ArchiCAD 9 Academic Version- "Trim to Roof" Issue

[Anonymous]

Training Guide Level 1, pages 134-135 - "Adjust the Head Clearance". When I try to do this the wall protruding downward and parallel to the stair treads gets trimmed to the second story roof, not to the lower one. I'm following the instructions verbatim. I'm able to use the "Trim to Roof" command elsewhere without any problems.

Any advice? Thanks.

tightwoods

[Link]

Are you sure you are selecting the lower roof? If you have the upper roof selected (also) AC will use that roof.

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

I'll try it again and get back to you. Thanks for replying.

tightwoods

[Anonymous]

I wasn't using the "Split" tool properly. I got it to trim properly now but I was experiencing other walls being trimmed even though I didn't select them. Very strange.

The problem I have now is that the second story roof is no longer attached and oriented properly. It has shifted off of it's proper X,Y,Z axes and is now skewed down through the entire house. I haven't yet been able to figure out how to get it back to proper orientation and position.

tightwoods

[Anonymous]

I'm still having problems getting these walls to trim every time. It's hit or miss as to whether or not they get trimmed properly. What happens mostly is that the short section of wall behind and to the right of the column (to the right of the open walkway next to the stairs) almost always gets trimmed even though I'm not picking it for trimming. I can verify that I'm picking the correct walls and lower roof by the black dots representing those element nodes. When I Undo the trim command, the black node dots appear on the wall that was erroneously trimmed even though I never picked it. The other common occurrence is that the wall pointing downward towards the stair treads gets trimmed all the way up to the second story roof. I'm definitely not picking that either. One thing I've noticed is that in the 3D view, the viewing angle and magnification determine which wall(s) get trimmed and how they get trimmed regardless of which wall(s) I pick! In those few instances where the walls did get trimmed properly I had to change the magnification and zoom several times to finally get the walls trimmed correctly. It's not repeatable.

Split Command - Instruction on how to use this is vague in my opinion, especially for someone who is trying to teach himself and has no other learning resources, including experienced users, to fall back on. Steps 2 & 3 on pages 134 & 135 are significantly different than those described on pages 76-78.

Can you recommend any good tutorials (books, DVD) for ArchiCAD 9 and 10 (I'll be learning ArchiCAD 10 soon when I start my new job)? I'm learning 9 right now so I have a working knowledge of the basics.

Thanks again.

tightwoods

[Link]

When there are two roofs involved, I would recommend explicitly selecting the wall and roof, before invoking the Trim to Roof command. This will eliminate any doubt - ArchiCAD will make assumptions.

As for the Split command, you'll get the hang of it. Without looking back at the tutorial, all I can say is try and be as flexible as possible, slow down a little (you can't expect to be as fast in any new software as you were in your previous one), know that ArchiCAD can offer many different ways to do the same thing so just learn one that works for you and stick with it for now, expect things to go wrong at the beginning.

As for training, what is your budget set at? Seriously, it makes a big difference - you get what you pay for. Any kind of training should be considered an investment, and when it comes to a software that you will be using nearly every day of your life, quite an important investment.

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

Link! Thanks again for your advice and encouragement. As painful as it seems I am making progress.

Best wishes,

tightwoods