Best practice for RCPs, Framing plans, etc.

[SeaGeoff]

Good day all,
I’m surveying the best way to produce those plans where primary floor plan elements are secondary to the specific systems which the plan is intended to show. Typical examples are RCPs, Framing and Electrical plans. Common practice has the walls and other floor plan elements either grayed or dashed thus highlighting the primary objects and symbols.

I’d like to hear what people are currently doing as well as discuss the best way to make these common plans easier and more automatic in future releases.

Thanks in advance for all your great ideas.

[aahatimo]

great survey idea!
it sure would be nice if it was easy as clicking on a "display option" and you have a proper greyed out background for these plan types. or pm friendly ghost story printing/plotting.
for now, i use the 'align 2 plans in pm" approach.

[Anonymous]

Lots of layers and view editor

[gpowless]

Hi,

Good question.

In addition to architecture, I also produce small commercial and residential HVAC plans. This is what I do to provide the contrast.

When I am designing the building I draw using the pens on the first line only, using the "true weight" setting in display options. When I move on to designing the mechanical, I use the second line as my pen arrangement.

When I am preparing to print, I open the mechanical drawings and edit the pen settings to make all the first line of pens the same thickness. This leaves the second line intact and I am able to produce a bold layout on top of a faded floor plan. Very impressive output.

[SeaGeoff]

I take it when you edit the pen settings you are doing so in PlotMaker. I do something similar. I have specific pens assigned to the various parts of composites. In PM I can gray the walls or show only the core by assigning white pens to the other parts.

But I don't consider this best practise in the long run, and I feel the same regarding any drafting method that relies on PM. The lack of WYSIWYG solutions within ArchiCAD reduces the value of the virtual model as the central building information database and thus hampers ArchiCAD's evolution and puts it at a competive dissadvantage.

[Anonymous]

Geoff wrote:
I take it when you edit the pen settings you are doing so in PlotMaker. I do something similar. I have specific pens assigned to the various parts of composites. In PM I can gray the walls or show only the core by assigning white pens to the other parts.

But I don't consider this best practise in the long run, and I feel the same regarding any drafting method that relies on PM. The lack of WYSIWYG solutions within ArchiCAD reduces the value of the virtual model as the central building information database and thus hampers ArchiCAD's evolution and puts it at a competive dissadvantage.

I'm afraid that for once I don't agree with you Geoff. I feel strongly that managing pen settings (and therefore appearance) is vital to fully automated drawing production. I am quite comfortable with doing this in PlotMaker since this is where I am used to managing the final output quality. I would like to see the ability to load and apply multiple, named pen sets in PlotMaker to improve on this process. A pop-up in the drawing settings dialog would do the trick nicely.

On the other hand; having multiple pen sets in ArchiCAD might be a nice way to do this as well. Perhaps the best solution would be to make the pen sets common to both PM & AC so we can each choose the approach that is best suited to our practice and preferences.

[SeaGeoff]

Matthew wrote:
...so we can each choose the approach that is best suited to our practice and preferences.

Quite.

I'm all for precise control over pen settings as well as other attributes. But having to manage them in PM is a workaround that hinders the exchange of digital design data (D3 ). RCPs and electrical plans are not static documents but specific views of the model. They should be based on model elements (not redrafted model elements) and available within ArchiCAD. If for these special plans some of those objects (like walls in an electrical plan) need to display differently than in the typical floor plan then the settings to adjust their appearance must reside in ArchiCAD and be saved with quickviews.

When I look ahead it's all about sharing and publishing the model with all it's imbedded parametric information. PlotMaker cannot do this. ArchiCAD can.

[Anonymous]

My point is that ArchiCAD is the place to fine tune and adjust the model while PlotMaker is the place to adjust the quality of the output. I think this just comes down to where we want to draw the line between AC & PM or whether it is better to combine the two (like the paperspace/modelspace of AutoCAD).

I prefer the programs to remain separate; consistent with my desire for the combined format and "black box" functionality. I can even see an argument for modeling in ArchiCAD, setting up views and doing all the annotation in (a much improved) PlotMaker, generating all the schedules and specs in a database, and producing renderings and animations in all kinds of ways.

Of course, as I said, if multiple pen sets could be defined and selected (and set by the view) in ArchiCAD, then PlotMaker could work as nothing more than a way to organize the views onto sheets.

In the end I think the answer to this depends most on the overall direction of the programs. There are several reasonable options, but whichever the choice, the execution must be consistent with that choice.

Ultimately all that matters to me is that the software provides the means for me to set standards for my staff to follow to accurately model the building and thoroughly control the character and quality of the output and expression of the design.

[SeaGeoff]

Good points. I'm coming out as a strong advocate for, "PlotMaker could work as nothing more than a way to organize the views onto sheets" for several reasons. The main one is that publishing a layout book is not sharing the entire model. Assuming sharing the model is or becomes desirable we need all the information within that model database. If a certain plan requires specific attributes, those attributes constitute a part of the overall Building Information Model and therefore need to be stored in the model file. Beyond that, saving everything needed to constitute a view within AC fits the successful established paradigm. I'm happy that certain pen setting adjustments available in PM make up for shortcoming in AC but don't consider that a strong argument for making PM a necessary step in the modeling process. Rather I see these as workarounds and feel that better solutions can be quite easily implemented in ArchiCAD.

[Erika Epstein]

I like Duane Valencia's recent suggestion that we be able to have the option in the layer settings to check a layer to show as screened. I prefer this approach as I would rather have the control within ArchiCAD to work on a drawing as it we want it to appear. Let plotmaker be where drawings are arranged.