Selecting Elements on multiple stories

[Anonymous]

I am currently a student and I am working with Archicad (Edu. license). I have also tried other architectural software as well as standard 3D MCAD products as well. Of the architectural software I have found AC to be the easiest to use and I even get support. Is it the fastest or easiest software to design a building? That depends. I created a 30 story building with 2 towers and a bridge and it only took me 2 days with my MCAD software, with AC it took me 2 weeks. The difference lies in the fact that my building in MCAD has no intelligence (not BIM) and with AC I had to be more specific about element characteristics and that added the time. As for your concern for the UI look and feel I find AC's UI easy to use but I also see options available that would make things simpler without making major changes. It should be noted that all application software can be made to work better/easier but changes need to be phased in gradually so as not to upset the current base of workers. As for your desire about elements being parametrically based they currently are. What they aren't is parametrically tied to each other. In your example, the doors, you can change them all simultaneously. What is difficult is "Selecting" the doors especially if they are on different floors. The easiest solution would be to improve the selection process so the doors can be changed at the same time.

As a student getting a free EDU license with full working software is where it is at and then once out of school I will definitely want to use the software I became proficient at. I could even provide a compelling case to use AC over the other products available. Students are the future and if you look after them they will look after you.

[Anonymous]

DrWho wrote:
In your example, the doors, you can change them all simultaneously. What is difficult is "Selecting" the doors especially if they are on different floors. The easiest solution would be to improve the selection process so the doors can be changed at the same time.

You can use the find command in a 3d view and select all the doors or filter based upon other parameters the chnage them on al stories. You can also change via the door schedule if the sort query based upon parameter criteria.

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the double post.

[Anonymous]

changing multiple doors is easy if you know how to set up your files correctly
for example using "Element ID" & "Find & Select"
you can do exactly what you want provided you have an ID system set up
where any door or doors of any combination could be selected in one go
I could give you a fairly simple method of element id door numbering
using simply element id and find & select
excluding all the other helpful tools within find and select (such as 'by storie' or 'layer' you could use to make it far easier

[Anonymous]

methy wrote:
changing multiple doors is easy if you know how to set up your files correctly
for example using "Element ID" & "Find & Select"
you can do exactly what you want provided you have an ID system set up

And therein lies the whole issue with the current Archicad setup.

If AC was designed to be user friendly you wouldn't need to know or even use these kind of esoteric work around solutions.

[Anonymous]

sinceV6 wrote:
Hi.

strawbale wrote:

methy wrote:
changing multiple doors is easy if you know how to set up your files correctly
for example using "Element ID" & "Find & Select"
you can do exactly what you want provided you have an ID system set up

And therein lies the whole issue with the current Archicad setup.

If AC was designed to be user friendly you wouldn't need to know or even use these kind of esoteric work around solutions.

And how exactly would you like it to work?

I would expect that there would be a window that could be open at the same time as the a 2D or 3D window. In this window would be a list of all the building objects and elements in the project, perhaps organized as a tree structure. I could select an item in the list and it would highlight in the plan/3D windows and vice versa.

By selecting a building object or element in the list I would be able to access and change all the settings for that object.

The list would be able to be organized and filtered by element ID, layer, element type, home story, zone etc etc.

So for example I could select to show in the list only the doors and windows in the project, or to show only the doors and windows on a selected story, or to show only Existing doors and windows, or only New doors and windows. for example

It would be an interactive index of all the projects building objects, enabling me to easily filter, sort through, find and change settings. That would work in unison and in real time with the 2d or 3d window. The idea being that I am still working in the 2D or 3D window whilst browsing this index.

AC is a great program and now has a multitude of very powerful features that have been introduced over the years . The problem I have is that the UI has not been changed or adapted to integrate all these features and tools in a manner that is unified and intuitive.

[Anonymous]

Part 2

To take this idea further

I would have this project index work in a similar fashion to the project view map. Objects or building elements could be selected based on certain criteria and then saved as individual views to display various building project information.

For example I could select a "view" of building information based on the following filters:
Ground floor + Walls + Element ID: Partition Walls + Material: Plasterboard + Surface m2
And I can output the total surface area for plasterboard material used on building elements I have labeled Partition walls on the ground floor.

Any number of customized BIM views could be created and to be easily referred to as required. Floor surface areas, zone volumes, total R values for a given story or facade etc etc etc

These "views" could be placed on layouts to create quantity take offs and door and window schedules.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Note: this discussion was within another topic.
I now split it into a separate topic so both topics can become clearer and not get mixed up.