Community feedback: Distance Guides

[Arpad Szabo]

Hi All!

We’re gathering feedback on a new experimental feature: Distance Guides!

Please see our brief illustrated survey: based on your intuition and logic, how should Distance Guides behave? No right or wrong answers here… we want to know how YOU think it should work. 

Not familiar with Distance Guides? Not a problem. In a nutshell: Distance Guides show the relative distance between elements in your plan.

IMPORTANT: You can participate even if you don’t use Distance Guides!

To start the survey, click the link below. Please do the survey before you go to the comment section!

UPDATE: The Distance Guides survey is now closed. We would like to thank all participants who took part in this research for their valuable contributions.

[Arpad Szabo]

UPDATE: The Distance Guides survey is now closed. We would like to thank all participants who took part in this research for their valuable contributions.

[Rex Maximilian]

OK, did survey and also left this comment at the end:

Sometimes when wanting to stretch an element like a wall or line, the numerical field of the distance guides positions itself over the node and makes it impossible to click on the node and stretch, as it usually highlights the data field instead. I always have to change my zoom level drastically to remedy it.

[Eduardo Rolon]

This happens to me so much that I just turned DG off.

[DGSketcher]

If GS are honest the Distance Guides whilst initially offering much promise fail under scrutiny on many different levels and aspects.

Whether the DG was developed to mimic another developer I'm not sure, but it feels detached from the core functionality of AC. Why? Well, AC relies on nodes and how things adjust depends on which node you select e.g. should we stretch or should we move. At present the DG is trying to second guess the users intent. Simple case in point is the example in the survey where the opening is to be adjusted. Ok in many cases it will be a stretch, but it could just as easily have required a move, but there is no simple way to define that option that would make DGs any better than regular editing with the marquee tool. Supposing in that same example the DG arrow was flipped, then some might assume the wall was to move, but supposing the wall was a single building material? In concept development mode I might reasonably assume I actually wanted the wall thickness to increase to preserve the external face position.

The same might also be true for objects, except the design guides only ever reference the bounding box. So should the furniture in the survey move or stretch? You can't second guess the user in every situation. As a chair I might want to move it but I might also want it to become a bigger sofa or a longer table if it was a different object. The same problems manifest in doors & windows.

The Design Guides are an unnecessary distraction from the existing reasonably effective tool set.

If GS want to improve model editing, put some time into the measure and tracking tools as was suggested during the Beta test 

[thesleepofreason]

Yes, distance guides really show the disconnect between what we need and what we get. Being able to position elements in reference to other elements is of course a very useful functionality and something that is much needed in a modern workflow. But we need to have full control over which point of the element is being referenced which makes it a rather complicated input situation and furthermore we need to be able to set it as a positional constraint for the elements which makes it a technical challenge. But this is what we need - this is how we think and talk about the position of elements in a building.

But instead we something that basically just aid us in placing a chair in a room.

[Barry Kelly]

DGs for openings should also associate to intersecting dividing wall (room walls) rather than just the end of the wall they are in or to other openings.

The DG origin point should also be adjustable, just as you can re-associate the target point.

Barry.

[Tamas Samu]

Thanks guys for the extra feedback and the participation, keep them coming, they do help us a lot in the development! 🙂

@Rex Maximilian thanks for the feedback, I agree that not being able to interact with the selection due to the guide is an issue. I will forward this issue to have a look at it.

@DGSketcher & @thesleepofreason I am sorry that Distance Guides have a bad 1st impression on you. Do I understand right that you feel that the current visual display of Distance guides doesn't communicate the interaction, you can expect from it, thus resulting in confusion? Also doesn't have the flexibility that you would expect to have from such tool. Did I get that correctly?

@Barry Kelly Completely valid points, Distance guides should detect incoming structure and have more flexibility

[DGSketcher]

@Tamas Samu Not sure who is confused, it isn't me after 28 years as an AC user! As I have tried to explain the DG is incapable of competing with measure, tracker, guidelines and the marquee tools. It is a pointless overlay providing nothing more than a duplicate of existing functions and doing it badly.

If the position of a wall is critical it should be dimensioned otherwise what is the point of a precision setting. If you want to develop something meaningful to improve AC try taking associative dimensions and allow them to be edited to move and stretch elements. Here's an example... you have a wall with a set of dimensions to wall ends and all openings, now edit the dimension between openings and the connected opening to the right moves, edit dimension for the opening width and it stretches using the base point in the opening definition e.g. centred/left/right. The DG doesn't even come close to delivering that kind of power and usability. Plus dimensions aren't constrained to 90 degrees and second guessing everything.

Just put the DG code in the bin and move on, chalk it up to being another pointless marketing exercise that failed because no one is listening to the end users.

[thesleepofreason]

For me it is not about any confusion caused by the visual display but the limited scope of the development. As I said - we REALLY need the ability to position (and lock) elements in reference to another elements - like this point of this element should be X mm from that point of that element. So this is the expectation we as highly paying customers have when our CAD/BIM application that allege to be "world class" or "industry leading" announces a new feature like distance guides. But distance guides obviously doesn't live up to the expectations and doesn't really bring much else to the table. And it won't regardless of how much resources are sunk into getting it out of experimental status - because the placement of an element simply has too many possibilities for a function like distance guides to be quicker than the user can place the object by other means. This should have been obvious from the start and the fact that it despite that is pushed as a main new feature of AC27 (and then given experimental status) is quite worrying - where is the ambition and innovation?

[Karl Ottenstein]

Maybe I'm totally missing something... but I didn't see any easy way of centering something along the distance guides.  I was hoping that just pressing "=" for the distance would  let me place an element in the middle of opposing guides, but it seems I have to do the math and enter the numeric half of the total distance?

[Rex Maximilian]

Yes. That should be a thing!

=  ELEMENT  =

[mthd]

DG’s while needing refinement are a proving very useful for me in my workflow. Yes you could have them work with special dynamic dimensions as mentioned above.

At this stage it would be good to be able to have some sort of mode to distinguish between stretchy and static mode. In stretchy mode everything stays connected as with a marquee when editing. Static mode does your move to a new distance and disconnects the elements where applicable. 

I will post a video on how pop up temporary dimensions behave in Chief Architect and even how dynamic dimensions that are on the plan can also move an element. 

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/5429/positioning-and-resizing-objects-using-dimensions.h...

In AC27 the dimension will change after an edit but in CA you can also move an element from the placed dimension by clicking on it. In other words it works like a two way switch.

Revit is similar to CA and over a decade ago they had a mass exodus to Revit because it was full BIM as well.

Editing walls in Revit video below.

https://youtu.be/5o7csbyyo3k?si=SVqcxm2AmFZZ_xw4

Edit: In Archicad you could click on an element and have the distance guide pop up with a pet pallet of at least two icons to choose between stretch or move.

[DGSketcher]

@mthd Thank you for sharing those videos. I think there are three big takes from them...

1. The competition already has dimension adjustment of elements working. This could have been coupled with the long established automatic dimensioning tool. It just shows how much GS are dropping the ball.

2. CA highlights that in any situation there may be more than one potential intended outcome and simply changing a dimension is not enough.

3. These adjustments work because the dimension is tied to specific element node, not randomly placed to a bounding box, which coupled with the selection process gives the intelligence to the options.

I am even more convinced that the DG tool is a superficial feature issued for marketing purposes to raise somebody's profile before they leave. Sorry, but stuffing up Archicad with pointless & experimental features is not something to be proud of when it comes to presenting your CV.

[Tamas Samu]

Hey folks, apologies for the delay. I love that there is an ongoing conversation under the post with creative ideas popping up, thanks for taking your time sharing them with us. I would also like to ask anyone who hasn't filled the survey to do so. It's an average 7 mins time.

@DGSketcher & @thesleepofreason  I appreciate your feedback and understand your concerns. Distance guides are designed to help new and less experienced users; we understand that they may not be as useful for more experienced users like you. We worked with a number of users while planning and developing distance guides, which has been frequently requested as a feature. We realize that the current DG release is in still in the early stages of implementation, but we wanted to get it out as soon as possible for additional feedback from the wider user base. Thanks again for your input!

@Karl Ottenstein  Unfortunately this is not supported currently, but I fully agree with you, it does seem like a useful addition to distance guides. I have forwarded it to product management for future consideration.

@mthd  I am glad you find it useful in your daily work. As I mentioned in an earlier response DG is still in early stages of development, we hope we can improve upon this in the future following your feedbacks.

[thesleepofreason]

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@DGSketcher & @thesleepofreason  I appreciate your feedback and understand your concerns. Distance guides are designed to help new and less experienced users; we understand that they may not be as useful for more experienced users like you. We worked with a number of users while planning and developing distance guides, which has been frequently requested as a feature. We realize that the current DG release is in still in the early stages of implementation, but we wanted to get it out as soon as possible for additional feedback from the wider user base. Thanks again for your input!

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This does not read good at all. So not only are functionality needed for a high efficiency modern workflow put on the backburner by MEP - now we also have aids for less experienced users getting in front? Are we professional users being naive when we expect GS to deliver a software that allows us to push our productivity to the next level? Is in fact our productivity capped by GS's desire to increase the number of users at the bottom?

[DGSketcher]

Sorry Tamas, I'm trying not to shoot the messenger, but GS really are losing the plot. We know AC is complex, but adding yet another feature doesn't help simplifying the whole experience, which is the core of the problem. You can't argue for helping new and less experienced users with a box of crayons after GS have made the decision to load Archicad up as a multidisciplinary software full of stuff even us "more experienced" users don't understand or need. This suggestion of a need for DG is just utter rubbish as a development policy, and when you look at all the ignored wishes & suggestions to simplify the AC workflow you should see that point. 

It very apparent that GS's resources are overstretched, with zero QA, failed launches, part developed new features and stuff that becomes "experimental" because it failed Beta, but got launched anyway. Stop ####ing about with trivia like DG and AI visuals and get the core functionality of AC fixed along with the crippling bugs that get worse each year!!!

[mthd]

Hi all, Distance Guides are not meant to be just training wheels for new users or for ones who are used to other CAD systems that have similar features. They provide important feedback on the location of elements and provide an automatic measurement tool. They will already speed up my workflow because I will not need to take so many measurements with the measurement tool now and in the future.

I have only been testing them at this stage and yes they can get in the way and I have many years of using AC without them. Revit is a professional tool and many experienced users use that software effectively. Archicad is too complicated in comparison to Revit & Chief Architect when it comes to dimensions and the accurate placement of building elements. There a way too many steps involved and too many input commands to get to the right location. I don’t have time to sit around and wait for a blue circle to show up or to press an extra Q key.

Granted AC is much better in many other areas in comparison to Revit & CA. To speed up the workflow in AC we need this feature to be developed more and made robust enough to help make AC much faster at placing elements in the exact correct position without too many steps or delays.

Most of the users here are accustomed to the old workflow in AC and they will need time to adapt to something much faster with the use of Distance Guides in the future. Experimental at this stage but in time I hope many will come to realize that they have the potential to speed us up. Especially when we have a builder breathing down our neck and wanting the concept or the full documentation complete.

I can still model a reasonably simple home in half the time with CA because of its simple system of placing and joining elements and much of it is defaulted to simple project home design template. I prefer the finer level of detail in AC and the extra precision in the documentation process so that’s why I use it. I guess you could say CA is my concept modeler for project homes. With the new Distance Guides development I can potentially save allot of time modeling a simple project home quickly right inside AC.

As regards to the problem of distance guides being in the way. Why not have them produce outside of the plan area where the dimension lines usually are when editing walls ? For other elements like doors or windows they are ok where they are at present. Finer detail of being able to measure from the core of the wall can be added to the drop down tool bar as an option. Some suggestions to help them work better and preventing them from getting in the way where possible.

[thesleepofreason]

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@mthd wrote:

Most of the users here are accustomed to the old workflow in AC and they will need time to adapt to something much faster with the use of Distance Guides in the future. Experimental at this stage but in time I hope many will come to realize that they have the potential to speed us up. Especially when we have a builder breathing down our neck and wanting the concept or the full documentation complete.

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Framing this as a question of accustomedness is simplistic. I'm all for enhancement of the input process but introducing a new feature which is underdeveloped and without a clear path forward is a symptom of the flawed development which is turning AC into a UI mess.

All that was needed to achieve the current functionality of distance guides was a rather simple enhancement of the snap references so that the tracker shows distance to the reference lines or points. It could look exactly as distance guides does now with the indicator.

Instead of hoping that the program chooses the correct reference or having to manually adjust when it doesn't the user would be in control of selecting the reference making the process quicker and removing the graphical clutter of irrelevant information. Tying it to snap guides and the tracker would also mean that we naturally have it available not just for placing or moving elements but for every input - so also editing nodes.

Apart from being a superior solution this also has the benefit of developers working with already existing functionality increasing the chance that they will find other things to improve or enhance "while at it".

So no this has nothing to do with accustomedness - it's simply bad development.

[DGSketcher]

@mthd Well you toned that down a bit from... "let’s get this straight." You aren't speaking from any position of authority here and neither am I, my posts are driven by a growing frustration, fuelled by a lack of investment of the funds we provide to make AC better e.g. delivering what users are asking for, and let's get this straight, DG was never one of them. You may say it isn't a "training wheel", but that is exactly what Graphisoft described in their response above - Distance guides are designed to help new and less experienced users. Now you may be finding use for it as a quick measure tool, that's fine, but the point remains that these kind of developments are a superficial distraction, counter to your opinion they add to AC's complexity in unseen ways and they suck resources from other essential development that would help far more people.

You know it's funny, but in the video links you provided I didn't see anything remotely similar to the DG tool, unless I missed it? Associative dimensions is a very different function and one that I would welcome, but a measure tool that is trying to second guess what you want to do and what points to reference, well, it really is a non-starter.

[mthd]

Yes, “the let’s get this straight” was directed to the training wheels scenario. I don’t think they are developing DG’s for that purpose only and if they did it would be a pretty weak excuse don’t you think ? 

@DGSketcher wrote: “Associative dimensions is a very different function and one that I would welcome,” totally agree with you here and that’s where it becomes a real useful function and not just a training wheels gimmick hey ? I think GS are professional enough that when they put their mind to something they will eventually get it done. Our local distributor wants us to give them time to develop these new things but when the focus is on MEP its not the first priority. 

Hang in there time will tell.

[DGSketcher]

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@mthd wrote:

I don’t think they are developing DG’s for that purpose only and if they did it would be a pretty weak excuse don’t you think ? 

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Welcome to the mindset of Graphisoft. "Can someone think of a plausible excuse for our latest failure."

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@mthd wrote:

Hang in there time will tell.

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That's the other concept Graphisoft can't grasp - Time - everything is charged by the minute and needed yesterday, yet we have broken tools that take years to fix and develop AFTER they have been launched. Sorry Sir, I know your new car is incomplete, but if you bring it back every three months we will try to fit the missing parts, although that may at any point lead to ignition failure...