HOW DO SMALL FIRMS WORK?

[Anonymous]

I work in a small firm (5 people). There are two principals who do not use ArchiCAD, and three of us, myself included, who do. We do a lot of residential work and some commercial/institutional.

What I am trying to figure out is how most firms around our size work in ArchiCAD. Do you do all 3D, or a combination of 2D and 3D? I will explain how we work and you can tell me how far behind the times we are...

We do all our floorplans the standard way, using wall composites, library parts, etc., but we do some lines on the floorplans to show ceiling lines, wall type markers, etc. (I think this is a given). We do make sure wall heights, slab/roof heights, etc. are all correct so we can show clients a nice 3D model, so for the most part we have tight, accurate 3D models.

I think where we are "behind the times" is when we get to elevations and sections. These we do all as line drawings. We use the model as a backdrop to make sure we are on track and walls, etc are where they are supposed to be, but due to the level of detail our principals like to see, we find that making line drawings with fills are more detailed than anything else we know how to do.

I know we should look into the complex profiles/profile manager tool, I admit that we are usually too busy and the principals don't allow much time to further our knowledge in ArchiCAD, just enough time to do the project. We have explained that we can increase productivity by learning more, and now we have a few hours a week dedicated to "messing around" in the program. We don't add footings to basement walls, for example, because we just draw them in 2D in the sections.

So summarizing the questions:

1) How you do work? All 3D sections/elevation? Line?

2) What tools do you use?

3) What tools/methods would you recommend using to be more 3D (thus more efficient)?

[Anonymous]

jbArch wrote:
But how do most users deal with the outlines of the mesh? See clouded areas in my new attachment. I can't for the life of me figure out how to make the mesh have no outlines in section.

In AC11/12 I just used to offset the entire edge of the view in the layout by 1mm thus hiding any unwanted edge lines. It does however mean that there is an extra manual task to be done, which rather goes against the idea of the process being completely automated!

I love the fact there are half a dozen different ways to try and represent a standard foundation-in-the-ground detail, but none of them are the perfect solution, and all require a certain amount of 2d linework to get exactly the representation you need. I suppose that's half the trick with ArchiCAD, knowing the best tools and techniques to get closest to what you're after!

[owen]

David wrote:

jbArch wrote:
But how do most users deal with the outlines of the mesh? See clouded areas in my new attachment. I can't for the life of me figure out how to make the mesh have no outlines in section.

ArchiCAD 13 has a new feature to address this issue, see:
BOUNDARY OUTLINE

(I could not quickly find this added feature on Graphisoft's web page.)

David

Fantastic! ... this one has been a relatively quickly fullfilled wish

Now for the flattened elevations ... although i would take it a bit further to something like the unfold surface ability of Rhino