ArchiTerra mesh elevation vs. project zero

[Anonymous]

I have just begun using ArchiTerra to generate a mesh from imported TXT file. This is much faster than my old way of Tracing an xref site plan from the surveyor and "magic-wanding" contour line for a ArchiCad Mesh.

Before I would just lower the resulting mesh to a negative dimension from project zero. I.e. - if my project zero (First/Ground Floor) was at 100-ft. in reference to the survey the mesh would be lowered 100-ft. I would also modify the "Height to Next" on my Datum Story (bottom Story) to result in a -100 Elevation.

I am hesitant to have to explode the ArchiTerra land/mesh and regenerate a new one at the "proper" Project zero reference. How many of you just change the elevation of your ground story to match your topography elevations. In the example above I would first temporarily change the "Height to Next" value of the First/Ground Floor to say 150-ft, than change the elevation of the First/Ground Floor to 100-ft. Now I go back and change the "Height to Next" value to the proper value say 9'-1".

Is this the way too go.....?

[Fabrizio Diodati]

Dear Jay,

as I already advised you, you cannot change the elevation of the mesh by elevating it.
ArchiTerra works on the level nodes and if you move the mesh along the Z axis you move the mesh but the values of the nodes will remain the original one: this is an ArchiCAD issue and is quite normal because we are talking about topographic level.

The only way to get this result (BTW when you move along the Z axis the mesh ArchiTerra warns you about this error!) is to explode the mesh.
When you explode the mesh, ArchiTerra will display you a dialog box where you can define a value to move the mesh nodes along the Z axis.
The resulting mesh, after the explosion, will be in the right position.

Another way, most of the user use this one, is to build the terrain in a independent project, where you will follow the real coordinates, and then use the terrain as Module (or as saved object) in the Building Project where you can insert the Module or the object at the desired level.

Another mistake you should avoid is to calculate the road preview (so the road object store the real terrain coordinates) and then move the mesh along the z axis: there will be incongruence between the real stored levels and the new ones…

Friendly
Fabrizio

[Anonymous]

I have creating (2) files; one called SITE the other BLDG. Then I write a module of the BLDG out from its own file to insert into the SITE file at the desired elevation (i.e., 692.5). When I cut site sections, I usually write them out as PMK file for inclusion into my layout book on those sheets. Works for me.

+pablo