Noob questions on 2D drafting in ArchiCAD

[justdhruv]

I have been a long time vectorworks user. But want to move up to ArchiCAD now.

I was trying to do a pilot with one of my projects. But i have one basic question about 2D drafting.

Most of all i am missing the "object info" palette of vectorworks. This palette gives a all the info about the selected object. For example if you click on the rectangle, the object info palette will give the height, width, area perimeter and and you can change the various properties of the selected object, right from the palette itself.

Is there not such thing in ArchiCAD?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[justdhruv]

thought i'll post one more screen shot for the object info palette.

[alemanda]

I think that if you want to learn archicad you should forget Vectorworks and you should not expect from archicad what Vectorworks does. I did in this way when I passed from Autocad to Archicad and I learnt very soon.
You will find that archicad has a different approach to the things. Better for many reasons (especially if you are an architect).
Ciao

[justdhruv]

Thanks allemanda for your response.

Our entire staff in the office is on vectorworks. Because of the advantages you mentioned i want to learn ArchiCAD and then train my staff and hopefully shift my practice to ArchiCAD.

I can also identify with your analogy with AutoCAD. When i was training some people in my office in VW they missed the numerical command input in Acad. Which they said was a very fast way of working.

But even so, i am at a loss to understand that, if i there is an object on screen, then the only way to know about it's dimensions is to measure it.

in fact i am having a tough time ( probably because i do not know) in making the property lines of the project. None of the tutorials i have come across talk about this.

[Eduardo Rolon]

There are multiple ways to show Element Information in AC, all different from VW.

- First you can open the Element Info Palette under Windows->Palettes

- Also you can hover over the object and AC will show the tracker (blue box stolen from Autodesk) which will give Information about it. If you need then click on the object and you can press different keys to edit the element, for example; D for distance, X for distance only in x-axis etc.

- Third option is to select the object and do Command(Control in Win)+T which will give a window with all the parameters that can be edited. This is the same info that is shown in the Info Bar also. Normally this contains all the items that can be edited except length for which you will grab the object by the handles in almost all windows and stretch it.

Hope this helps

[justdhruv]

Thanks ejrolon,

Thats what i am talking about. Thanks a lot. This is a beginning. I will trouble you guys again.