Dimensions need standardising

[Anonymous]

Hi everybody, Please forgive a newbie’s dumb question, but I have searched the forum & have been unable to locate the answer. I am a student & have been playing with AC12 & have created a two story house of around 250M2, The problem I have is the dimensions are a bit ad hoc to say the least 1.182, 0.062, 0.005 etc. Now I know the answer is in the manual somewhere but as a fully paid up member of DNA (national dyslexia assn). I lean towards the “that looks or feels right” school of thought, so have progressed to a point I need to redo all the dimensions so they would work in the real world.

Custom text in the dimensions would not rectify the problem only mask it. Can somebody point me in the right direction please .

[Anonymous]

Is it the dimensions that are the problem or the accuracy of your drawing / model? In what way do you want to standardise your dimensions?

[Anonymous]

Hi, Sorry for being too vague, (It's easy when it is in front of you) I designed the house starting with a basic shape using integer dims, as the design has been tweaked walls, windows, doors being moved or replaced etc to accommodate bathroom fittings bedroom furniture and the like. I just went with what looks & feels right checking the view in 3D, so far so good..... then I came to the auto dimension tool and the figures it has returned are awkward to say the least. exterior dims for example have gone from 12m & 14m to 12.698m & 13.379m same sort of thing with the interior walls dims. I could attach the pln if it helps.

Thanks for your time.

[Anonymous]

I understand what you are saying. Probably not a good idea to stretch / move things by random amounts. There is no rounding facility in Archicad dimensions (and I hate it when rounded dimensions don't add up to the total too).

I would suggest in future that you use logical numbers in editing your model. Its as easy as starting the drag (or copy or stretch) action, reading the relative dimension off the tracker, then start typing the logical number close to what tracker is displaying.

[Anonymous]

Thanx s2art 4 that, I had guessed as much just hoped there was a magic wand out there. As I mentioned.. creativity I got bucket loads, sometimes good, sometimes not so good. I'll just have to move every fixture & fitting 1x1 (I'm stubborn 2 this aint going 2 beat me) & as It's my first design I will build the thing one day!........ snores then wakes up 🙂

[Dwight]

Consider using a grid snap to modularize your work.

[Anonymous]

It is possible to use the marquee tool to re-stretch walls to a specific position relative to another point, which will enable you to manually re-enter in a nice round figure. The attached image describes the process.

Make sure you have both the tracker and 'suspend groups' turned on beforehand.

• 1. Select the marquee tool - choose thin to adjust only the storey you are on, or thick to adjust all storeys. Draw a marquee over the wall you want to move.
  
  2. Select stretch command (ctrl H)
  
  3. Click point on wall to be moved.
  
  4. Hover over the point you want to measure from.
  
  5. Type in the distance you want the first point to be from the second point. A 'minus'* afterwards moves the wall down or to the left, whilst a 'plus' afterwards moves upwards or to the right. Hit return to confirm.
  
  6. Finished!

This process will also stretch any other geometry in the marqueed area at the same time (like slabs, roofs, beams etc) that are turned on and not locked, but it wont stretch library parts (like doors and windows) so these will have to be adjusted manually afterwards.

*You will have to type in a double minus (--) if you are using feet and inches.

Hope that helps.

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for your help, it's working nicely, the creative juices are once again flowing.