Temporary dimensions

[Anonymous]

Hi, Roger here, I'm evaluating Archicad.
I have been using Autocad and Chief Architect for some years, and am looking to change to possibly Archicad or VW.
Hope you don't mind if I ask some questions to help me along.
I am trying to move walls into a new position after they have been laid out, normally I would do this by selecting the wall I want to move, this brings up a temporary dimension which I then type in the required distance and hit enter.
How do I do this in Archicad?

[Anonymous]

There is no directly adjustable dimension of this nature in Archicad.

This is going to sound quite complicated, but really it is not: I do this a lot.

Select the wall you want to move and start the Drag command (either CMD-D / CTRL-D or click on an edge and use the pet palette)
Drag it to the wall you want to measure off (but do not click) to get the perpendicular cursor
Hit the R key (for Radial dimension, D (distance) does the same thing)
Type your distance followed by the - (minus) key, then hit ENTER.
So, ignoring the spaces you would type "R 1000 - ENTER" to come back 1m.

What this does in effect is say "from this wall I want to go back 'x' dimension".

You can also use + instead of - to go beyond a point or use x+ or x- to go in positive or negative x direction, or y+ or y- for y direction.

Hope this helps.

It's slightly different for our Imperial friends, described in other threads on this forum.

[Anonymous]

Firstly thanks Stuart, I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question.
Secondly Wow! What a seemingly complicated procedure for something so simple, but as you say its not that bad, it does work and I could get used to it.
Seems for such a renowned program that Archicad is, some things could be.. well easier maybe!
I will persevere with it.

[Barry Kelly]

You can just select a wall and start to drag it in the direction you want to go and then type a figure into the Tracker to move it that particular distance.

The method Stuart described is to move a wall (or anything else) a particular distance from any known point (not necessarily the walls current location).
It does sound a little long winded but it really is very simple.

Archicad will make so much more sense if you can find someone to sit down with for an hour or two to see how it works.
I am sure your local distributor will be willing to give you a demo - even if it is over the internet.

Barry.

[aahatimo]

roger,
is still miss the way walls could be moved using chief, and i have been on archicad for a long time! wish we could have equivalent function in ac. but you do get used to the workaround, until a post like this pops up.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies!

[Anonymous]

Hi Rodger,

I use Chief as well as Archicad and really if they want to speed up productivity and make editing easier for us, they need to bite the bullet and put this method into Archicad.

The amount of extra users they would get from other packages would increase greatly. Their methods of moving and editing objects or elements is just too slow for me. I wish they would do something about it.

[Anonymous]

as a previous user of Chief architect & Revit, and a new user of archicad, it is something that needs to be addressed as moving items in archicad is so much more tedious. It it ever gets added please comment/advise.

[Anonymous]

Wow I didn't realise that I have now been using Archicad for 3 years now!
To be honest as I have progressed using AC I have found that temporary dimensions are less & less of a wish or must have for me, I use the method S2art describes in the first reply all the time now & it works well.
I suppose if a future version sees temp dims as a new feature it would be a good thing, but for me its not a big deal anymore.
Give it a go, I know I could never go back to Chief Architect, & I have never used Revit.
Archicad has lots of features that will more than make up for not having temporary dimensions.

[Thomas Holm]

s2art wrote:
There is no directly adjustable dimension of this nature in Archicad.

Well, there is, kinda. If you have activated the Tracker, you will get a live readout of the current coordinates, where you can type your desired distance and direction and hit return just as you want. To me, it looks like you can make it work just like you describe the temporary dimensions.