Some questions

[Anonymous]

Hey all,
My first post, I'm in second year at uni and theyre teaching flat cad, but I'mt rying to learn archicad instead, it seems to be easier to handle.

I've got a few questions though;

1. I'm trying to draw details with the 'line' tool, I can change the colour of pens but when I change the thickness of the pen it doesn't seem to show on screen or in the layout? Why is this?

2. I've got to do a project using mainly timber, I'm struggling to find a way to draw timber log cabins and pavillions, it just seems to draw "brick walls"?

3. In autocad you type the length of a line when your drawing it, how can you alter the length of a drafting line using the keyboard?

4. When I have a curved wall, and I place windows in I seem to get straight windows only, where can I find some good tutorials to teach me such things as curvy glass?

5. If I wanted to do 3d timber details is this posisble in archicad easily?


Thanks in advance!

broady

[Anonymous]

oh and finally. a conceptual curvy "spline" - how do you "offset" them to make walls, and can you "covert" a drafting line or spline to a wall?

thanks

[Dwight]

When you ask a question on the forum you should post your machine and software version or some bully might kick you off. I assume you are V10.

The general tone of your questions means that you need to do the tutorial and read the manual because you will encounter numerous minor problems like these if you continue to try to wing it. There was a time when one could do this in Archicad, but not since about 1997 when the program grew beyond intuition.

Wall on line: The "magic wand" tool converts linear elements into 3D elements. See Reference manual for many references. Activate wall tool - place cursor on line, Space Bar Click. Voom. A wall on the line. See magic wand settings for tolerances.

Lineweight: Set On Screen View Options to "True Line Weight."

Wall composition: You create composite walls according to their construction using the Composite wall tool. Or you make a generic fill, or you assign an appropriate surface material. Big issue for a new guy.....

Line by keyboard: Archicad can draw like Autocad does, more-or-less. See the training guide. It is an essay to explain but thirty seconds to demonstrate.

Curved windows: It is easiest to emulate curved windows with a curved glass wall, but there is a curved window in the library: WM curved 10.

Timber details: Do you mean log walls or heavy timber? That is a complex question since there are many ways to model timbers and Add-Ons to facilitate this - Framewright, for instance. But you CAN detail this.

[Dwight]

And, if you DO insist on drafting with lines, DON"T USE LINES!
Lines are dumb.

Because everything in architecture has thickness, use fills with edges and an empty fill for rectangles, and polylines for other stuff.

And be sure to scour the library for symbols of building elements instead of drawing them.

These tools make smarter elements. For instance, a rectangular fill can be reshaped by pulling one edge - this beats editing linework.

By drawing your detail in a plan view window, you can also use the wall tool to create elastic elements that are easily edited. For instance, by creating a wall the thickness and fill pattern of plywood, you can then have a constant thickness drafting element to detail with. If you do this in your project plan window, just assign the drawing to a special layer that is otherwise hidden in the project. This is another way 3D elements work for you in 2D.