Morphs vs GDL Scripts
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2021-05-05
11:46 AM
- last edited on
2023-05-25
06:04 PM
by
Rubia Torres
2021-05-05
11:46 AM
I am familiar with most of AC 18 but have not used the morph tool. I’ve written a number of GDL scripts which allow me to define posts and beams with tenons at each end. Parameters of these are set in the scripts. And that data can be exported to a Bill of Materials.
These GDL scripts work well but every possibility cannot be allowed for in advance.
It occurred to me an object might be designed using the morph tool as it would be in Sketchup. However, some limited experiments suggest none of the following are possible in AC. I hope to be corrected.
1 Given a beam with tenons created as a morph, can the parts of the object be defined and the dimensions of this object captured by the AC bill of materials?
2 Given a GDL script converted to a morph and modified, can the morph be saved back into the GDL so that its original parameters can be captured by the BOM in the usual way?
3 I’ve not used the AC beam tool much as I have the GDLs. Is the beam tool better adapted to morph? I’ve tried modifying a beam but find the element list ignores the new morph.
4 Is the morph tool’s only purpose, to produce complicated objects for decoration?
Regards : Hubert Wagner
2 REPLIES 2

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2021-05-05 12:02 PM
2021-05-05
12:02 PM
Morph is a very simple tool. It's gives freedom of modelling, from one hand, but becoming hard for quick modifications and gives very little for bill of quantities. The only parameters you can extract from the morph to quantify - volume and area of surface. If you save it as GDL, ArchiCAD generates the model, based on primitives - nodes, edges and triangles, that connects nodes. In real projects, where quantification is important, I'm trying to avoid using morph as much as I can. Simple example - the shape as a slab is much easier to modify (including changing surface material) than if it modelled as a morph. Morph also will not give you plan area of the slab, or thickness. It's better to use it for furniture, decoration, sanitary ware and similar.

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2021-05-06 03:27 AM
2021-05-06
03:27 AM
Hubert wrote:
It occurred to me an object might be designed using the morph tool as it would be in Sketchup. However, some limited experiments suggest none of the following are possible in AC. I hope to be corrected.
See this wish.
Ling.
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