Creating a mesh with composite

[iggiv]

Team;

Is there a way to create a mesh with a profile?

I am not sure if this was available before either. But this can make things very easy.

I am going to also add this to a wish list, but wanted to post the question to see if this is possible already.

Thank you for your help.

[Francois_MCD]

Hi @iggiv did you try to draw the profile with a Fill on plan view, and with the Mesh tool active, use the Magic Wand (hold Space Bar on keyboard) and click inside the Fill / profile? This will create a Mesh for you in the shape of the Fill / profile.

[iggiv]

Hi Francois,

Thank you for your response. Let me elaborate further on what I am trying to achieve.

The method works with slabs, but you cannot slope them. I’m designing the main street access to the site, which connects to an intersection, a driveway, and a parking lot. I’ve created composite slabs for each component (asphalt road, paved road, permeable parking pavers, sidewalk, and permeable sidewalk) to ensure that, when I generate sections, the correct layers and thickness details are displayed.

Here’s my idea:

I can create slabs with their composite layers, which work well for interior areas where I separate the structural slab from the surface finish slab. However, for exterior traffic circulation areas, slabs can’t be sloped, which is problematic.

I thought of this solution:

If I could create a mesh with profiles, I would be able to model roads, sidewalks, and parking areas with the correct slopes and levels according to the topography. The railing tool could then be used to create the curbs along the edges. Additionally, with a consistent mesh thickness, I could more accurately calculate backfill and excavation volumes, and the section would show the correct composite material layers.

Challenges:

Creating exterior traffic circulation in Archicad is not straightforward. While I can use profiles for roads, driveways, and sidewalks, this method only works when there are no intersections. If I use a mesh, the process is simpler, but since meshes don’t have profiles, additional work is required to detail the sections properly.

Conclusion:

I understand we can’t have every feature we might wish for, but perhaps this could be added to the wishlist for future updates. I believe this approach could solve the challenges of creating roads and exterior areas more easily.

Thank you again for your comments and your interest in this topic. I appreciate your input.

[Francois_MCD]

Aha! @iggiv now your initial post is understood.

You're right, creating traffic circulation is probably not as intuitive as it probably could be. You never know what you will get when creating roads with either Beams + Profiles or Rail + Profiles. Most of the times the connections are all over the place and create weird geometry we don't want.

The function in Goodies tools to "Create Roofs from Mesh" and use Composites for those roofs is semi automatic but still is tedious & requires a re-do every time it has to change. But this is a mess on plan display as well. 

Creating a mesh, then duplicating it multiple times with different Building Materials and setting them at different levels, then doing SEO downward on each Road Meshes and SEO upward on the Site Mesh is doable and does give us the road like Composites. But again it's tedious to edit them, especially of the vertical levels changes and adding edge kerbs & side channels using Rail / Beams + Profiles also are a lot of manual work and a pain to edit / update. At least this Mesh method give me the best geometry and in principle good enough basic plan display.

I know Archicad is not traditionally intended for technical Civil design & documentation, but some times we need to have good geometry for visualization and good enough plan display at least.

A "clever" parametric & dedicated Roads tool with typical road sub-elements, working in a similar way to Rails tool would be great.

It's beyond my capability to even think of creating something like this via GDL or Grasshopper. So I'll vote with you on this wish.

[iggiv]

I believe this could significantly help in creating exterior circulation by introducing a mesh with profile options and a constant thickness feature. While it’s true that this is more related to civil engineering than architecture, it is crucial for accurate visualization.

I hope Graphisoft will consider implementing a solution for this. I haven’t yet tried your suggestion of “Create Roofs from Mesh,” but I’ll explore it to see how far it can take me.

Thank you for your comments, and let’s hope this feature is added soon.

[Botonis]

What you mean is not profile but composite.

Check this post:

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/GDL/Is-there-a-tool-object-for-making-a-mesh-with-a-specified/m-...

where you can download the relevant object. 

or try LAND4 addon. 

[iggiv]

Yes!!! I am sorry and thank you I meant COMPOSITE not profile.

Let me check this post and see if is what I need.

Again. Thank you

[iggiv]

This sounds promising and could potentially be the solution. However, I’m now intrigued and unfortunately unable to load the add-on. On the website, only add-ons for AC27 are available, and nothing for AC28 yet. It seems I’ll have to wait for the final update.

[Laszlo Nagy · Accepted solution]

Mesh with Constant Thickness (and Composite) is currently the wish with the most votes in the Wishlist:

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Wishlist/Mesh-with-constant-thickness/idi-p/601155