Missing Fills

[Anonymous]

My ARCHICAD 11 fails to load up most Fills on a regular basis. The current profile loads up 16 different fills when i know there are a lot more e.g. steel, brick, metal hatch etc. How do i import these back into my profile??

Kind Regards
Bryan Richards

[David Maudlin]

Bryan:

Go to File > New & Reset to open an empty default ArchiCAD file (on the Mac this is command-option-N, something similar on Windows). Save this file. Open the file you want to add the fills to. Go to the Attribute Manager, and using the "Open..." button below the right pane, open the default file you saved previously. Select the Fills button at the top of the Attribute Manager, and now you will be able to add the fills from the default file to your project file.

If you always want these fills in your projects, start with a default file or add the fills to your template file.

HTH

David

[Link]

Since materials reference fills (hatches) by reference number, I would strongly recommend starting from a New & Reset and adding your attributes to it. Materials and fills are the two types of attributes that should be left well alone IMHO, unless you want to delve right into the depths of each.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

Link,

When you say they should be left alone, do you mean to not make any adjustment such as line weight or pen color to existing fills?

I was looking at fills today and noticed that you could change fill attributes in the attributes dialog and also in the object menu (Im not sure if that's the right word for it). Are you saying to leave the settings in the attributes alone?

[Anonymous]

Of course you're free to make adjustments to fills whenever, wherever you want. Just know.....

....never mess up with the reference numbers of fills, materials and line types! 'New & Reset' will help to reset to default. Start from scratch and apply the append button to add other fills...

[Link]

mc0m wrote:
Link,

When you say they should be left alone, do you mean to not make any adjustment such as line weight or pen color to existing fills?

I was looking at fills today and noticed that you could change fill attributes in the attributes dialog and also in the object menu (Im not sure if that's the right word for it). Are you saying to leave the settings in the attributes alone?

I would advise against deleting or overwriting fills and materials in any of the Options> Element Attributes submenus.

For example*, open up a new file using the ArchiCAD 11 Template.tpl. Then open up the Options> Element Attributes> Materials... dialog. The Brick - White Material has the fill 'Brick - Common Bond' assigned as it's Vectorial Hatching.

Now go to Options> Element Attributes> Attribute Manager... and go to the Fill tab. Brick - Common Bond has the ID# 51. Delete it.

Then go back into the Materials dialog and check out the Brick - White material again. Teh Vectorial Hatching is shown as 'MISSING'. Obviously this is not good.

Furthermore if you merge a model that has a different fill for #51, it will slot itself right into the #51 position in your file. So if that was a grass fill, then the all the Brick - White walls in your model will now have a grass fill applied to them!

My advice for people starting out down the template building road, and even those who are a long way down it, is to leave it how the good Graphisoft progammers gave it. When it comes to fills and materials that is. Deleting materials can play havoc with your library parts. Other attributes don't seem to pose as much of a problem. So I would start off with a New & Reset and change all the other Attributes around. You could try saving a New & Reset and overwriting the fills and materials into your existing file, but because of some hard-coded fills, this is not 100% risk free. If you do it this way be sure to analyze (ie. Print to File) the attributes in each file and compare before and after the merge.

Cheers,
Link.

*These attributes may be different for different localized versions, but the principles are the same.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your comments, Ive reset AC11 with a new tpl file.

Kind Regards
Bryan Richards

[Rex Maximilian]

Link, I don't think it's feasible to start with a "New and Reset" when you already have a template system in place. It might be better to import the fills (or other 'butes) from a file that was started by New and Reset by deleting all fills (but one as you have to keep one fill) in the attribute manager, and THEN overwriting as it will overwrite the one fill and add all of the others with their original index number.

[Link]

Rex wrote:
Link, I don't think it's feasible to start with a "New and Reset" when you already have a template system in place. It might be better to import the fills (or other 'butes) from a file that was started by New and Reset by deleting all fills (but one as you have to keep one fill) in the attribute manager, and THEN overwriting as it will overwrite the one fill and add all of the others with their original index number.

Well I did suggest that...

Link wrote:
You could try saving a New & Reset and overwriting the fills and materials into your existing file, but because of some hard-coded fills, this is not 100% risk free. If you do it this way be sure to analyze (ie. Print to File) the attributes in each file and compare before and after the merge.

It looks like AC11 is much less risky with it's attribute management and hard coded fills, than previous versions. So for people who have developed a template, deleting & overwriting attributes may not be such a danger. But they will still lose any attributes they have made, so an analysis is still necessary before and after any 'merging'.

I guess the point I was trying to make was that it is much safer for new users to start out with a New & Reset and add to it's fills and materials, rather than manipulate attributes all over the shop.

Mahalo,
Link.