Hide internal walls for concrete slab plan drawing

[cs_ryl]

Hi all,

I'm trying to setup a plan view that shows only the concrete slabs and external walls for now. The way walls have been setup are not through layer so they are all under one wall layer for both external and internal. 

I've tried to use Overwrite and turn Position: Internal to be White, but it's still showing up as white colour instead of being invisible. 

Is there another way, or different settings that I need to change to make all internal walls invisible?

Cheers!

[scottjm · Accepted solution]

The only way to completely hide the whole element in 2D is to have it on another layer that is not turned on in that layer combo and view.   Almost all templates will have a Walls Internal and Walls External layer. Layers and layer combinations are the primary method of filter elements in the model in Archicad.

That said, I was able to fudge the graphic overrides to get it to have no fill and use a 0mm thick white pen and custom line type.  

But I wouldn't really recommend this process other than for very bespoke situations where there is not other way to achieve it.

[cs_ryl]

Thanks scottjm! I suspect that should have been the correct way of doing it! 

Let me chat with my BIM manager and explain this. Hopefully we can update how we organise it internally in the office! Cheers! 

[Barry Kelly]

Create layers for anything you may want to show/hide separately.

So in you example of walls, you might have layers for internal walls, external walls, foundation walls, retaining or site (garden) walls, miscellaneous walls, just as some examples.

You may need only 2 or 3 layers, you might want 6 or maybe more.

It all depends on the type of work you are doing.

Graphic Overrides can only override an element - not hide it.

So at best you can have empty fills and white lines in 2D and transparent surface material in 3D - but the element is still there.

It is much easier to turn a layer off or on.

The only other option you have is the Renovation Filters.

But I would not recommend you use that, as there are only 3 states that you can show or hide (new, existing or to be demolished).

If you use this to show hide elements, then you can't use it for its intended purpose which is renovation plans.

Layers and layer combinations are much more useful.

Barry.

[cs_ryl]

Thanks Barry - great to know that. 

Because I'm coming from Revit so "filter" worked fine but I'm also familiar with layers in other software too. Archicad falls into layer organisation that is. 

[Laszlo Nagy]

Layers in Archicad are kind of like Categories in Revit in that they are the main way to organize elements. But Layers in Archicad are first and foremost used for controlling which groups of elements are displayed/hidden together.

In Revit, you define the graphical representation (outline color, fill type, line type, surface) on a Category level. In Archicad, however, you define these things on the element instance level (as if in Revit, you would have Instance Parameters for all your families to define your pen, fill, line type, surface). So they are two different approaches.

[cs_ryl]

Thanks @Laszlo Nagy  Like you said, my understanding now is that layer is similar to categories in Revit and layer combo is like view template that controls what groups are visible or not for certain drawings. 

The second part of what you described is a little bit confusing to me however. Do you mean that element instance level = instance parameter in Revit and Favourites = Types in Revit (= means similar to, not equal)? 

[Laszlo Nagy]

In Revit, your View Template has many settings, one of them being "Visibilities" or something similar. Layer Combos in Archicad serve a similar purpose to Visibilities in Revit, plus they control a few more things like locked status. But just like in Revit, it is only one of the settings that is stored in a View.

In Revit, you can define Types for your Families and you can have Type Parameters and Instance Parameters. In Archicad, the concept of Types does not exist so all element parameters are Instance Parameters meaning that they can be different for every instance of a placed element.

Favorites store a captured state of an element's settings and parameters and this state can be restored if a Favorite is applied. However, it is not associative. If you activate a Favorite, then create an element, the element will not be associated with the Favorite so if you modify the Favorite the element will not be updated based on the new settings stored in the Favorite.

This is a functionality that has been wished for before but as of now it is not implemented in Archicad.

[cs_ryl]

 Thanks so much @Laszlo Nagy  !! It makes more sense now to me. 

Off the topic question: 

Did you also transit from Revit to Archicad? Do you have any recommendations for further clarification/materials explaining, or bridging, the differences between the two, as I couldn't really find much, in particular things like "visibility" in Revit, for example, where it can be controlled under view template>categories/linked files/scale/phases, as well as hidden in view which is completely outside the view template settings.

These sorts of things... 

[scottjm]

I'd suggest checking out this training program from Graphisoft- specific to Revit users transitioning to Archicad.  It's free.

https://learn.Graphisoft.com/visitor_catalog_class/show/40533 

There is also a multitude of additional training content on the Graphisoft Learn Platform.