Best practice for coverings

[MetalFingerz]

Hello,

Having recently been using Archicad much more (coming from Revit), I'm trying to know about best practices That is in regard to scheduling, IFC exporting and accuracy with the model.

My question then would be about wall coverings (and coverings in general) and how to best design them. I have read several threads about it in this forum but as they date back a bit, I was wondering if things had changed with new Archicad versions...

Consensus seems to draw another element to represent the finish therefore drawing an adjacent element (for floorings at least, didn't see much about wall coverings). But in Revit I could "attach" a finish to another wall so a door object could cut both elements and I did not find this possibility in Archicad

There also wall accessories but it seems that this is not an advised solution ? This does look really handy from some manufacturer libraries I had used but for some reason, this not talked about much it seems.

Open for any suggestions, thanks

[Anonymous]

I am more for using Composites (For simple top to base coverings) and Complex Profiles for the rest. I have also saw some clever uses of curtain wall for this purpose. Like this:

[Podolsky]

If talk about coverings - accessories that was original tool developed for that. I don't know why it's been dragged out from official ArchiCAD package and became addition (Goodies), that Graphisoft does not want to take any technical support and take responsibilities. Initially it was part of ArchiCAD and introduced in version 7.
The problem with accessories - that all depends on quality of GDL code on those wall, ceiling and floor accessories, that usually poor. It's possible to program cool covering stuff for accessories, but not all library parts you can find online are good quality. You can make your research and test several third part coverings solutions - like Central Innovation (aka Cadimage) from Australia, I think. Or they are kiwi...
There is also very good quality libraries called 'Swift' - maybe they are offering some special tools for coverings. Some objects from BIM objects are using this accessories possibilities not bad. But in total - accessories are very old tool that never was updated (20 years already) and Revit is beating ArchiCAD about it.
I personally keeping in mind the idea to sit and program my own coverings library. And also I wish it would be more advanced, as accessories are quite primitive in terms what data are they passing to GDL object.

[MetalFingerz]

Braza wrote:
I am more for using Composites (For simple top to base coverings) and Complex Profiles for the rest. I have also saw some clever uses of curtain wall for this purpose. Like this:

Thanks for the reply. Interesting video for facades, it's a similar use as I was doing in Revit so this won't be too foreign for me. When it comes to paint, wallpaper or other types of interior wall coverings, I just use composite walls, is it the best way or should I model another element ?

[MetalFingerz]

Podolsky wrote:
If talk about coverings - accessories that was original tool developed for that. I don't know why it's been dragged out from official ArchiCAD package and became addition (Goodies), that Graphisoft does not want to take any technical support and take responsibilities. Initially it was part of ArchiCAD and introduced in version 7.
The problem with accessories - that all depends on quality of GDL code on those wall, ceiling and floor accessories, that usually poor. It's possible to program cool covering stuff for accessories, but not all library parts you can find online are good quality. You can make your research and test several third part coverings solutions - like Central Innovation (aka Cadimage) from Australia, I think. Or they are kiwi...
There is also very good quality libraries called 'Swift' - maybe they are offering some special tools for coverings. Some objects from BIM objects are using this accessories possibilities not bad. But in total - accessories are very old tool that never was updated (20 years already) and Revit is beating ArchiCAD about it.
I personally keeping in mind the idea to sit and program my own coverings library. And also I wish it would be more advanced, as accessories are quite primitive in terms what data are they passing to GDL object.

Oh ok, I didn't know those were that old, I understand. So it's better to just use the default tools then ? For flooring, I should have two slabs (one for the structure, another for the finish), for wall coverings, I'll just use composite walls and for ceilings, also a slab I guess ?

[Podolsky · Accepted solution]

Yes, you are absolutely right. This is how I build my models. Sometimes, when I need to achieve level of details 5 I even can separate the core and wall finish by modelling plasterboard as separate wall. But that more like exception. Usually composites are doing their job very good for walls.

But every time when I need to model my floor or build some wall details from separate elements - I definitely think - I must finish that and just create good accessories objects. Because this is the whole point of object-oriented programming (that ArchiCAD is) - to combine into one parametric object several more simple ones. I hope this issue is going to be solved soon in ArchiCAD, as they are working on tools updates now and each new version is showing better solutions for old tools (as that happened to Stair, for example, of beams and columns). ArchiCAD 25 suppose to appear in less then a week - let see what new is going to be there.