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Can't get slabs to display cover fills with pen colour as defined for surface foreground fill

Paul King
Mentor

I am almost certainly missing something obvious, but cannot seem to get placed slabs to automatically appear with cover fill pencolour reflecting the used surface cover fill foreground pencolour.

 

I am essentially trying to create some 3D diagrams where placed slabs display as blocks of the same solid colour whether seen in plan view or 3D - without needing to manually set individual slab's cover fill pen colours to match each time. 

The surface definitions I am using have an associated blank cover fill, set to 50% opacity, and a defined fill foreground pen colour that is similar to the surface colour

PaulKing_0-1710755790986.png

 

 

 

However each placed slab is having its cover fills dictated/overridden by its own individual cover fill foreground and background pencolour settings.  The pencolour set for the cover fill foreground in the surface definition is being ignored, even when 'use fill from surface' is ticked

PaulKing_2-1710755943587.png

 

 

I want each slab to automatically change colour to match whatever surface they are given.

 

This is in a plan view without any active graphic overrides or renovation filters, and where the penset in use  is the same one in use when defining surface fill 

 

Operating system used: Windows 5001 NZE

PAUL KING | https://www.prime.net.nz
ArchiCAD 8-27 | Twinmotion 2023
Windoze 11 PC | Intel Core i9 10900K | Nvidia Gforce RTX 3080 | 32 Gb DDR3 | 2x4K monitor extended desktop
7 REPLIES 7
cuba
Expert

Hello Paul,

When you check "use Fill from Surface" it will use only the fill from the material, not the Pens.  

The Pens are then always overwritten by manually adjustable ones. (black in your case)

 

Possible workaround:

A top view of a 3d document will use the Pens of the material (uncut fill = surface color fill, non-shaded)

Combine the ground floor plan + 3d document in the layout.

3d doc.png

 

 

Apple M1 Max 32 GB Ventura
AC27
Steve Masey
Contributor

Hi Paul, 

 

Have you checked the renovation filter isn't overriding the fill? (Long shot, but it catches me off guard sometimes).

Regards, Steve Masey | Architectural Designer | Whangaparaoa New Zealand
Archicad 10 - 27 NZE | Win11. Pro | AMD Ryzen 9 3900x X570 | Nvidia RTX2060Super 8GB | 32GB RAM | too many SSDs....

Thanks Steve.  Yes, I have been caught that way in the past too - but in this case renovation filter not in use

PAUL KING | https://www.prime.net.nz
ArchiCAD 8-27 | Twinmotion 2023
Windoze 11 PC | Intel Core i9 10900K | Nvidia Gforce RTX 3080 | 32 Gb DDR3 | 2x4K monitor extended desktop

Thanks Cuba.  That was my fear.  I did consider 3D document as a workaround (I had already set up the orthographic 3D views), but unfortunately this needs to be live editable.

 

Sound like I will just need to manually colour the slabs in plan to match 3D appearance.

PAUL KING | https://www.prime.net.nz
ArchiCAD 8-27 | Twinmotion 2023
Windoze 11 PC | Intel Core i9 10900K | Nvidia Gforce RTX 3080 | 32 Gb DDR3 | 2x4K monitor extended desktop

Hi Paul, reading what it states in the Archicad 27 Reference Guide p. 347 (see also here) it looks like the settings you can adjust in the 'Cover Fill Foreground' section of the Surfaces editor affect how the surface will appear in the 3D window, and only when on a 3D Style using the Vectorial Engine.

 

It would be a nice feature if these settings could also affect plan view, ie if they could be allowed to come through to the 'Floor Plan and Section' area in the Slab Settings dialog, under the 'Cover Fills' section ― or if the 'Use Fill from Surface' option had a further option to, say, 'Use Fill Foreground Pen from Surface', too.

Archicad 27 macOS Sonoma
Eduardo Rolon
Moderator

My workflow for this I would be:

  1. Assign ID per color, ie "Y01, B02, etc"
  2. Use GOs to override Surface using "Element ID starts with…X" and forget about the vectorial engine.

----

If the IDs don't work then I would use a Property to assign a specific "ID" and use that as the GO base.

 

EduardoRolon_0-1710849604011.png

 

Eduardo Rolón AIA NCARB
AC27 US/INT -> AC08

Macbook Pro M1 Max 64GB ram, OS X 10.XX latest
another Moderator

Paul King
Mentor

Thanks Eduardo - seems like a clever approach. 

In this case I ended up doing things the manual way, as I was spending longer trying to solve the problem than I would save

PAUL KING | https://www.prime.net.nz
ArchiCAD 8-27 | Twinmotion 2023
Windoze 11 PC | Intel Core i9 10900K | Nvidia Gforce RTX 3080 | 32 Gb DDR3 | 2x4K monitor extended desktop

Setup info provided by author