Placing a MOD with different story heights {workaround}

[Anonymous]

If I hotlink a MOD file into a project, and the multi-story source project has different story heights than the host project, all the elements of each story in the MOD file get positioned at the wrong elevations. See attachment for how this looks: there's a positive offset between the ground floor and first floor, a negative offset between first and second floor, and the roof is too low (FYI, the roof is turned off, and there's an SEO to trim the walls)

The adopted elevation of each element of the MOD appears to be assumed relative to the elevation of the corresponding home story in the host project, not it's own "original" home story in the MOD.

This seems really dumb of AC. Too dumb. Surely there's a different way of bringing in a model of a neighbouring project that has different story heights, that doesn't mess up the model. What knowledge am I missing?

[Anonymous]

Yes, this is an unfortunate limitation.

To link whole buildings (or multi-story modules) the story elevations have to match. When the heights don't match you have to link the building floor by floor ("single story mode" in the dialog). Then you can drag the floors up and down to their correct heights.

A problem with this approach is that SEO's between elements on different stories will not convey. To get around this you can either make all the SEOs betweens elements on the same stories or redo the SEOs in the destination file.

[Anonymous]

Matthew wrote:
...this is an unfortunate limitation.

You are so generous with your language, Matthew. Personally, I'd call it a really useless, half-arsed, misleading, incomplete implementation of their claim: "ArchiCAD 11 introduces multi-story hotlinked module support, helping those architects working on large, multi-story projects with typical, repetitive design units, such as hospitals, apartment buildings or campus projects!"

"Oh, yeah, we forgot to mention... as long as all the story heights are the same."

In other words, stick to how you were doing it in AC10 and before!

Sorry, I'm just pissed that I've spent time extracting out buildings from a multi-building project, adjusting all their storey levels, and all the corresponding hassle with element elevations being locked to home stories, instead of project zero, causing the same kind of storey offsets/screwups, which needed adjusting. (See my post here about it).

All for why? Because GS didn't think to include a tickbox that says "Lock elements to Project Zero, not Home Storey".

I've since found similar posts about this issue:

Modules' usefulness
How to hotlink different PLN's with differnt story settings?
Archicad at Texas A&M - Class project.

And then I find this:

http://forum.bobrow.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/151/post/last/

..which is the best and most comprehensive summary of all the relevant issues that I've read. Typically Eric!.

Also, ArchiWiki needs updating with this important drawback, as it says nothing about having to have the same story levels:
www.archicadwiki.com/Multistory%20Hotlinked%20Modules

[Anonymous]

I've just been through the process of creating separate hotlinks for each storey. Here's a few more tips:

1) You don't have to export separate mod files for each storey - just separate hotlinks to one chosen storey located in the one multi-storey MOD file. This makes updating easier, as you only have to export one MOD file from the source PLN.

2) There's really only one way to handle SEOs: You have to make the operator and target belong to the same storey in the source file. The alternative suggestion - that you "re-do" them in the target file - lasts only as long as a session. If you do it that way, next time you open the project, your SEOs will be reset/gone. Hence, I've now re-assigned my roofs' home storeys to be the same as the walls that they trim, and set them to show on 1 storey above only (Choose "Custom" and tick off the " Home Story"option).

[owen]

peter_h wrote:

Matthew wrote:
...this is an unfortunate limitation.

You are so generous with your language, Matthew. Personally, I'd call it a really useless, half-arsed, misleading, incomplete implementation of their claim: "ArchiCAD 11 introduces multi-story hotlinked module support, helping those architects working on large, multi-story projects with typical, repetitive design units, such as hospitals, apartment buildings or campus projects!"

"Oh, yeah, we forgot to mention... as long as all the story heights are the same."

In other words, stick to how you were doing it in AC10 and before!

... it really is up there with the most significant of half-baked features we have seen implemented in ArchiCAD. It really would be that easy to fix - a checkbox to Multi-storey hotlinks which automates the storey offset process you go through when doing storey by storey.

People wonder why we give Graphisoft a hard time when they keep coming up with 'solutions' like this.

[Anonymous]

More tips...more workarounds...:

3) When creating the MOD from the source PLN, using the multi-story marquee > Ctrl-C > Save Clipboard as Mod method, make sure you have absolutely nothing selected when you do it. Otherwise, only the selected element(s) are exported to the MOD.

I'm using AC12, so it may not happen like this in AC13...?

Oddly too, as I found this out... even though the multi-storey MOD contained only one element (a roof), when the target file was updated (which had multiple hotlinks to each storey of the same MOD) , it only visually updated the one level/hotlink that this element was on, and left the other storeys as they were prior to the update. I would have expected the whole building to disappear in the 3D window, but only the one top level of the building disappeared (minus the roof). It's as if AC hadn't picked up that there were multiple hotlinks in the target file that were linked to the changed source MOD (one for each storey) that also needed to be updated.

4) It's seems like it's not enough to just re-assign the operator elements to the same storey as their targets, prior to recreating the MOD and updating the target PLN. SEOs still don't work. After some experimenting, I found that you have re-do all the SEOs in the source file wherever you have reassigned an SEO element onto a different story - even though they show correctly, as cut, in the source's 3D window.

I reckon a programming apprentice at GS must have got assigned this multi-storey mod "feature" for v11, got fired after they realised that they shipped it half-finished, and now nobody wants to look at his code and fix up the mess. Has it really been as bad as this for 2 versions?

I assume a bug report about all this has been filed?

[Erika Epstein]

peter_h wrote:
More tips...more workarounds...:

3) When creating the MOD from the source PLN, using the multi-story marquee > Ctrl-C > Save Clipboard as Mod method, make sure you have absolutely nothing selected when you do it. Otherwise, only the selected element(s) are exported to the MOD.

This is normal behavior module or no module. If you have a marquee, single or multi-story, and within it you select only some of the elements, only those will be shown in the 3D window etc.

[raoultittel]

Has this issue been addressed in AC20? I'm having the same problem.
I have a 'building pln' with differing story heights to the 'master pln' and I want to insert the 'building pln' into the 'master pln'. The issue is that the building pln has differing story heights and so when inserted the walls and other elements change heights.

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

In an extremely rare case, you insert a single building into a single site, or several buildings sharing the same story settings —in that case your site file stories are set up just as in your building file, and the 'multi-story placement' works.

Typically, though, several buildings will have different story setups. So when you place the building module on your site file you are deciding on which site story plan each building story will show up. With sloped terrain, or with buildings with different room/story heights, there will be say a site plan showing the ground story in Bldg A, some funky mezzanine in Bldg B, and a second story in Bldg C (they might all be linked with pathways or bridges or tunnels, and of course they don't at all need to have the exact same floor levels). So it seems to me this is the basic reason for which in anything other than the extremely rare case above (where the 'automatic' method does work), there is no other way than 1) a human defining how he will set up his building story hotlinks on the site file stories, 2) keeping element elevations relative to story, element heights unlinked, and 3) keeping walls display symbolic except where specifically necessary. You only need to drag the hotlinks up or down, in the 3D or section windows, once in the project’s lifetime. At some point, with some new survey or some site design change, some building will move up or down (you drag all its modules together, up or down, in the 3D or section windows) or with some building design change some story height will change (and on your site file you will need to drag the other stories up and/or down accordingly). The multistory placement is still saving you the multiple placements ('imports'), and there is no way you can avoid the individual height adjustments.

[Alternatively one would need the ability of 'breaking', spatially, the floor plan cut plane, just as one can break the section line in the floor plan, so as to decide what shows where with the floor cut 'plane' instead of the story hotlink placement.]

[raoultittel]

Thanks Ignacio, a comprehensive response. Graphisoft should really post the major issues/limitations at the beginning of any explanation of how to insert modules or PLN files. This would save the on the uninitiated from going through four hours of research to try and figure out what the problem is. I think you summed it up well go at the beginning of your post with in the rare instance that you have story's that are the same height between one file and another. In my experience that is almost always the case. So, having said that would be great if Grafisoft address this issue as a matter of urgency. Suggestions that you make a module from the elements in a PLN file and Hotlink them into your master file a risky work-around at best.
I have had to opt for inserting each individual level of my building into the master plan and leave it at that, as this is the least risky option available.
How I known that I would have this issue I would've planned for it at the beginning of the project.
However, I am thankful that there is a forum and that you are all willing to help others.
So thank you all.
Raoul