Ortho Mode

[Anonymous]

There are some things that I just pine for while working in Archicad and Ortho mode is one of those. It would be so easy for Graphisoft to implement, it just kind of baffles me that it hasn't been done so far.

Some examples of where this would come in handy:

- When you end up with a single line slightly off of the x-y axis in your drawing, Archicad then randomly will lock onto this slight angle, but when you're working quickly you don't always pay attention to the angle that's listed. Holding shift just locks you onto this angle further exacerbating the problem.

- When you select several objects and want to copy them straight to the side or up, and you have to zoom all the way out of your drawing to find white space so that you can finally lock on to the x or y axis. Because for some reason Archicad thinks that you want to lock onto the bearing of some other random object int he plan, it's impossible to find 0 degrees. What's more, if you don't realize that Archicad follows this behavior, you end up a line or copying something off axis, which then brings you back to my first example.

- When you're in a 3d view it's even more challenging sometimes to find the axis. Some tools don't even allow you to lock onto 0 too, such as the measure command. It's basically a worthless tool unless the face you're measuring from or to is perpendicular to the measure line.

If I'm missing something and there's a better way to do this, I'm all ears. I just don't get why Archicad doesn't have one little button that locks you onto the x-y axis. Every other CADD program I've ever used has this. Even Sketchup has one, and it is infinitely easier to find each axis even without using this ortho lock. Autocad has it. Revit has it. Rhino has it. Can we, as Archicad users, have it? Please?

[Anonymous]

Simply hold down the shift key when moving

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately (unless I'm missing something) the shift key is not ortho mode. It will lock on to one of any number of references available. If you're hovering over any object of any kind, this reference will undoubtably not be the x or y axis, which is part of the issue. It also tends to lock on to references that are close to 0 or 90 degrees from the creation of previous elements, but which are not 0 or 90 degrees (like .05 degrees).

[Laszlo Nagy]

You clicked at the point where you start the element you create. Or you started dragging.
Now, hover your cursor over this starting point so it finds the point (Checkmark cursors shape) and press ALT+X or ALT+Y to lock input to vertical or horizontal, respectively.

[Richard Morrison]

lifeinbeats wrote:
Unfortunately (unless I'm missing something) the shift key is not ortho mode. It will lock on to one of any number of references available.

Yes, I agree that this can cause all sorts of pain if you're not careful. You can turn off Snap Guides (maybe using a Keyboard Shortcut), and Shift will work in expected Ortho mode.

[Mats_Knutsson]

I happyly join the ranters. Casuses lot's of unnecessary errors that usually show up after a while when it's too late. Give us ortho!

[Erwin Edel]

The snap guides sort of work, I find the one that causes most errors is the circle created from the snappoints. Especially on very narrow long rectangular motion it is very easy to get a snap of a very big circle that is just a tiny bit away from the actual corner of the box you wanted to snap to.

Having an option to turn on / off some of the guides created (circles, cross between corners, etc) would mean you can keep the more straightforward simple ones.

Also turning off snap guides all together means you lose the midway snap or division snap, so the only way to show those is by having all the others too.

[Barry Kelly]

Erwin wrote:
Also turning off snap guides all together means you lose the midway snap or division snap, so the only way to show those is by having all the others too.

Not so, you can turn on/off the snap guides and snap points separately.
If it is not in the standard Work Environment, you can the commands to a toolbar/menu.
Or you will find the option in the Control Box if you turn that palette on.
Barry.

[Erwin Edel]

Ah, good point, in that case if you want 'ortho', turn off snap guides, hold down shift and it will only constrain to whatever step you've set up in work environment. I've got that set to 15°, but if you would change it to 90°, that's all it will snap / constrain to.

[Lingwisyer]

Is there some way to get "ortho" working in 3D? I rarely work in 3D, but when I do I find I can only snap to the z-axis or existing points. You would think that hitting shift would lock the angle to what ever it is, but it always snaps to some arbitrary z...

I did just find out that guides work in 3D though.



Ling.