Community feedback: Floor Plan Cut Plane Settings in Archicad

[Arpad Szabo]

Hi all,

one of our designers is taking a closer look at... Floor Plan Cut Plane Settings!  

It’s a complex but important dialog, and we'd love to know: what do you think? 

Let us know! Just five quick questions will do it... Thanks! 

At first glance, which part of the dialog is easy to understand? 

Do the texts and pictures help you understand what to do? 

In which situations do you use this dialog? 

In which design phase do you use this dialog? 

Which parts of the dialog are hard to use? (The parts you have to keep adjusting to get it right) 

Árpád Szabó
Junior UX researcher - Graphisoft

[DGSketcher]

@Arpad Szabo I don't think there is much that you can change to improve the dialog which for me is constantly fine tuned as the plans develop.

The obvious and most important element is the cut plane which needs set to ensure it collides with openings. The OOTB 1100mm setting will never cover all situations. The one recurring frustration with this is displaying openings on the same story where the sill of higher openings are just above the head of lower openings.

The range limit makes sense once you understand how AC works.

I haven't really seen any point to the absolute display limit although I assume there is some logical reason for it. 

Of all the frustrations / wishes aired on this forum I don't see FPCP settings being one of them, so why is this dialog being scrutinised? Personally I am more interested in potential dialog workflow improvements like View Styles which were also researched and never happened or the often repeated request for consistency in element storey display settings. Sorry to get negative, but we are repeatedly told GS has limited resources, yet here we are researching stuff which is low priority for end users. 

[thesleepofreason]

The current dialog is easy to understand but it is inefficient not being able to save settings and apply them to views.  

I do however think that the process the dialog is used in, setting up horizontal 2D views of the model, is both cumbersome and limiting due to it being tied to stories and with the contorol split between FPCP and settings of individual elements.

[DGSketcher]

I have a feeling this is going deeper than GS are planning, but I would agree the problems aren't within the FPCP dialog, they are with the juggling of elements to get the right information displayed. Ideally the 2D line & fill display settings should be removed from the elements, (this info comes from material assignment or GOs)  and the FPCP is updated as follows...

1. The cut plane is retained.

2. A cut zone is created which shows all symbolic openings within the zone with an option to include openings wholly or part within the cut zone.

3. Elements between the lower limit and cut zone are shown as hidden line-type or none.

4. Elements between the upper limit and cut zone are shown with overhead line-type or none.

Pens, line-types & fills for the upper & lower zones are set within the FPCP.

Too simplistic? Possibly, but these are the kinds of changes needed to evolve & speed up workflows if we are to get away from the constant hunt for problematic views and element settings.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Agree with @DGSketcher 's points.

My only issue with the dialog itself, which is unchanged since the FPCP was first introduced, is the direction of the arrow for "Show down to" for "Absolute Display Limit"... which points UP.  The other arrows point in the desired direction and so are visually meaningful.  Yes, I realize this is otherwise simply a label, but I think it is helpful for up/down to be visual as well.  My 2 cents. 🙂

[Barry Kelly]

It would also be good if it was a 'live' dialogue.

So as you make changes you can see the results instantly in plan without having to press OK, view the result, set it is still not correct, open the dialogue, make a change, OK, rinse and repeat.

Other than that I don't have issues with the actual dialogue itself.

It is all of the elements that need the same floor plan display options that is a bigger issue.

Barry.

[Algimantas Kuprenas]

Hi, 

Made feedback post about this tool some time ago. At the moment it is very complex tool and I think it should be revamped. Also as many mentions this FPCP should be saved to plan Views settings same as "Layer Combination", "Scale" or other predefined setting.

More information and proposals with tips in following post:
Text and picture from other post: https://community.Graphisoft.com/t5/Wishes-forum/quot-Floor-Plan-Cut-Plane-Settings-quot-adjustment-...
Will help a lot if "Floor Plan Cut Plane Settings" can be adjusted in any Section/Elevation views with handles similar ones that are in "Section/Elevation Range" tool. This will help a lot when investigating why some objects are not visible in plan views 😉

Showing how these handles can be seen in section view.

[David Collins]

It would be great if the FPCP dialog had the option to specify a different cut plane height for each story. I know saved views can have different floor plan cut planes, but it would be nice to have those FPCP heights displayed in the dialog.

[Barry Kelly]

The FPCP height is saved with the view for each storey.

So if you save a view for each storey (which you should be doing) you can have different heights.

You can even have multiple views of the same storey with different FPCP heights.

Activating the view (rather than just changing stories or using the Project Map, will activate the FPCP height on screen that was saved with each view.

Barry.

[torben_wadlinger]

First of all: the purpose of this dialog is to make a setting that affects the plan display. Like all dialogs in Archicad, the process is based on trial and error. So before you discuss what works or doesn't work about the dialog, you should think fundamentally about the interaction between user and software. Everything else is wasted time, because you have to finally make the leap into the 21st century in UX and UI design!