Modeling
About Archicad's design tools, element connections, modeling concepts, etc.

Roof Plan w/ walls below

Tom Krowka
Enthusiast
Any way to have the walls below the roof show up? I was hoping this new release would allow it. I see the walls have a new setting "automatic" but the walls only go up to the ceiling and not the roof. It would be nice if the ghost level could display.
Tom Krowka Architect
Windows 11, AC Version 26
Thomas@wkarchwk.com
www.walshkrowka.com
32 REPLIES 32
owen
Newcomer
Is there anywhere you can control the appearance of distant elements in the Floor Plan Range as we can do with Sections/Elevations? I want to display elements from the ground floor on the first floor in a lighter pen, but there does not seem to be any way to overide their pens, they just use their uncut properties.

If there is no way to do this then its back to the old way of reproducing the lower plan on upper floors in 2D ...
cheers,

Owen Sharp

Design Technology Manager
fjmt | francis-jones morehen thorp

iMac 27" i7 2.93Ghz | 32GB RAM | OS 10.10 | Since AC5
The parapets in the roof plan are the same representation problem as the parapet walls/ solid railings in the balconies.

In AC9 you had to
- go 2D for the floor plan look and use a floor-plan-hidden/misc3D layer for the wall element, which is horrible, or
- use a special 'parapet' wall composite with white or blank fill, which is better (no duplication) but still not pretty and prone to mess-ups (because the 2D look is not related to the wall height, which is the way it should be), or
- use a coping object/slab/wall/mesh in and get that to display in the roof plan.

In AC10 you can set the floor plan cut height and get the parapets to display as top views, right?
owen
Newcomer
Ignacio wrote:
In AC10 you can set the floor plan cut height and get the parapets to display as top views, right?
Yes. Using a combination of element settings (e.g automatic/symbolic display) and Floor Plan Range settings you can get almost any element to display on whatever story you like with whatever appearance you like.

However it seems like this new Floor Plan Range needs to be developed more along similar lines to the Section/Elevation tool ... AFAIK there is no way to overide pens for elements in certain zones of the floor plan range in a similar way to what we can do with S/E's (Cut, Uncut, Distant Area, etc). Everything displayed in the floor plan uses the elements settings under Floor Plan and Section no matter whether that element is 1m or 10m below the cut plane.

In my case i want to override the pen for all elements more than 1m below the current story in order to display the floor below in a thin or grey pen. The old workaround is to redraw the floor below in 2D, but this *should* be redundant with the new floor plan range
cheers,

Owen Sharp

Design Technology Manager
fjmt | francis-jones morehen thorp

iMac 27" i7 2.93Ghz | 32GB RAM | OS 10.10 | Since AC5
Anonymous
Not applicable
owen wrote:
The old workaround is to redraw the floor below in 2D, but this *should* be redundant with the new floor plan range
The other (better) old work around is to over lay the drawings in the layout.
owen
Newcomer
You could but creating drawings by compositing several drawings on a layout could get pretty complicated. I guess my point is that one of the main reasons for this new new floor plan range was to reduce the amount of workarounds needed to create documents by allowing you to go beyond the range of the story to display elements ... yet IMO it seems to have fallen just short of doing this because it lacks a few basic bits of functionality like distant area and pen overrides - both of which we already have, albeit for views in a perpendicular plane. So unless you are happy to display elements on floors below in the same pen (and we aren't) its of no use whatsoever in eliminating this very common problem. Its the same issue as the S/E tool pre-Distant Area.
cheers,

Owen Sharp

Design Technology Manager
fjmt | francis-jones morehen thorp

iMac 27" i7 2.93Ghz | 32GB RAM | OS 10.10 | Since AC5
Anonymous
Not applicable
owen wrote:
I guess my point is that one of the main reasons for this new new floor plan range was to reduce the amount of workarounds needed to create documents by allowing you to go beyond the range of the story to display elements.
I'm not disputing your point on this. (I suspect that we will be seeing improvements in this area though).

But I do think that overlaying drawings is quite a simple and effective technique for many purposes including this particular workaround. I'm not sure why you think it is complicated.
owen
Newcomer
Yeah sorry if i sounded a little confrontational about that .... was having one of those days when everything had to be done the day before - and then I run into the Preview on Layout issue and this which I thought was going to avoid another workaround but didn't.

Anyway we just made it through to the next round of the cup so all is good in the office this morning!

I understand it can be effective, I have done this in the past - its just for some cases such as the one im working on now it could be a little tricky. What I need to do is place a copy of the ground plan at the bottom (easy) but then the first floor plan on top needs to be opaque to hide the plan under, and then the drawing frame cropped to the perimeter of the first floor plate (not so easy). If its not exact you will get a white border between the two. Given the 'curvy-durvy' building plans we are so fond of this is why i say its complicated.

Still now that you've made me think about it again it may be quicker than tracing over the plan in 2D despite my point above .. will give it a go
cheers,

Owen Sharp

Design Technology Manager
fjmt | francis-jones morehen thorp

iMac 27" i7 2.93Ghz | 32GB RAM | OS 10.10 | Since AC5
Link
Graphisoft Partner
Graphisoft Partner
Anyway we just made it through to the next round of the cup so all is good in the office this morning!
Yes, but I just hope we never meet England with a Croatian ref, or we'll stand no chance at all!
Still now that you've made me think about it again it may be quicker than tracing over the plan in 2D despite my point above .. will give it a go
it's still a workaround but this is still the best way for you to go IMHO. Don't forget that you can make a view for the ghost plan below that has it's own layer combo and model view combo.

A more complex workaround could be to somehow use the floor plan cut plane specific to individual views combined with specific pen tables for those views, but this would be challenging to maintain, to say the very least.

Cheers,
Link.
owen
Newcomer
Link wrote:
Yes, but I just hope we never meet England with a Croatian ref, or we'll stand no chance at all!
Yeah somehow I don't think he will let us get away with 3 yellow cards per man before sending us off ... actually im not sure now he did he even then!? One of the more confusing conclusions to a game i've seen ..

Think i have to take a step back and think about this overlay option again. Thanks guys for the tips
cheers,

Owen Sharp

Design Technology Manager
fjmt | francis-jones morehen thorp

iMac 27" i7 2.93Ghz | 32GB RAM | OS 10.10 | Since AC5
Anonymous
Not applicable
DHURD wrote:
This may work for you;

Set the walls you want to see to "Automatic" on the show on/Link to stories:
Then on Document - Floor plan cut plane, set to show 1 story above and or below.

This works to show the bearing walls below roof framing if you build it above on a roof story.

I can't get it to show dashed above or below yet, its just the outline of the original.
That's the trick isn't it, showing dashed below. If anyone knows how to do this I would love to know.