Meshes within Library Parts

[Anonymous]

I have downloaded a 3D toilet part from a manufacturer in 3D DXF format. The part opens and inserts into the drawings fine. I would like to get control of the facets or mesh created that make up the shape of the toilet to turn off the visible facets and only show the object profile in plan and elevation. Has anyone had success in bringing in complex mesh objects and simplifying their appearance for plan views and interior elevations?

Thanks,

Brian

[Anonymous]

You can edit the 2D (plan) view of the object. Ingolf explains how HERE. Not sure what to do about 3D views, elevations etc. You'd need a GDL guru for that.

[jshuether]

Regarding 2D, I end up redrawing the plan and elevation views from the 3D projections and make new 2D library objects--time consuming, but worth it if you are going to reuse the same toilet in multiple elevations over mutiple projects. While editing the library part you can copy the lines from orthogonal views in the 3d window to the 2d symbol and begin editing...also adding fills and hotspots. 3D toilets almost always look bad in elevations.

I never import 3D dxf (or dwg) objects to use as archicad objects unless it is absolutely necessary because the dxfs always have too many polygons which brings your model to a crawl in the 3D view... and reducing the polygons is a time consuming process in which you need additional software. I use Cinema 4d to reduce the polygons, there are others out there (PolyTrans is well known and inexpensive relative to full 3D modeling and animation packages). The last dxf I converted was Saarinen's Womb Chair. I ended up converting the seat body, the legs and the pillows into separate object files and combined them into one part with some gdl... It took some trial and error to get the best results...probably took me half a day...ugh. Don't even try to use Kohlers dxf files--the ones I've converted are poorly modeled and do not look good when rendered in ArchiCAD. Bathtubs can be modeled with the mesh tool and toilets, well, you may have to live with the library parts that you can find scripted in GDL. I think I modified some lines of script in GDL to one of ArchiCADs standard toilets to get it to approximate a Kohler toilet. Ridiculous, huh. I wish Graphisoft would spend one upgrade cycle putting together a library of objects (and stairs) that work.

What toilet manufacturer are you using?

[Anonymous]

Brian,

I'll offer this bread crumb, and hopefully it will lead you to the entire loaf of bread. Depending on how the toilet's components convert to GDL, it'll show up in the 3D script as a MASS or a COONS or as primitives, as well (like PGON, EDGE, VERT). Depending on what you get, you may be able to control it's masking.

If you look in the GDL Reference Guide (in the Help menu), you can read up on the above shapes (or ones you find in your object). In the first couple of lines of code for each shape described, you'll be able to edit a numeric value to control display of vertices, edges, smoothing and visibility of sides; or edit some code in each line (the status code) to get what you're after. WARNING - could be TEDIOUS.

I'm not 100% sure, but this could make your objects have full functionality in all views... Including how it looks using a PROJECT2.

Take a look at that.... I've actually printed the GDL Reference Guide and keep it in a notebook at my workstation for those code hacking moments. Sometimes, It'll take some experimentation and patience, but stuff you learn is yours to keep. I can't give exact advice without seeing the object your working on, but I think looking at the general concept of masking and status codes for whatever shape is described might do the trick.

I did this once with a Victorian bathtub object. I had to hack a lot of code, but I made the thing smooth and clean.....

I just looked at it... It's an XFORM made out of VERT's, EDGE's and PGON's. I can see where I hacked the status codes of the EDGE's.

Hope that leads to a kernel of a solution for you... For myself, it would be imperative that the object 'work' in a 3D view, like a section or an elevation.