A Second Blog post on groups in ArchiCAD

[JaredBanks]

Back in April I wrote a blog post on groups in ArchiCAD. Here's the 2nd part: http://www.shoegnome.com/2011/05/15/groups-part-2/

If you haven't read the first half, there's a link within the article to start there.

Enjoy!

[NCornia]

Jared,

Thank you for illuminating all of the facets of groups. These tips could keep a lot of people from banging their heads long into the night.

[JaredBanks]

My pleasure! There's so many little things like this that often get lost in the shuffle of trying to do all the grand BIM and 3D things ArchiCAD can do.

[Link]

Hey Jared

You've done really well to drill down into this one area so comprehensively. This kind of focused topic really holds my interest.

It's just so much more interesting than a lot of the lighter stuff that just floats on the surface of ArchiCAD-Talk everyday.

It's also well researched and tactfully marketed, so good job and I look forward to reading more from you!

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

Whilst not in any way denigrating the excellent tutorial, I have a number of issues with groups - and have never been fully comfortable with their use. I hoped Jared's blog might have contained some pointers as to how best to take advantage of groups.

My problem is this. I come from an Autocad (oops, sorry - bad word!) background. Any time I wanted to group items, I used a 'block' (similar to a module, but quicker and easier), and never felt the need to use Autocad's grouping facility. As far as I was aware none of my colleagues used it either. One of my pet hates was to discover that someone had exploded a block (e.g. a toilet) into a series of lines and arcs!

Consequently I am always reluctant to ungroup a group. I work a lot on other peoples' drawings. When I come across a group, I always imagine that the elements have been grouped for a specific reason and it's better to leave them that way.

So, typically, I go to relocate a wall socket. I discover the socket is grouped with all the other sockets on the plan. Not wishing to ungroup the group, I suspend groups - only to discover that the socket has now become a series of lines and arcs!

I know this would have been avoided if the socket had been an object rather than a group - but this is just one example of many. Perhaps if it had been possible to name a group - then the intention behind the grouping would be clearer?

Also - I really wish groups would default to staying grouped when copied, no matter the status of the 'suspend groups' button. It's really hard to remember to check this before copying a group.

[JaredBanks]

Link,

Thanks. I appreciate the kind words (and help adding to the list).

Keith,

When I was using AutoCAD and Vectorworks, I was a big fan of the block function. I used it extensively and excessively. It was a tough transition to accept that the block tool and ArchiCAD's grouping function serve difference purposes. I miss the blocking capabilities of AutoCAD, but I think we can reproduce them in a better fashion (see below). I hope the 2 posts on groups will help you understand them better and shed some light on how to better take advantage of them.

Also I think what you're frustrated with is a miss use of the tool (by your coworkers) rather than the tool itself. It makes more sense for each socket to be it's own group rather than grouped with all the others. However perhaps if the larger group is ungrouped (with groups enabled) instead of suspended, you'd find that the larger group is a group of groups (see the blog post for a better explanation of that).

You might want to think about making more objects. 2D objects are very easy to make, and now in v14 and v15 with embedded objects, 2D objects can function very much like blocks in autocad and vectorworks. I've got a post brewing on that subject. But the idea is also more theoretical at the moment because I haven't played with it enough. And I'm sadly working on a v11 project with 2 other people and that's not the place to experiment!

Oh and one more thing on naming groups. I think groups in archicad are more of an organizational tool rather than a proto-object creation tool like they are in autocad. If you're groups lines together to make a repeatable symbol, it probably makes sense to find an existing object that does the trick (2d or 3d) or make one. There's a ton of object creation we can do without knowing GDL.

Hope that helps.