Detail Tool - Same Reference ID #s

[owen]

hi all

frequent reader of these forums and they usually answer any questions i have without even needing to ask, so i may have missed this if it was discussed:

Can anyone please explain why the Detail Tool will not allow you to have the same Reference ID number more than once in a project, yet the Section Tool (for example) will?

Inconsistencies like this keep popping up in ArchiCAD .. why?!

I've only just started using the Detail tool on a new project, but find i cannot use it to number in the same way as we use Sections for example:

Take a Section. We use the Sections Reference ID as the Drawing Number and the Sections Name as the Sheet Number, so for the standard reference format of Drawing Number/Sheet Number we have Section Reference ID/Section Name

01/121.01
02/121.01
01/121.02

which nicely appear in the Project Map as

01 121.01
02 121.01
01 121.02

now i cannot do the same thing with the Detail Tool as it will only let me have any Reference ID once. So for example i cannot have the following drawings

01/655.01
02/655.01
01/655.02

as the Detail Reference ID 01 is used twice. It just doesn't let me enter it, if i do it changes it automatically to the next available unused number.

can anyone explain a) why the hell does the EXACT SAME parameter behave differently in different tools , and b) does anyone have a suggestion on a work around for this?


cheers

Owen

[Anonymous]

owen wrote:
Can anyone please explain why the Detail Tool will not allow you to have the same Reference ID number more than once in a project, yet the Section Tool (for example) will?

I don't know for sure, but I assume the reason is that there can be multiple detail markers which refer to the same detail which is not true of the section tool (unfortunately). Referencing details which have the same numbers could create pilot error if not internal problems.

The whole area of drawing referencing and coordination is a very complex one which needs a lot more attention.

[James Murray]

owen wrote:
Can anyone please explain why the Detail Tool will not allow you to have the same Reference ID number more than once in a project

Because the tool was designed poorly. Can anyone explain why when you try (accidentally) to duplicate the ID, AC just ignores you, doesn't even give a warning dialog? Same reason.

Matthew wrote:
Referencing details which have the same numbers could create pilot error if not internal problems.

I don't see why the referencing couldn't be handled through an internal ID instead of the user ID.

ALL other IDs are repeatable. As the warning might say, 'Consistency checking error in tool.'

This is one of my big peeves. One could say, this tool wasn't implemented well, but the truth is it wasn't designed well at the feasibilty/schematics phase, so how good could the implementation be? Like the label tool, it seems they didn't ask actual architects about some of its basic behaviors until it was too late.

[Anonymous]

James wrote:
I don't see why the referencing couldn't be handled through an internal ID instead of the user ID.

ALL other IDs are repeatable. As the warning might say, 'Consistency checking error in tool.'

You are right of course James. It could have been done, and for consistency it should have. I was just trying to guess why they didn't.

It hasn't been a big deal for me since I have always used unique IDs for sections and details. I have been annoyed, though, when I've needed to renumber details, and have to shuffle them around with temporary IDs. I suppose, for those who want them, there could be an option to require unique IDs (which would be off by default).

There is a (useless) trick that will produce duplicate detail IDs. Create them in concurrent teamwork sessions.

[owen]

The section and detail tools really should be combined into the one tool (is this a wish list item), with an option as to wether you want to cut in the horizontal or vertical planes, maybe with at what height you want to cut too (so those low walls you don't see in section on your plan can be given a sectional plan detail).

anyway, i got round the problem (... i think) by rewritting one of the marker heads used for both the detail and section markers so that the ID is called up as a string and then i use the first part for the sheet number and the second part as the drawing number

eg. 655.01/01 is the ID, which gets broken into 655.01 to put into the sheet number and 01 for the drawing number.

i guess there are other (better?) ways of naming/numbering drawings in ArchiCAD but i've found using the ID this way lists all the sections and details in your Project Map sequentially by sheet then drawing, and as you should only ever have the drawing 655.01/01 once, kind of stops you making mistakes numbering them anyway (for detail ID's at least).

cheers

owen