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

[runxel]

This dialog always amused me. Slabs are not affected by it! Yet they are displayed very prominently here.

But yeah, very typical again from GS lately, just as DGSketcher said. Instead of fixing the stuff, that needs to be fixed, we see things being touched that should be left alone. Like nobody ever complained about the Attribute Manager. It was one of the few things that worked really well. Alas! GS invested a lot of manpower to replace it with something that was flawed from the beginning and only reacted very reluctantly.
And now this.

It's telling that you don't understand your own product. Using the FPCP is mostly about fighting symptoms! I only go there, when there is something off and I need to handle it. But this is NOT the solution! The solution would be to better handle all the individual tools and options, and taking consistency seriously, just as Barry mentions.

One big issue for years?
Split-Level buildings. You'll have to juggle alot with the FPCP and different views stitched together on a layout. It's a constant hassle and will probably never work out perfectly... But that is not an issue of the FPCP or its dialogue!

[torben_wadlinger]

Or to say it with no words:

[Dendarii]

Great points and totally agree.  The standard plan views should be 3D document plan views (ie. cut plane view looking down on the model - like Revit does), and completely indendent of 'stories'.

To allow drafting/modelling in plan there could be a toggle switch (part of Trace?) to show 'hidden' elements (ie. joists under flooring) or 'overhead' elements (ie. ceiling/lights etc.) as say a light colour like Trace, so that they can be selected and modified while in plan view.

'Hidden' or 'overhead' elements could be switched on/off per view and linetype controlled by FPCP or Graphic Overrides.  Also could add 'fade distance elements'  just like sections/elevations - in fact the floor plans should literally be horizontal Sections/Elevations.

This would remove all the 'overhead/outline linetypes',  'show on stories', etc. element settings issues and simplify the whole process of creating plans/rcp's.

[henryL]

5 quick answers:

1 - The cut plane heigght

2 - No, it could be better (italian version user)

3 - I use it for every view that requires to show different informations, tipically foundations view, interior plans, roof plans uses different FPCP settings

4 - Mostly in permission drawing phases

5 - The offset parameter: is the positive value moving up or down the visibility plane ? 

[Mahmoud Qenawi]

I guess we can adjust FPCP visually by opening the plan view from view map and using 3D Cutting Planes we can adjust them horizontally then go to an axonometric view then adjust them vertically and by going to view settings we can press ( redefine FPCP based-on current view settings ).

The result is we have two options to define the view’s FPCP :

1) either to define FPCP numerically from view settings.

2) or to define FPCP visually by cutting planes then back to view settings and redefine

[ArchiMind]

To be honest, as many mentioned here, don't touch something that ain't broken. GS needs to revamp tools that are far more outdated and need in improvement. The most critical being is the wall tool. Instead of having clean intersections with the composite walls, we have to do a lot of workarounds in order to have clean connections and clean graphical representation. GS should think more in the direction of subelement editing so that BIM models become one step closer to "digital twin" instead of touching something that works and then we receive messages about how it was done for better collaboration with other disciplines. GS please, you already have been neglecting architects (which this tool is primarily made for) with v25 and v26.

Cheers

[jl_lt]

I agree with the general feeling here, in which change for the sake of change is seldom good. Specially if that which you want to change actually works in a reasonably good way.

Having said that, a little button that says "select section view," with provides inmediate feedback of all these settings would be nice.

Ill explain: currently you only have the fixed diagramatic section that explains each setting, which is fine and can stay. What im asking for is, within this dialogue, to have the ability to select a section, and then a part of that section (say near the facade), all within the current floor level you are adjusting. Once You select your partial section, can see how these cut planes settings behave in your project real time and You can even manually adjust them, something similar to the edit level functionality available in section view.

Something tells me that If we extrapolate this cut plane/per section/per floor concept we might actually be able to handle split levels more easily

[DGSketcher]

There isn't a big difference between the section / elevation marks (which could be merged) and what could be delivered here. Put simply, currently you select a section mark and then adjust your options to cut only, view limits & marked distant. The same logic could be applied when selecting a storey mark in section.

I do however think the creation of a volumetric view tool is potentially a better long term solution that could lead to the consolidation of many of the view tools and deliver visual editing of the content boundaries / limits.  

[abdelaziz]

Hi, 

you say this option is not broken? of course yes this option is well broken, it is sencer to work even with 3d and 2d objects, so I invite you to place a 2d object on a floor and display it on all the appropriate floors which is sencer communicated with this menu and finally you will find that this option is broken

[ArchiMind]

@abdou 

The problem of objects arent tied to floor section setting. It has to do more with MVO setting, and the principle of how objects are coded. Other building elements that compose design, are more affected by this topic, but even so, they are much more easily overcome. I still believe that basic tools need to be revamped, and this could be something that happens in later iterations of the software.

Cheers,