Line weights in elevations

[Anonymous]

I am having a difficult time controlling the line weights in my elevations. I can change the pens and it works fine when printing plans but not elevations. Are elevations different some how? Is it the 3D representation the controls the appearance in elevations? Is there a global setting for the view that controls this? Maybe its the detail setting?

[Anonymous]

if perhaps as in my situation where the firm would like to display true definition of line weights far, near and nearest that is much more complicated when using the archicad marked distant setting - being that you're allowed restricted control of the few options and selection of pens - is there any alternatives to this issue? Or can someone who has AC11 specify if there are more manipulative features to the elevation and section pens? Thank you.

[Anonymous]

it was very hard to convince the "eyes" to accept the unmodified sections and elevations. What I have done is changed all pens to the lightest pen and then redrafted with 2-d lines to provide definition. Use object colors and modify line weights to get your desired results

This is the procedure my office has adopted. The issue comes from the fact that the company's elevations used to be drawn only by hand, then by AutoCAD, and now, for my project team, in ArchiCAD. So in effect, our goal has been to re-create what has been (or would have been) done in the hand drawing. Like DavidCSinohui does, we do not re-draw everything, only what is important. We try to use the parameters of the objects as much as possible to achieve the desired visual effect. In addition, we have created some pen sets that are used exclusively for sections and/or elevations in layouts. The combination of the general objects' display parameters, the the 2D lines, the "marked distance" thing, and the pen sets seems to work for our office.

This is, of course, terribly inefficient. But we, as a team, decided that we would try to find a balance between our levels of desired efficiency and desired artistry. The end result is that we have produced, on time, construction document sets that continually garner compliments from contractors, reviewers, and clients. Which is really cool.

What I'm trying to say is that we have managed to get good results from an otherwise frustrating "automatically generated" sections/elevations situation. It just takes some extra effort, if you feel that it's worth it. My office felt the extra effort was worth it because the typical AC10-generated, un-improved section/elevation was awful looking and impossible to read.

For instance, wall intersections had a bad habit of displaying an extra vertical line in the exterior wall face of the building where ever the interior face of the corner walls were. And window opening lines (the chevron things) only display as the same color as the whole window object. But we accepted that one.

So anyway, until GS improves this frustrating issue, the choice of what kind of balance you want is yours!

[NandoMogollon]

i agree with DavidC, in our company that's the way it is done. And yes it's extremely inefficient.

Now, being pro-active with the issue, the solution (Graphisoft people please listen) could be a Section Tool with 2 or 3 different Horizontal ranges, and each one with a editable line weight for uncut elements.

It could be a good upgrade for AC12...

[TomWaltz]

What I've long wanted was the ability to subtract one pen number for each so many feet, like for example:
assigned pen: 6
10' away: subtract 1 pen, to make it pen 5
15 ' away, subtract 2 pens, to make it pen 4
20' away, subtract 3 pens to make it pen 3

or whatever number makes sense for your pen set.

[Link]

During the beta test, when GS first thought about introducing the distant marker to S/Es, I remember advocating the idea that they allow us to continue to add as many as we like, and to let us edit the 'look to' line like a regular polyline, to give users the control we need.

So this is something that GS has known about for years.

Cheers,
Link.

[Eduardo Rolon]

But it is TOO Difficult to code!

One of the things I liked about AC 6.5 and the reason I eventually bought my license was that it was very clear that GS understood architectural drawings and it was flexible.

Right now I feel that it is loosing its way and down that path lies Architectural Desktop…