Modeling
About Archicad's design tools, element connections, modeling concepts, etc.

Simutanuasly display

Anonymous
Not applicable
Good morning from Greece.
I try ARCHICAD 20 from my browser using this link: https://t.co/IudZf9ZLoI
I am an experience Revit user. But i want to see how archicad handle some things t i dont like in Revit.
One of them was the abillity to unfloat a view and place it in a second screen. I have seen archicad run on Mac to be able to do that. But from the above link which i think Archicad run on Window i am not able to do that. Is that only a Mac feature? Why not in Windows? Its very useful.
Another thing i noticed from the fist second of use is that the views don't update simutanuasly.
In Revit when i design e.g. a wall in one view i can see simutanuasly the changes in every other view. In archicad i must activate the view to see the changes.
I dont find that gut at all. Is there a setting to change that behaviour?
Thank you.
4 REPLIES 4
Laszlo Nagy
Community Admin
Community Admin
I am not a Mac guy but I think this is due to a difference between the two operating systems. On Windows, there is an application Window and certain types of Windows (such as the windows of the various Viewpoints like Floor Plan Viewpoint, 3D Viewpoint, Section Viewpoint, etc.) within the application must always be inside the application Window. Therefore to be able to do what you want you would have to expand your whole ARCHICAD Window to both screens and then you could move around your View within that space. On the Mac there is no such limitation as far as I know.

You are right about the second point: ARCHICAD updates the various Viewpoint only when you activate them. There is no switch or option that could change this behaviour. This is by design, it is different from the way Revit works.
Loving Archicad since 1995 - Find Archicad Tips at x.com/laszlonagy
AMD Ryzen9 5900X CPU, 64 GB RAM 3600 MHz, Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, 500 GB NVMe SSD
2x28" (2560x1440), Windows 10 PRO ENG, Ac20-Ac27
Just to point out that the lack of multi-monitor display support in ArchiCAD is not so much a difference in Operating systems (Windows supports multi-monitor usage in many other applications - like AllPlan 2016, funnily enough) but rather a feature (or lack of feature) in how the program is designed to function in Windows (versus how they make it work in Mac.

Maybe Mac OS makes it easier for the programmers to add this capability in Mac than in Windows, but like I've pointed out, most other graphics based applications and programs pretty much have this as standard since graphical designers and visual-based profession all rely on using more than one monitor nowadays.

It's been requested and wished for repeatedly for Windows users to be able to have this capability as well in the past, so maybe we'll get it in some future version.

And yes, the lack of instant or simultaneous update of all windows is also by design as a difference in how the two parametric engines of ArchiCAD and Revit work.
That one is more understandable since there's a penalty you pay in Revit for having it work like that, which ArchiCAD doesn't suffer from (handling larger and more complex models without crashes) and which overall makes it more powerful and robust (and stable).
Ed Wolfstein
Participant
I too would LOVE real-time updates in multiple 3D window views while designing, but I also understand that stability is more important, for sure. Perhaps a happy medium: where the 3D Views, when toggled to wire-frame mode, would allow for this, while the solid mode would continue to require a refresh. Maybe? Please? Cheers! - Ed.
Edward Wolfstein, AIA, NCARB, MRAIC, CSI
Wolfstein Architecture
Burlington, VT 05401 USA

macOS High Sierra 10.13.3
4 GHz Intel Core i7
32 GB 1867 MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4096 MB
ArchiCAD 21 (USA Full)
Anonymous
Not applicable
yep, Archicad need to pull their finger, and get their sh#t together.
in windows, you can place the tools on a second screen!

The only reason the 3D tab and other tabs are not allowed to move to a second screen, is because Graphisoft haven't prioritized time to code these features.

I was seriously pissed, that they didn't put this in the AC20 release.