Relationship between story level, reference level, mesh sett

[Bling Keeta]

In sections and elevation drawings, the story level needs tp show height from sea level. Story level also has to be coordinated with reference levels and mesh settings. Nowhere could I find instructions to do this. I managed by trial & error
to do the following settings as attached. I am not sure if this is the correct or the best way to do this. Any comments?

[Richard Morrison]

I agree that this can be confusing at first. It looks like you've got your reference levels set probably correctly, but once you do that, you can use the elevations in your project the way the site elevations are actually labeled. (i.e. if you are doing a terrain, then the elevation points will be just like the topo survey says.) Think of the reference levels as an alternate way to view the absolute elevations. Project zero is always the same, but can be labeled alternately in reference to other benchmarks, which then gives you an alternate place to enter the elevation relative to project zero. If you set Sea Level to -100' below Project Zero, PZ will be either 0, or 100' above Sea Level, depending on where you want to enter the information. The program doesn't really care. This is for YOU, not the program.

However, I'm not sure why you've set the terrain mesh so low initially, or why you've added another story for the survey.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Why is it that the Main Story's Elevation is 205' instead of 0'?
Isn't the Main Story the ground floor level of your building?
To me, this seems to complicate matters.

[Link]

I agree with Laszlo. The elevation of your main floor story should always be zero. I think it's generally bad practice to make it anything else in ArchiCAD.

With it set to zero, your reference levels will be much simpler.

Cheers,
Link.

[Bling Keeta]

Thanks for all the comments.
I quite understand the concept of setting Basement or Main floor to Project Zero.
Can you tell me how to make the story levels to show survey heights.
Thanks.
See attached.

[Link]

I'm not in front of ArchiCAD right now but it's handled in the section/elevation settings under the Story Level Lines panel. The reference defaults to Project Zero but you can change it to any Reference Plane.

Cheers,
Link.

[Bling Keeta]

Hi Link,

I finally got this after so many years. Appreciate all for the help.