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Modeling
About Archicad's design tools, element connections, modeling concepts, etc.

Ellipse cannot keep its shape, but turns into a circle

Anonymous
Not applicable
Hello!

When creating a new profile in Profile Manager, my ellipsoid contour becomes circular.

Here is what I do step by step:
1. Open Profile Manager, create new profile.
2. With Line Tool, I create a rectangle and inside of it a draw an ellipse, also with line tool.
3. Then I select Fill Tool and while holding space bar I click on the rectangle to transform it into filled surface.
4. Next I select that surface, and with Fill Tool selected and while holding Space Bar, I click on the ellipse in order to make an ellipsoid hole in the surface.

But the hole is circular and not ellipsoid.

If I do everything the same, but with a bit bigger ellipse, everything seems to work fine and the hole keeps its ellipsoid shape.

Does someone know why is this happening?

Thank You!
15 REPLIES 15
Dontknow
Enthusiast
It's working over here:

As 4th step try this:
4. Select the Fill Tool, Shift-select the fill and click on the ellips with your Magic Wand (spacebar).

Good luck.

Dontknow
Architectural construction designer, draftsman, modeller
ArchiCAD 25.
Anonymous
Not applicable
Thank you Dontknow for your answer!
But I still can't manage to succeed.
It still seems as if there is some boundary under which the ellipse is too small sized, and it gets approximated to a circle.
Dontknow
Enthusiast
Made a video of it.
Maybe that will help you.
Architectural construction designer, draftsman, modeller
ArchiCAD 25.
Anonymous
Not applicable
Thank you so much for your help and the video!
Could you check if you can get the same result if you create a big surface and a much smaller ellipse of approximately same sizes as on my attached photo?
Because I can also get the result which you got in the video, if I make a bigger ellipse.
Dontknow
Enthusiast
Bigger rectangle and small ellipse also gives me a circle as hole!
Must be de precision of the ellipse when it's smaller.
Architectural construction designer, draftsman, modeller
ArchiCAD 25.
Anonymous
Not applicable
Yes, it must be something like that then.
Thank you for checking!
Dontknow
Enthusiast
What does work is this:
Make a small rectang and a small ellipse.
Make the fill with the elliptical hole and at last make the fill bigger with offset all edges.
Architectural construction designer, draftsman, modeller
ArchiCAD 25.
Anonymous
Not applicable
Hmm, it seems I can't make it work like that either.
I also tried to make it the other way round, big ellipse cut out of the fill, and then offset edges, but i get some irregular ellipse (the other image attached).
Daniel Kovacs
Graphisoft Alumni
Graphisoft Alumni
Hi,

This is not a Complex profile issue, but a magic wand issue.

Fills cannot handle circles and ellipses, they can only handle segments of curves. So if you are to make an elliptical shape in a complex profile, you would need to magic wand the ellipse that you drew with the arc tool, and it will break it down into smaller circular curve segments.

Now, Magic wand can't do this 1 to 1, because it needs to simplify the curves to some extent, so it has a tolerance setting for curves (Deviation from curves) in the "Design>Magic Wand Settings..." menu.
By default this is set to 40, and that basically means, it will be able to simplify ellipses smaller than 40-50 mm by a single circle.

If you go to "Design>Magic Wand Settings...", and change it to a smaller value (e.g. 1), it will be able to create smaller elliptical holes as well. Please note, that it is not recommended at all, to use curves in complex profiles, because they increase polygon counts significantly! (that is one of the reasons it is set to 40 by default).

I hope this solved your issue.

Regards,
Daniel Alexander Kovacs

Professional Services Consultant

GRAPHISOFT



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