Custom 2d symbols for MEP and legends in plans

[Anonymous]

Hi there, I am doing my first construction documentation in Archicad and working now in my MEP drawings. Righ now I dont want to draw everything in 3D I just need plans with diagramatic designs for drainage, electrical and so on. I had a look at the 2d library in Archicad and it is quite limited and not adjusted to the way things are represented in Spain.

Is there any way of creating my own symbols and assign them properties –say downpipes diameter– so these properties would be displayed in the plans in the way I want? I found the way of creating simple 2d symbols but once they are created I dont see how they could be edited, is there something such as 2D autocad blocks or vectorworks symbols which could be easily inserted and edited?

Lastly, when creating legends for those symbols in my final sheets, which would be the best way to do this? I imagine that schedules and inserting them on the drawing would be ideal –I've done windows schedules in the past and they work great– but I wonder how I could create schedules for my custom based 2D symbols

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated as I cant find anything specifically on 2D symbols and legends

Many thanks!

[Podolsky]

The easiest way to create your own symbols - simply draw them with 2D tools. After you can safe them as library elements - just by selecting part, that you want to save and use command: File / Libraries and Objects / Save selection as... / Object

You will get then an object similar to DWG block. But it's not going to be parametric.

If you need more intelligent objects, you might need then look into GDL programming and write the code for your library elements.

I spent quite time to program my own library of MEP elements, that included a lot of functions and had a look that I needed. Also legend object.