Multi Story settings

[Anonymous]

Hello I'm working on a group project drawing an existing factory complex.
The complex consist of 4 buildings of very different story hights. as mentioned we are a group working on each our building and to make it easier to draw we've each made our own story settings. In the end we have to merge the drawing to one .pln but the but since the story settings are different everything changes.
Is there a way to merge the drawings together without manually changing all the elements hight references to ground zero?
I hope I've explained it well enough thanks
Kevin Jensen
ArchiCAD 14 EDU
vista 32

[Anonymous]

You can use:
1. MODULES...Save all 4 objects as a separated ".mod" file and then insert them in an empty .pln that has a number of stories equal to a .mod file with a higher number of stories (I use this method, but the stories hight were equal, only floor plans were different).

2. Save all 4 objects as a separated ".gsm" objects file and then insert them in an empty .pln

I hope these was helpful in some way.

[Anonymous]

There is a third way which is to create a master story structure that includes the stories of all the buildings and is used in all the files. It can be quite cumbersome, and having multiple, unused stories in each building model file can create difficulties with elements (particularly library parts) that display on multiple stories.

I am not necessarily recommending this approach and have used it only rarely myself but it does have some advantages. Mainly it simplifies the linking and updating in the overall site model and will preserve inter-story SEO relationships.

To make it work requires careful naming and organization of the stories with each story name including both building and story references (ie BLDG-A L1, BLDG-C L4, etc)

The separate story modules approach also can work with varying story heights and elevations by moving the modules up and down in 3D. You can also put all the story modules on the same story in the site plan and just stack them up in 3D. If you need to turn modules on and off to simulate going up and down the stories in plan you can do this with the modules' master layers and create layer combinations to switch stories.

The approach to take depends very much on what you need to do with the overall site model. If it is just for 3D rendering then any of these methods will work. If you are also generating plans and perhaps other drawings then you will need to use linked MOD or PLN files. The other main consideration will be how often you need to update the changes.

[Anonymous]

This is something I've wondered. I drew a castle like building once for my amusement, but I drew it all one one floor because I did it in 3D and didn't worry about dividing it up. Since I had done it that way, I wondered if there was a way of doing horizontal sections to simulate 2D "stories" so I could actually map the castle out. I don't think there is, that's why I never asked, maybe there is? Is there?

I suppose it could be done somewhat in 3D with cutting planes and saving the result as a top-down view that would become the new "story". But it would be in 3D. And it would be weird to have the text, the annotation, etc in 3D and floating in space. But it might be neat. Though I can see how it would be a ton of work to hack the drawing together to make it look right (and the quantity of layers would be astronomical).

Also, I wonder how it might work if one were to create as many stories as there are feet (or whatever unit is appropriate) in elevation from the lowest to the highest point, regardless of which building it was. Lets say it was 300 feet from the bottom of building A's footing to building B's roof would result in 300 stories. Name each story the elevation in feet from zero or sea level. Start each building in the appropriate elevation story and have the objects set to all relevant stories. Then it would be a matter of setting the appropriate views to simulate the new "stories". Since this is a variation of Matthew's method, I could see the same advantages and disadvantages he listed would apply. But I wonder if it could be made to work?

[Link]

Matthew wrote:
There is a third way which is to create a master story structure that includes the stories of all the buildings and is used in all the files. It can be quite cumbersome, and having multiple, unused stories in each building model file can create difficulties with elements (particularly library parts) that display on multiple stories.

I am not necessarily recommending this approach and have used it only rarely myself but it does have some advantages. Mainly it simplifies the linking and updating in the overall site model and will preserve inter-story SEO relationships.

To make it work requires careful naming and organization of the stories with each story name including both building and story references (ie BLDG-A L1, BLDG-C L4, etc)....

This is now the standard practice here. I rolled it out about 6 months ago and it works quite well. For most projects we have just one 'module' file, with a pre-set stories assigned to individual floor plates, unit plans, cores, etc, and one 'master' file.

We publish each story form the 'module' file to module file format and hotlink the MODs into the Master file. All on TW2.

The upsides:

-In the 'module' file you can trace reference between plans nicely.
-We don't experience any issues with multi-story library parts (as we export the current story only).
-Publishing is very simple.
-MOD files are tiny.
-Updating is very quick.
-Relinking is easy & intuitive.
-Hovering over a hotlinked MOD file reveals the exact name of the MOD (not just the file it comes from), assuming your naming conventions are descriptive.

The downsides:

-Inter-story SEOs don't actually hold their relationships AFAIK and can't be re-SEO'd in the Master file.
-If new stories are inserted into the 'module file', all the links will break (this is a technical limitation to date, and is why we have more than enough stories preset in the module file, and add to the top/bottom if we must.
-A dimensioned structural grid needs to be re-dimensioned on each story once it is placed in the Master file (the grid remains visible on all stories, but not the dims).
The publishing path/location of the MOD files is not on the BIM Server as such, so can cause problem if teamworking remotely, with a VPN into the folder too.
- Whilst the name of the MOD file is traceable in the hotlink manager, the (name of the) source file isn't.

It looks like an equal argument, but from a practical point of view, there's no way we would go back to hotlinking entire projects anymore.

We just hope that GS can clear some of the downsides!

Cheers,
Link.

[David Maudlin]

zeropointreference wrote:
This is something I've wondered. I drew a castle like building once for my amusement, but I drew it all one one floor because I did it in 3D and didn't worry about dividing it up. Since I had done it that way, I wondered if there was a way of doing horizontal sections to simulate 2D "stories" so I could actually map the castle out. I don't think there is, that's why I never asked, maybe there is? Is there?

You could try the Floor Plan Cut Plane feature. You can create as many Views as you need and assign different FPCP settings to each. Objects may be the most difficult to control with this approach.

David

[Anonymous]

Thank's David, I don't know why I didn't think of that.

You were saying objects might be difficult to control, how come? Is it because of everything being on the same floor?

The whole reason I brought the castle up was could it be applied to the project Kevin mentioned in the original post? What might the advantages and disadvantages be if the factory complex was modeled with one story that was big enough to encompass the whole project and model it first in 3D and then eventually add 2D views generated from that 3D model in the form of FPCP views?

The whole point of this would be to generate buildings with different heights and story needs in the same project but not have story conflicts caused by ArchiCAD's story settings.

Or is this just unworkable?

[David Maudlin]

zeropointreference wrote:
You were saying objects might be difficult to control, how come? Is it because of everything being on the same floor?

My comment was based on these threads:
ac_toplevel / ac_bottomlevel and all relevant stories
All Relevant Stories for ArchiCAD Objects?

I don't have a lot of experience scripting objects for the FPCP, but it is evident that many objects are missing the code for this. Other elements (walls, columns, roofs, etc.) have the FPCP display code built in, in the case of objects it is up to the GDL coder, so results will vary.

The situation Kevin describes has been discussed many times on this forum, with no one method being ideal, and they all call for workarounds and/or carful file management. So I guess you pick the best strategy for your situation and make the best of it.

[While I like the zeropointreference name and location, I wouldn't mind seeing a reference to your actual location maybe snuck into your signature, building practices vary within the US ]

David

[archislave]

Wow! It is kind of sad after 25 years of development and BIM hype we still don't have an app that understands architecture beyond the most rudimentary buildings. We are so behind other industries in software development. I am still a loyal Archicad user since it is better than many alternatives so far or at least equal. None of them stand out. I just asked a question about design options and it just involves sort of the same cumbersome file saving trickery.

[Anonymous]

archislave wrote:
Wow! It is kind of sad after 25 years of development and BIM hype we still don't have an app that understands architecture...

Sometimes it seems that after 2500 years we still don't have brains that understand Architecture

Seriously though what we do is, as far as I am concerned, the most complex of all human undertaking. Of course it's not rocket science. It's way more complex than that. Rockets are basically a very advanced but singular engineering problem. We have many complex engineer problems to which we must add utility, beauty, community, ecology, durability, economy....

Frankly I think we are doing remarkably well in developing software to assist us with this most monumental of all tasks.