Copying in elevation

[Anonymous]

It seems as though there is no way to copy an object in elevation. Is this true? If you have several objects on top of each other in plan it would be great to be able to lay them out in elevation but the program seems to limit you to copying in plan (where you can't really see what you're doing) or in 3D which is somewhat cumbersome. Does anyone know of another way around this?
Thanks

[Anonymous]

I much prefer working in elevation and can't understand why there is such inconsistancy between 3D, elevation and section views.

Just because we see buildings in 3D doesn't mean that it makes it the best (or in the case of AC, the only complete way) to do all of your design.

There a lot of things that are done "better" in 3D only because they can't be done in 2D. Why should we be forced to workin only one way?

Don Lee

[Anonymous]

Don wrote:
I much prefer working in elevation and can't understand why there is such inconsistancy between 3D, elevation and section views.

Just because we see buildings in 3D doesn't mean that it makes it the best (or in the case of AC, the only complete way) to do all of your design.

There a lot of things that are done "better" in 3D only because they can't be done in 2D. Why should we be forced to workin only one way?

Don Lee

There are basically two reasons for this.

1. Fundamental differences between the views types: 2D views are often schematic and may not represent simple cut or projected views of the model; plans are different from elevations and ceiling plans are different from floor plans (which isn't very well resolved yet); 2D differs from 3D in having fewer degrees of freedom so navigation is different; etc... Some differences are inevitable and appropriate.

More to the point though...

2. Historical reasons: ArchiCAD has been around a long time and once ran on computers with less processing power than and 1/100th the amount of RAM that I have in my cell phone (1/200th if I upgrade the memory stick to 1GB). Limitations in development resources make it impossible to upgrade all the existing features to match the newest ones at each release, unless we are willing to wait longer or accept smaller incremental improvements for our upgrades. Even if we users were willing to take such a go slow approach (which I doubt given the vehemence of new feature requests) it is unlikely that such a business model would provide enough revenue to keep Graphisoft afloat.

There are more, related issues facing all software developers. A major one is the problem of making substantial changes/improvements and attracting new users while keeping the existing users happy at the same time. This might seem easy, but many have failed. Ashton Tate was once the largest software company in the world but was unable to innovate successfully and collapsed. Autodesk has its own troubles with this which is why they bought Revit and are essentially giving up on ADT (though they still won't admit AFAIK).

I am not saying that Graphisoft is doing everything right and none of us knows how successful they will be in the long run; just that they are working in a very complex field and there are no simple answers (or maybe there are lots and lots of them and they conflict with one another ).

[Djordje]

Don wrote:
I much prefer working in elevation and can't understand why there is such inconsistancy between 3D, elevation and section views.

Elevation and section are conventions, not physical views. The only way to check your desing IN REALITY is to work in 3D. Unless you are designing drawings, not buildings.

Don wrote:
Just because we see buildings in 3D doesn't mean that it makes it the best (or in the case of AC, the only complete way) to do all of your design.

Of course not. But, as I said, I believe that we should design the buildings first, and do the documentation of them later.

[Anonymous]

Djordje wrote:

Don wrote:
I much prefer working in elevation and can't understand why there is such inconsistancy between 3D, elevation and section views.

Elevation and section are conventions, not physical views. The only way to check your desing IN REALITY is to work in 3D. Unless you are designing drawings, not buildings.

Don wrote:
Just because we see buildings in 3D doesn't mean that it makes it the best (or in the case of AC, the only complete way) to do all of your design.

Of course not. But, as I said, I believe that we should design the buildings first, and do the documentation of them later.

I (and I believe many others) prefer to work in elevation because it allows me to see and establish accurately the relationships between forms. Of course I use perspective views to check and verify these relationships as they may be seen on site, but for a building of any size, elevations are much easier to use (for me) as a design tool.

I don't of course feel that elevations are only for documentation as you do. They are (as floor plans are) an abstraction and distillation of information and are a design tool I think we should be allowed to use.

It is unfair to assume that those of us that wish to use an elevation view during our design process are somehow "missing the point".

Floor plans are 2d drawings. Do we do away with them and design by walkthroughs only? I constantly do 3d views to verify floor plans, but like elevations, sections and roof plans, floor plans are (to me) invaluable tools. Probably the 3d design tool I find most effective are VR objects. They may take some time to render, but once done I will spend a lot of time viewing and walking around the building.

I started drawing years ago with a T-square and have been using ArchiCad since 4.5, though I am sure, not as expertly as most in this forum. I have also have been a guest design critic at two university schools of architecture here in California, USA for 30 years (wow, how time goes on!) and have seen how the computer has affected design thinking for good and for bad.

At the risk of offending anyone's CAD sensibilities, I have found that the computer has not made for better design students. Better graphics and presentations maybe, but not better conceptual thinking.

Many students have lost the ability to think and sketch. The computer can makes things too real, too soon. Shade, shadow and thousands of colors only camouflage the fact that the design often has no concept.
This incidentally, is a concern shared by many professors I know.

I couldn't find it, but someone had stated very eloquently in this forum that "a line that is hand drawn has the potential to become many things, but that a cad line is simply a line". I think I might have mangled the original author's words, but hopefully the thought comes across.

As a side note, much to the dismay of my wife and I, my son has (against our wishes) decided that a profitable future as an orthodontist is not for him and that he wants to be an.....architect. He is in his first year in school and well, loving it and kicking butt. We still have hope for our daughter.

Respectfully,

Don Lee

[Djordje]

Don wrote:
I started drawing years ago with a T-square and have been using ArchiCad since 4.5

Me too

Don wrote:
At the risk of offending anyone's CAD sensibilities, I have found that the computer has not made for better design students. Better graphics and presentations maybe, but not better conceptual thinking.

Many students have lost the ability to think and sketch. The computer can makes things too real, too soon. Shade, shadow and thousands of colors only camouflage the fact that the design often has no concept.
This incidentally, is a concern shared by many professors I know.

Regretfully true. That is exactly why software should be as invisible as the pencil - one should think about WHAT, not HOW. In software terms, that is ease of use, simplicity and uncluttered interface.

Don wrote:
I couldn't find it, but someone had stated very eloquently in this forum that "a line that is hand drawn has the potential to become many things, but that a cad line is simply a line". I think I might have mangled the original author's words, but hopefully the thought comes across.

Yep, this is the danger. Too much too soon. That is also why SketchUp made it - not "serious" enough to be limiting, open enough to be anything.

Don wrote:
As a side note, much to the dismay of my wife and I, my son has (against our wishes) decided that a profitable future as an orthodontist is not for him and that he wants to be an.....architect. He is in his first year in school and well, loving it and kicking butt. We still have hope for our daughter.

My condolences ... I still have hopes for my daughter, as she is almost 11, but she likes to draw too much and designs doll houses in ArchiCAD ... chills my spine.

[Anonymous]

Djordje wrote:
[My condolences ... I still have hopes for my daughter, as she is almost 11, but she likes to draw too much and designs doll houses in ArchiCAD ... chills my spine.

Maybe it's inherited? Now if she could get her father to make a real doll house from her drawings! Just don't let her go crazy with the rain gutter object......

Don

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

Don wrote:
At the risk of offending anyone's CAD sensibilities, I have found that the computer has not made for better design students. Better graphics and presentations maybe, but not better conceptual thinking.

I'm going totally off-subject here but it's Sunday so it's allowed: the lack of conceptual thinking quality or quantity never had anything to do with the illustration quality or quantity, be it rendered or photoshopped or pencil or gouache. And the problem with pupils (and first of all teachers, because pupils follow their teachers' rewards) focusing on illustration instead of thinking has been around since the times of the École des Beaux Arts.

Let alone studying. Engineering students study, medicine students study, architecture students

'draw' (and in the US also 'model' with cardboard and stuff!) and 'think'. No wonder we get the crappy architecture and cities we get.

Well used, the computer increases productivity. If one is producing cr*p, one now has the power to produce a lot more cr*p. It is not the computer that should be blamed though.

an exception made here for the lucky ones studying in some schools in Germany, Holland and Switzerland, Scandinavia, a few in the UK and Commonwealth, and I don't know but would guess Japan.

[Anonymous]

Ignacio wrote:
Well used, the computer increases productivity. If one is producing cr*p, one now has the power to produce a lot more cr*p. It is not the computer that should be blamed though.

.

I agree completely! The context to which I was speaking was in architectural schools where students are too often tempted to use computer design/graphics as a substitute for hard work and creative thought. A large format, full color inkjet formZ, Photoshop wonder can fool most students and unfortunately a lot of professors. I know I have become so infatuated with a cad model that I have lost sight of essential concepts.

Remember when "clip art" first became popular? At first, it seemed like any five year old could be a graphic designer. Now, bad clip art looks just like what it is....... an assemblage of unrelated forms.

My complaint is not with computers, rather it is how we use them and maybe more significantly what we expect them to do for us. A topic with much to think about!


Don Lee