Drawing Walls Fast

[Anonymous]

Hello fellow ArchiCADists I was wondering if anyone here could or has posted a You Tube video on how to draw walls fast with ArchiCAD?

I saw this Reviteer shred thru a model at lightening speed, his video is called "Revit From Scratch" Please take a look and see if any of you can shred thru a similar size residential model in ArchiCAD and post it on You Tube.

I was particularly impressed with the drawing walls and the witness line temp dimension when placing openings as well.

Is it time for us to get our productivity going faster and keep the ArchiCADians from departing to the Reviteer camp?

If so can we please have a witness line temp dimension system or the like to speed up our model building?

[Karl Ottenstein]

Not sure what you're asking for AC speed... doing the same thing in AC is just as fast... just done differently. All pretty basic stuff. A few things shown are possible only in Revit; AC has other things that Revit can't do. People aren't leaving AC for speed-of-modeling reasons AFAIK, or if they are, then they I don't think they ever fully learned how to use AC.

Yeah, maybe GS marketing should do some similar videos...

The link to the 4 year old video that you mention is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGScnVZwiXs

[Anonymous]

Hi Karl,
What does AFAIK stand for?

ArchiCAD is faster and straight forward in many other things for me that is why I have not changed to Revit.

I was being specific about the placing of walls and objects into their exact positions with the help of pop up dimensions that can be clicked and fed the right value and are set.

BTW you can use your left hand with a number keypad to input the right value to set elements into exact positions, very handy when editing or revising plans or models?

I have come from using Chief Architect and I am sure that Revit took this input method from them because they have been around allot longer than them.

If we can make ArchiCAD even better, than why not?

If I and others need to see a speed method of using ArchiCAD in the specific case of drawing walls and placing object please show us You Tube demo or please provide one?

Anyone here game enough to take up the chalange?

[Stress Co_]

mthd wrote:
What does AFAIK stand for?

As Far As I Know

DAMHIK

[Dwight]

Never get caught out again, with



Acronym Finder!!!!!

[Anonymous]

I use both programs extensively and find ArchiCAD to be faster at most things than Revit, laying out walls included*.

The problem I have with what you are suggesting (besides not having time to do it) is that there are many different circumstances and requirements for laying out walls and even if we pick one that is fairly representative it is only a very small part of the whole design and modeling process. It is also something that both programs are very good at so considering all the factors I not sure the comparison would be all that useful.

*Particularly when the magic wand comes into play. Or using PDFs as a reference. Or when needing snaps, locks and constraints that Revit does'nt manage to do well.

[Anonymous]

Matthew wrote:
I use both programs extensively and find ArchiCAD to be faster at most things than Revit, laying out walls included*.

The problem I have with what you are suggesting (besides not having time to do it) is that there are many different circumstances and requirements for laying out walls and even if we pick one that is fairly representative it is only a very small part of the whole design and modeling process. It is also something that both programs are very good at so considering all the factors I not sure the comparison would be all that useful.

*Particularly when the magic wand comes into play. Or using PDFs as a reference. Or when needing snaps, locks and constraints that Revit does'nt manage to do well.

Hi Matt,
Thanks for that valuable input. May I ask you, how long have been using Revit in comparison with ArchiCAD? and could it be a factor that because you may have started with one program and spent more time using it and getting familiar with it that you are faster with it?

I find that that is the case with me, I am much faster in Chief Architect than ArchiCAD when it comes to non complicated houses. I wished I started in ArchiCAD then I might be better at it and have more preset templates to work from in order to speed up my productivity.

I would like to see a video or two of how fast some of you guys can work in ArchiCAD it would make for good advertising of the product maybe some of the re sellers could put something together for us.

Matt, you are right the flexibility of ArchiCAD allows for many methods of modeling in ArchiCAD in fact too many to work out what is the best way to do it?

[Anonymous]

Well I have been using ArchiCAD since about 1988 so it's unlikely my experience with Revit will ever catch up, but I am expert enough in Revit (familiar with it from the beginning, actively using it for over four years) to feel confident that most tasks are faster, easier and/or more accurate in ArchiCAD. Sometimes extraordinarily so.

As far as the videos go. I don't really have the time or interest ATM.

Regarding flexibility, the best technique is what ever gets the job done and puts money in the bank.

[Anonymous]

Yes it does come down to productivity in the end.

I have been drawing boxes with the line tool to represent rooms and then drawing walls around the edges with the wall tool. This helps with space plannng.

I might try using a method described by Dwight of drawing walls around fills with the majic wand and leaving a rooms gap between the fills so I don't get wall produced over walls.

I will see how I go?

[Dwight]

If you use the fills/zones touching method and then magic wand the wall, you'll quickly see which offset wall to select for deletion.

It also pays to use gross floor areas resulting in wall centerline measures. This way you magic wand to the wall centerline.

Another approach to locating overlapping elements is to use the Add-On "Check Duplicates" to find and select exactly overlapping objects. See Archicad Downloads under Help Menu for this secret tool.