LED light strip - can't find it?

[cocoloco]

Hello! As we use LED strips almost everywhere,: every cabinetry, every builds in, every shelf, ceilings, and all,  I am looking for archicad object to add them. (ideally they look linear and they can be adjusted in thickness and lenght and represent in floor plan/elevations per settings. 

Until now I have been adding them into elevations and floor plan manually (drawing lines) to indicate them but it no longer works this way for me as it's a full time job and hard to keep track on it, especially if something change, I have to adjust both floor plan & elevations manually. 

I have seen many posts about led strip lights, but the problem is I can't find any object in archicad library or CI tools library.  I tried searching led light, led strip, strip.... and nothing comes out. 

Below is how I need them to look (I really mostly care just to indicate them) are and I need this to be a light object so it reflect both in elevations and floor plan as per settings. 

  

Thanks! 

[jl_lt]

why not use a beam with the proper measurements? it will even give you the dashed look you need.  i would put them in their corresponding layer too. you can even label it, but specially and i cannot emphasize it enough, youll avoid drawing things in 2d.

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

A complex profile beam, so that there is no way you can mess up the section, can find-select by profile name, can modify the profile as needed, and if you are particular about it for rendering or whatever purposes you can use a segmented beam with fixed-dimension end segments.

Or if you want to avoid any possible interaction with walls-beams-columns, a railing element with just one rail. 

[jl_lt]

now you mention it, i would definitely go with the railing element

[cocoloco]

I would find it in railing setting? Could you please elaborate? 
Also I will need a lot of them in the project so it needs to be light whatever it is. 😄

Will it have setting to produce light?

I am just confused a bit, because I assumed that led light strip would already be in archicad for at least few years, and I have hard time believing it’s not there and I have to use.. a beam? Or railing element?:D 

[jl_lt]

That is correct, you can use beams or railings as linear light elements which will get you the exact look you need according to your images with the added benefit of annotation, scheduling and even rendering. You are currently using 2d linework, so whats the difference?

what rendering engine are you using? you can assign a light material to them so they can throw some light

[mikas]

Maybe you could try Area Light and use a shape of the led strip as it's 3D form.

I use area light a lot in renderings, but maybe it could serve you in 2D projections taken from the model. I can't say for sure.

 

[Lee Hankins]

I’ve added a wish list request for an LED light strip object. 

[Ignacio Azpiazu · Accepted solution]

[There are two aspects to this discussion: 1) is the world not how I thought it would be, really, damn, GS go make that object already; 2) how do I go about it, the world being as it is. For the second:]

Drawing 2D in plan and elevations, which are not lights either, is the worst; beam or railing can give you model, and surface can emit light; if for whatever reason you need a lamp element and there are no cylindrical/prismatic lamp elements out there that could do the job, you could create modules combining a railing/object/beam and a light source lamp (one module for each typical strip length required: strip1800.mod, strip2400.mod, etc.). Sounds complicated, but it is much simpler than 2D, and you control 3D and light; and you have central modeling&light control over all your strips; if for rendering purposes you need to turn on only a few, you could have on and off module variations, and you relink specific modules as needed. 

[jl_lt]

the modules work too, albeit a little bit of aditional hard work.   However, i wouldnt go to that lenght for an object that, if designed correctly, should not be visible be it render or real life, just the light it emits. 

theoretically we could actually model every light emiting diode within the strip, but should we?