Help for a new User

[Anonymous]

Hi, I would like to introduce myself. I have started working at a new job and they use Archicad. I have been using CAD software for about 20 years now and have just come from being the office CAD manager of an office using Revit.

I have now been using Archicad for a few months now and I am still having trouble wrapping my head around methodology as well as some features and was wondering if anyone could help me.

I really do not want this to become a Revit vs Archicad discussion as to which is better -so no hijacking my thread please.

I will be comparing to Revit because that is the software I have been using for the last 4 years.

Anyway here we go:

Plan orientation:
How do you manage different orientation of the plan on different pages. For example site plan should be oriented to true north, this would also be for sun diagrams etc. But for the floor plan quite often the plan is oriented orthangonally to a site boundary or the way the walls run.
Or if you are managing a large site with different buildings that do not run orthagonally to eachother, they would be rotated to align with the page.

Globally setting up object types:
How do you setup a object type (windows, door, slab, wall etc) so that you can globally change it. for example I am doing an office building that has some external windows with louvres. half way down the track we want to change them to be awning sash windows. In Revit you would choose the window type, redefine it and it will automatically change all the windows in the project of that type. How do I do this in Archicad - the same goes for wall types etc?

Dimensions
Can you round millimeter dimensions to the nearest 5mm? Who dimensions to a 1mm tolerance?

Can you redefine the basepoint for one dimension in a dimension string or so you have to erase the whole string and start again?

Text
Is there a quickway to edit text? Currently it is a 3 click process - pick the text, right click - "select and activate" then pick the text. Considering this is probably the most used tool it adds a lot of extra "clicks"

I have also been asked to set up Archicad in the office to some standards and will need some direction on that if possible. - Is the key to object management in setting a hundreds of "favorites" - foe example, wall existing double brick - wall proposed double brick etc?

That's all I will ask at the moment, I have these and many more questions in the future, 😃 but if any one can help me with these initial ones I would be very grateful.

- Gus

[Anonymous]

Gus,

Plan orientation:
Simply rotate the whole drawing in layout, Edit->Move->Rotate, or with the pet palette. The boundary will rotate also, so you will have to select the corner nodes and move them to reform the original boundary. Sounds lengthy, only takes a few seconds.
For multiple plans you can copy and paste your one rotated drawing (for example a ground floor plan) and set it up across all your floor plan layouts as required. Then right click on the ground floor drawing, select "link drawing to" and relink to the other floor plans. The plans will be pulled in rotated as the original.

Globally setting up object types:
Find and select is a powerful tool, Edit->Find&Select. Can be used with the marquee tool to select your relevant windows. With the windows selected, open the windows settings dialogue and change the window type. Same is true of object, walls etc.

Dimensions:
Can't help there I'm afraid...not sure it's possible. Surely regardless of how you dimension you should be modelling accurately? So long as you model to multiples of 5mm the dimensions will be fine? And I for one have always issued drawings with dimensions accurate to 1mm, as does everyone at the practice i'm with...

Text:
With quick selection active (magnet symbol, spacebar standard shortcut) simply double-click on the body of text and it should open the edit dialogue.

Hope these help

Simon

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much, very helpful, I got most of that except for the floor plan stuff.

When you say "link drawing to.." is that for hotlinks?

My thinking is that for the building there is one BIM model, and that different plans are just different view orientations, not completely different plans.

I guess all I want to do is rotate the view "layout" if you will, not the model.

The way I think you should work is that the model is always orientated to north, but working plan views are orientated orthagonally with the page.

So in fact you can view the same model with different orientations.

for example, I would set up a site plan with on a story above the roof that shows the roof of the building I am working on anthe surrounding site. This would be oriented with north straight up the page. The floor plans however would be oriented to have the walls recitilinear with the layout page.

Is this not possible? Surely if you had to copy a plan, every time you changed something you would also have to change it on the other plan?

As I said previously, this is more a methodology question than a "how to" question (although I want to know how to as well).

[Anonymous]

Guzilla

Normal workflow is to save views in the View Map which stores various settings required to display that view on a layout to which it is placed. For example - general Floor Plan, Electrical Plan, Reflected Ceiling Plan are all views of the same part of the model, but with different settings to display the various layers, model view options, pen sets, etc. required for output

What Simon is suggesting is that the view placed on the Layout is rotated to make the plan orthogonal to the sheet. The "Link drawing to..." suggestion refers to the different types of plan - eg. You start with a general Floor Plan on a layout, then create a new layout based on this original plan. Select the View on the Layout and "Link drawing to..." and select an Electrical Plan or Ceiling Plan or other such saved view, so the orientation and position of these new plans are the same as the original.

Hope this helps, and doesn't just confuse you further.

[Anonymous]

ok... so I get you can rotate the view map in the layout book. Can you work in a rotated view so the text and lines are orthangonal?. Just rotating it in the layout book, doesn't help withe the rafting procedure, where there are many different views with different orientations.

[Anonymous]

No, you can't rotate the view you are working on (as in the old UCS-follow I remember from AutoCAD) but you can rotate your grid - Go to View > Grid Options menu.

[Anonymous]

SiRowe wrote:
Dimensions:
Can't help there I'm afraid...not sure it's possible. Surely regardless of how you dimension you should be modelling accurately? So long as you model to multiples of 5mm the dimensions will be fine? And I for one have always issued drawings with dimensions accurate to 1mm, as does everyone at the practice i'm with...


Simon

I am sorry, but having used CAD for over 15 years I can't believe that one can ever build a model that exactly, espacially where existing conditions exist or you are using a surveyors drawing. The real world is not accurate to 1mm, nor is the buidling trade. Not having rounding is a bit illogical by my reckoning.

[Anonymous]

It's all relative.
If I'm designing/building cabinets a 1/64" might be relative.
If I'm designing/building a wall in a existing house, hell the existing house walls are almost always out something, sometimes 1/2-3/4" from top to bottom.
Now tell me a 1/16" matters here and you might get at least some solace talking to a shrink.

[Anonymous]

Guzilla wrote:
I am sorry, but having used CAD for over 15 years I can't believe that one can ever build a model that exactly, espacially where existing conditions exist or you are using a surveyors drawing. The real world is not accurate to 1mm, nor is the buidling trade. Not having rounding is a bit illogical by my reckoning.

Hi Guzilla,

I can tell you that when you work with metal structures every fraction of mm counts...

and besides this... a BIM software must cover lots of professional niches... Not only yours.

About rounding dimensions by 1 mm... Yes you can.. you can found this information here.

Good luck.

[Erika Epstein]

lec1212 wrote:
Now tell me a 1/16" matters here and you might get at least some solace talking to a shrink.

I've said this before and I will say it again. I keep the tolerances set to 1/64", the highest available in Imperial dimensions. This insures I know immediately if my model is off. A little bit here and there and the errors multiply.

If you have dimensional errors that are not seen because you set the display to 1/2" for example, then you will come also see dimension strings not adding up. I minimize this problem with software tolerances setting dimensions to 1/64" accuracy.

A work around is to have a set of views set to 1/64" to check dimensions. But that's a workaround.