Modelling ARCHICAD joinery in 2D and 3D

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Apologies if this topic has been well covered already. My office specialises in high end residential projects. We do a lot of custom joinery but mostly all orthogonal.

I have been experimenting with building joinery with morphs, walls, and slabs. It seems that each tool has its pros and cons.

Morphs
Pros: Relatively easy to manipulate into non-orthogonal shapes. It also has graphic attributes for both horizontal cut and vertical cut.
Cons: In 2D view (e.g. plan), you cannot uniformly stretch the morph. If you try to stretch the edge of the morph in 2D view, it "skewers" the geometry.

Slabs
Pros: Very easy to manipulate in 2D view. Able to stretch in plan view uniformly.
Cons: There is no horizontal cut graphic attribute. Which means if I am building a full height joinery out of a single slab tool, I cannot set line type for horizontal cut.

Walls
Pros: Has graphic attributes for both horizontal and vertical cut.
Cons: Cannot change the thickness graphically - only numerically via the object settings.


I'd be interested in knowing how different people tackle joinery modelling for both 3D presentation and 2D presentation. We have not purchased any of the "add ons" for joinery (e.g. cadimage) in hope that we could tackle joinery design with the native ARCHICAD 20 tools. The modular joinery in ARCHICAD 20 doesn't give me enough flexibility (e.g. I can't even get a joinery kick that offsets from 3 sides).

Thanks,
Ben

[Laura Yanoviak]

I'm not entirely sure what it is you're trying to do, but have you tried a Polygonal Wall?

[MrC]

Van you post a screen shot of the type of custom joinery you wish to create?

[Anonymous]

The polygon wall tool looks very promising - thank you (I never tried it until now).

See attached joinery piece that I made in SketchUp for an old project (before we switched to ARCHICAD). This is the level of detail required in our ARCHICAD residential projects but I'm unsure the best way to go about it.

[Anonymous]

Maybe see if any of the wardrobes in the standard library are any use to you.
Or Cadimage cabinets may do what you need if you have them.

[Anonymous]

When I have to do this type of joinery or any similar, I use modules, which will give me more flexibility in the 2D view because I can draw any fill, lines, etc. and have then in the project as one object.
In the pic, all joinery are made like this build with the different Archicad tools, except for the vanities that are Archicad Library Parts.

Just an Idea... Hope that helps.

[Anonymous]

Thanks arqrivas

What I find difficult about using Modules for smaller items such as joinery (and it may very well be just my lack of expertise) is that there is no feature for editing a Module in place. I.e. you'd have to open the Module in a new instance of ARCHICAD to edit it, then make sure you update in the Hotlink Manager.

Is this your understanding also?

[Anonymous]

benjamin_chan wrote:
Thanks arqrivas

What I find difficult about using Modules for smaller items such as joinery (and it may very well be just my lack of expertise) is that there is no feature for editing a Module in place. I.e. you'd have to open the Module in a new instance of ARCHICAD to edit it, then make sure you update in the Hotlink Manager.

Is this your understanding also?

Yes that is the downside of this method, that is why I made this wish
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=54896

When working with this project stage I usually have 2 Archicad Instances open, one with the project and one with the module I'm working on.

[Anonymous]

Thanks arqrivas
Voted "Essential" to your wish!

[Steve Jepson]

benjamin_chan wrote:
... (e.g. I can't even get a joinery kick that offsets from 3 sides).

Thanks,
Ben

Turn off the the toe kick. There is very little I can imagine by way of case work in an Architectural set of plans that you can't model very well with ArchiCAD.

Show an example of what frustrates you and perhaps I can show you a modeling solution you will like. ?

[Steve Jepson]

benjamin_chan wrote:
The polygon wall tool looks very promising - thank you (I never tried it until now).

See attached joinery piece that I made in SketchUp for an old project (before we switched to ARCHICAD). This is the level of detail required in our ARCHICAD residential projects but I'm unsure the best way to go about it.

There is nothing in that image that wouldn't qualify as basic modeling with ArchiCAD.

[Anonymous]

Hi Steve,
I agree - it is basic modelling in ARCHICAD
I guess I'm after advice what would be the best way to model something like my attached image from sketchup. Morphs? Walls? Slabs? A combination of all 3?

[Steve Jepson]

For that specific cabinet we have some out of the box ArchiCAD cabinets that can do that.

Office Cabinet 21 on the left
Tall Cabinet 21 for the two in the center
Cabinet Tall Double Door 21 on the right

Other cabinets might also do the trick for you. They all have several options you can use to get what you need. Pick the cabinet that looks most like what you want first, and configure it to be how you like it.

If it is really nothing like what you can configure it is not that hard to model them from scratch. It depends on what you need the models to for. Making Shop drawings, or must making something that represents the cabinet you would like to use.

The toe kicks are turned off for these and some walls were used for the toe kick.

[Steve Jepson]

.

[Anonymous]

Wow - that is pretty awesome Steve
Thank you, and sorry for the delayed response.


I'm still on ARCHICAD 20 - so don't think I have access to those tools you mention. But will be moving onto ARCHICAD 21 very shortly so will look forward to playing around with it.

I hope I'm not asknig for too much but I would love to grab that PLN file you did to have a look at what you did. No worries at all if no can do

Thanks again.

[Eduardo Rolon]

I think those cabinets are in AC20 too.

[Anonymous]

Dear All,

I couldn't find a specific topic regarding the 2D representation for Archicad joinery components, and I wonder if anyone could help me with this problem. As you discussed joinery here before, I thought it could interesting to continue the topic.

I have been able to great my joinery pieces using Archicad standard elements. It is correct in 3D, but I have been having problems with some missing lines in section and elevation. I upload a few pictures to exemplify it.

1) I am designing a full-height wardrobe with paneled doors. I created the bespoke door using slabs, and I saved it as a cabinet door. Then, I applied the bespoke door to the standard Archicad wardrobe using the personalized door option. As you can see, some lines are missing in elevation between the doors (vertical lines - we should have 6 doors, and one horizontal line - the top part of the panel should be small doors). In the section, the lines dividing the joinery parts are missing, and all the wood parts are merged.
Still regarding the wardrobe and considering it's personalized interior configuration, I wonder if it is worth modeling the interior divisions (shelves, drawers, hangers, niches, built-in lights) as well, or if I should do independent 2D drawings. Doing the correct 3D is ideal, but it sounds a lot of work that could be solved using simple 2D drawings.


2) The second design is a vanity unit. I used Archicad standard cabinet and door option. It works fine in elevation, but I have two problems in section. The first problem is the merged wood parts, the same as the wardrobe. The second problem is the union between the counter and the joinery. To allow the correct basin and joinery configuration I used four different elements: 01 counter with basins, 01 central cabinet with doors, 02 lateral cabinets with drawers. I couldn't use the Archicad element that has the counter and the joinery together, as it won't allow the proper basin position in this case. The problem is, as I am using different elements for the counter and the joinery, there is a wood plank under the counter (that would be the superior part of the cabinet) that I would like to remove.

I appreciate your help on these matters.

Best regards,
Pedro

[Steve Jepson]

.

There are some cabinet objects with a sink that you can move to where you want it

[Steve Jepson]

.

[Steve Jepson]

here is an example of the same material for backslash, counter, and front panel of this sink and counter object that are showing the lines correctly with out merging the materials. The way this was done is to duplicate the material but give it a different name only.

Only needed to assign the counter top a new material name to make the lines show up. You get the idea. It could be that this will be a way to solve all of the problems you listed. ?