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

Has anybody used slabs for site contour modeling?

4hotshoes
Advisor
I have not used slabs or mesh for a site yet in AC. But I like the look of stepped contours in a 3D model as they are easier to read. Will I run into odd issues in AC if I use slabs stacked (like the old hand built cardboard site models), or does the Mesh have the option to show stepped contours?

I have a 2D drawing of the site with contours. I don't have enough experience with AC to know the easiest way.

Thanks
Todd Oeftger
AC27 Mac MacBook Pro 15", 2019, 2.3 GHz i9, 32GB, Radeon Pro 560X 4GB, 500GB SSD, 32" Samsung Display (2560x1440)
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Karl Ottenstein
Moderator
People have posted examples of slabbed/cardboard-look site models here in the past - can't find the threads after a quick search just now, though.

No, the mesh cannot display as vertical steps. It will either be polygonal or smoothed. Magic wanding a 2D site topo to get a curvaceous site mesh is relatively easy as is doing the same to create slabs. Elevating each slab to the proper height is most easily done in the 3D window and snapping to the top or bottom of the adjacent slab. (Assumes that you made each slab the proper depth/height to correspond to the survey contour lines that you are tracing.)

Gravity is one of the important / useful things when working with sloping sites... and Gravity for placed objects can be enabled for both meshes and slabs, so you're good there
One of the forum moderators
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