Mats_Knutsson wrote:
For me the actual modelling is very quick...the problem comes when I don't like what I have created and have to redesign...
You can manage them as modules instead.
You can keep the primitive slabs (and also lines, text, and objects, walls-beams-columns using complex profiles), using as many layers as you need if you want to control what the cabinets will display in each view (architecture plans, casework/interiors plans, isometrics, RCPs), each cabinet in its own story in a 'cabinet module factory' file. Give each story the name of the cabinet. Create a layer combination with the layers of the elements you want to take to your project file (you may want to restrain the elements in the geometry and other auxiliary layers to the factory only), view clones and publisher shortcuts, and publish that as modules to a 'cabinet modules' folder.
If you have a bunch of cabinet models place each module once into a single story 'cabinet depot/warehouse/showroom' pln that gives you an overview of your whole cabinet line and that allows you to quickly select and copy paste (Suspend Groups unchecked) the modules from there into your project file. Typically you will work with 3 sessions of ArchiCAD open --the cabinet factory file, the cabinet showroom file, and the project file. All the hotlinks remain live, so if you modify a cabinet in your factory file and publish that story, the new data will show both in the showroom and project files after updating hotlinks.
In the module factory file you can
- copy paste components from story to story (cabinet model to cabinet model) fast,
- use the marquee and stretch (doors, counters, or all at a time);
- grab slabs and stretch them in the 2D or 3D windows;
- use objects, meshes, complex profiles and SEOs to create, correct, tweak over time just about any shape without a single line of GDL;
- select a few component slabs or objects and show only those in the 3D window to check some detail;
- use the syringe tool;
- go to the 3D window and select all or a few stories (cabinets) at a time and use Find-Select to modify say all door stile materials in one click (select all 3/4" slabs and make them granite);
- give IDs to individual element types ('legs', 'skirting') to make multi-story Find-Select easier, if it helps;
- use parametric objects and keep them parametric within all the cabinets without the hassles of scripting and library managing macros, and again you can modify those across all the cabinet line in a single move from the 3D window; if you want to have available some Graphisoft handle or tap macro you can just expand the library, open those objects and make them 'Placeable';
- insert in each story a tag object and customize *that* for overall cabinet count schedules in a building file (you reuse that with every single object, so custom scripting a few lines in some standard tag object pays off a lot there);
- set up schedules or lists of components for each individual cabinet (which you can do if you treat each cabinet as a 'building' in its own story, and you can only fake it and that only very laboriously if you turn each cabinet into an object);
- keep a workshop story with all the stuff you want to reuse often, and keep as many stories with cabinet model variations, designs in progress, abandoned designs which you don't want to trash just in case, etc., as you want, all manageable together in a single file.
This is a case where converting your bunch of primitives to objects deprives you of a lot of possibilities, and can actually make the whole venture pretty much hopeless. Keeping them as grouped elements (as 'buildings') and managing them as modules works a lot better.
Rubia Torres
