Community Feedback: Graphic Overrides

[Ferenc Traser]

Hi Everyone,

Our Product Managers are looking into possible improvements regarding Graphic Overrides. To help them here are a few questions. Any valuable insight is greatly appreciated.

• What is one thing that you would definitely improve on the way Graphical Overrides currently work?
• How many Graphic Override rules and combinations do you have in a typical project?
• If you have many rules and combinations, how do you structure them? For example do you put numbering at the beginning of their names or add rules or combinations as separators?
• How often do you need to manage rules or combinations? For example is there a BIM Manager who sets them up at the beginning of the project or do you need to edit them constantly?
• If you need to edit them constantly, what are the typical reasons?

Thank you!

[DGSketcher]

@Ferenc Traser 

• What is one thing that you would definitely improve on the way Graphical Overrides currently work? - Expand criteria to match Schedules e.g. include Parameters so we can highlight objects with a parameter value etc. 
• How many Graphic Override rules and combinations do you have in a typical project? - About 50 rules & 20 Combos. Some for presentation, others just for auditing checks.
• If you have many rules and combinations, how do you structure them? For example do you put numbering at the beginning of their names or add rules or combinations as separators? - I assign a prefix e.g. rules are "ABC-...", Combos are "GO-ABC-...". Folders would be a handy addition. 
• How often do you need to manage rules or combinations? For example is there a BIM Manager who sets them up at the beginning of the project or do you need to edit them constantly? - Self managed. Updated as necessary to suit project requirements and checks.
• If you need to edit them constantly, what are the typical reasons? - Project scale & complexity

[Barry Kelly]

• What is one thing that you would definitely improve on the way Graphical Overrides currently work? - Expand criteria to match Schedules e.g. include Parameters so we can highlight objects with a parameter value etc. 

The ability to override individual parts of an element or object.

i.e. override just one material (surface) and not the entire element.

• How many Graphic Override rules and combinations do you have in a typical project? - About 50 rules & 20 Combos. Some for presentation, others just for auditing checks.

Probably only around half a dozen regularly used.

But I have set up many more for Quality Control to check if things are done correctly - this is a bit of an experimentation at the moment - not really used.

• If you have many rules and combinations, how do you structure them? For example do you put numbering at the beginning of their names or add rules or combinations as separators? - I assign a prefix e.g. rules are "ABC-...", Combos are "GO-ABC-...". Folders would be a handy addition. 

Currently assigning a prefix to keep those not used out of the way.

With no folder structure, this is all we can do.

• How often do you need to manage rules or combinations? For example is there a BIM Manager who sets them up at the beginning of the project or do you need to edit them constantly? - Self managed. Updated as necessary to suit project requirements and checks.

BIM manager (me) has set up in template, and views set to use applicable GO.

A better method if importing/exporting and updating rules and updating GO would be appreciated. There is no way to update (override) at the moment from one file to another.

It is a case of import, duplicate, replace.

• If you need to edit them constantly, what are the typical reasons? - Project scale & complexity

We don't usually need to modify them.

Barry.

[Lee Hankins]

Hi @Ferenc_Traser 

• What is one thing that you would definitely improve on the way Graphical Overrides currently work?

The ability to be able to override sub-elements. An example would be the glass in a door or window to differentiate obscure glazing in a schedule or on elevations.

• How many Graphic Override rules and combinations do you have in a typical project?

22 Graphic override combinations that are used in all our commercial schemes. Almost 100 different rules that are pretty much all used.

• If you have many rules and combinations, how do you structure them? For example do you put numbering at the beginning of their names or add rules or combinations as separators?

I don't structure them at the moment. Graphic override combination has a prefix number. It would be great to be able to structure them in folders.

• How often do you need to manage rules or combinations? For example is there a BIM Manager who sets them up at the beginning of the project or do you need to edit them constantly?

All the time. I am the BIM manager and I am constantly tweaking them to make them work better or suit different situations. Our office template contains all rules. They are difficult to manage though as exporting the rules from a master template to replace in live files is not possible. the rules are only exported as part of a combination and if they already exist (because they have been tweaked) the new adopted rules are not imported.

• If you need to edit them constantly, what are the typical reasons?

Where a project has a slight variation or a better method has been found of achieving the same process.

[runxel]

• What is one thing that you would definitely improve on the way Graphical Overrides currently work?

They need to work on subparts. This belongs to the broader topic of a revamping of the reno filter.

We NEED to override only subparts, and GDL objects should no longer be second class citizen. We need to override based on GDL parameters, we need to override parts of an object, like just the frame of a window or a tread.

Also there MUST be parity with the other places where you can select by filters: The interface of Find&Select, Interactive Schedule, and GO should be unified.

• How many Graphic Override rules and combinations do you have in a typical project?

Around 50–80 rules and 30 combinations.

• If you have many rules and combinations, how do you structure them? For example do you put numbering at the beginning of their names or add rules or combinations as separators?

Big thing that needs to improve, and I hope we see folders there sooner than later, too.

Personally I use an text abbreviation in front and then the pipe char like "GFX | ..."

The list, especially of rules, get's clogged very easily and makes it difficult to traverse.

• How often do you need to manage rules or combinations? For example is there a BIM Manager who sets them up at the beginning of the project or do you need to edit them constantly?
• If you need to edit them constantly, what are the typical reasons?

Once the template was done the biggest part was set. There is continuous improvement of course as always. 😉

Also since every project is different there are always 1–5 one-offs specially created for the project and its needs, which also evolves from the early design stages to the later phases.

[martinij]

It wold be nice with a little refresh of the GO system. It's a really useful tool!

In every project we have between 50 and 100 rules and around 10 to 20 combinations. They are sorted by using keywords in the same way @Barry Kelly show in his example. Most is set up in our office template that is based on the Norwegian teamplate. But every project change the rules in some degree. Sometimes because they need a different ecstatic but mostly because the values the GO rules use are different than what the template assume they should be. Mostly it's the architects them selvs that change the rules, but when they are complex the experts need to step in to help.

Example:

The fire resistance parameter value can be written "EI60" or "EI 60" or even have exstentions with different letters added in the end as well. So the rules need to be changed to accommodate what's in the specific project. And there is often some uncommon value that is not added in the template so that has to be added as a new rule. 

In the example of fire resistance there could be nice to have control of which color each value has but in many other situations there is not important what color it is, only that its different per value. Being able to make a rule that gives each unique value a colour/lineweight/etc would in many cases reduce the amount of rules drastically. This would be a nice cleanup in cases where you don't need control over wich color is used. I think that would be ok in most control situations. Just think of rules that control classifications or things like that have a large amount of different values.

There is also the issue of learning from each project. So after a big project is ended we go through the rules that have been developed and se if there is some that can be added to our template. It would be avsone if we cloud have a library in the BIMcloud or something like that so you can "shop" the rules you would like. That should also be extended to most attributts and things.

[Mathias Jonathan]

• What is one thing that you would definitely improve on the way Graphical Overrides currently work?

Like previsously said:

• Matching schedule ( improve quality data)
• Overide individual parts

I would add:

• Automaticaly create different colors for different data (like the Autocolor in BimcollabZoom : https://helpcenter.bimcollab.com/portal/en/KB/articles/classify-components-with-auto-color)

For example, I want to be able to color with different colors all the different flat of a particular building. I don't want to create a rule for each zone number.

If I want to color each classification on my project and be able to create a schedule displaying the same colors.

• How many Graphic Override rules and combinations do you have in a typical project?
• About 10 for graphical improvement (Zone colors, Walls in black..., White 3D but not the windows...)
• About 10 for identification in plan
• About 20 for Archicad audit (good classification, good layer, story...)

• If you have many rules and combinations, how do you structure them? For example do you put numbering at the beginning of their names or add rules or combinations as separators?

I use numbering at the Begining, and rules with a name like "-----------------------"  as separators

• How often do you need to manage rules or combinations? For example is there a BIM Manager who sets them up at the beginning of the project or do you need to edit them constantly?

I set them up at the beginning but I have to edit them constantly.

• If you need to edit them constantly, what are the typical reasons?

For example, to use the audit Graphic Override that check if the elements are on the right layer, I have to change manually the layer to check:

• First story in red
• Checking if every object on the first story are red
• modifying the Graphic override to check the second stroy
• Checking the second story...

The same process for classification, load bearing, interior/exterior...

[Karl Ottenstein]

The order of rules in a combination needs to be changed to have some logical sense.  See:

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Design-forum/Archicad-26-Graphic-Override-Problem/m-p/359830#M16...

If the rules in a combination are to be interpreted in order, top-down, as the Help says... then that should be it.  Period.  If a rule matches something, and a subsequent rule also matches... then the subsequent (linear / top-down interpretation) rule should take effect - rather than the first rule 'sticking' permanently regardless of what follows as stated in the Help.

[DGSketcher]

Absolutely. Baffled from day one with this. The logic should run down stream. It shouldn't matter if on line 3 I turn my walls red, and on line 4 turn them blue, that is a user problem. As an example I assign sweeping values to pens and fills for a neutral base plan and then add additional rules to highlight relevant feature e.g. fire rated walls and user data faults e.g. dimensions on the wrong layer. It is just so wrong adding a new rule to the Combo and then having to drag it to the top of the list because the rule will be applied last! 

[gavinNZz]

• What is one thing that you would definitely improve on the way Graphical Overrides currently work? GO should provide the ability to toggle visibility of an object. i.e. make it disappear entirely. This would turbocharge GO into a much more powerful tool that would allow the visibility of elements to be based on properties as opposed to just using layers. The renovation filter already does this in its own way so surely extending this to GO is not a leap too far? 

Also further to this and an expansion on the renovation filter there should be a function that allows us to save multiple states of the same element. e.g. a wall in one state is 2m high while the same wall in another state is 3m high. Same element just 2 different states.

• How many Graphic Override rules and combinations do you have in a typical project? 10-15

• If you have many rules and combinations, how do you structure them? For example do you put numbering at the beginning of their names or add rules or combinations as separators? Just add folders to manage as you have with other attributes

• How often do you need to manage rules or combinations? For example is there a BIM Manager who sets them up at the beginning of the project or do you need to edit them constantly? usually already set up in template to align with standard plan output
•  
• If you need to edit them constantly, what are the typical reasons? N/A