over the existing part, and maintain the GUID?

[Daniel Kovacs]

Hi Bruce,

I think there are several things you can do:

- If you are making more complex structures (parametric even), you should consider using the Grasshopper-ARCHICAD Live Connection Add-on instead. This will provide full live connection between ARCHICAD and Rhino, and the elements can be imported as native ARCHICAD elements.
http://www.graphisoft.com/archicad/rhino-grasshopper/#archicad-rhino-import-export-plugin

- If that's not really your thing, but you have complex structures modeled in Rhino, you can use the LCF observer tool. This will check what changed in the exported data (or if anything changed) and replace them in ARCHICAD (you don't have to worry about repositioning them, replacing them manually, and it's also faster).
http://www.graphisoft.com/downloads/addons/interoperability/rhino.html#native-plugin

- If you have fairly simple elements, you can keep going with the GSM export. I am not sure what it is you are changing in the object's settings, but if you open the selection settings dialog for the placed object, and select the new one while holding Ctrl + Alt, you will be able to inject the parameter settings of the current object into the matching parameters of the new object. Note that in this case, the newly imported object might have a different parameter name for the same surface in the different objects, so it might not always work perfectly.
https://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/guides/archicad-20/archicad-20-reference-guide/elements_of_the_virtual_building/parametric_objects/parameter_transfer_between_objects/#1208174

I think the last one might be what you are looking for, I just felt like you should know about the alternatives, because maybe those would support your workflow much better.

Regards,

[Bruce]

Thanks Daniel.

I'll give the LCF observer a go.