Slabs and floor plan cut plane

[Nik]

How do you stop slab elements that are above the floor plan cut plane from appearing on plan views? For example we have window reveals and other elements that are very high up (way above the cut plane), but are still appearing on the plan view despite setting the cut plane and range. Any thoughts?

Cheers, Nik

[Karoly Horvath]

@Barry 

It looks like you never do large and/or complex projects with soffits at varying levels, folds and sloping floors.

That's OK, but I do. Always.

So turning slab layers off is no good, unless I have a different layer for slabs at each floor and create a different layer combo for ceilings at each floor.

That's a no go.

I can use a GO and turn slab edges white and use an invisible line, but even the invisible line will have dots at corners...

Not to mention that any method like the GO is not a very intuitive one.

Unfortunately those who don't do complex projects seem to be lauder in the Graphisoft community, therefore the entire wish for a proper ceiling view (yes a view, like you get in Revit and other tools) was canned, taken off the wish list...

I just don't understand how people document without ceiling drawings. For us ceilings are one of the key coordination plans where all on ceiling services (lights, grills, sprinklers, warning signs etc) can be set out and coordinated with the engineers.

I'm not saying I can't achieve adequate ceiling plans from Archicad. All I'm saying is it is unnecessarily complicated to do so.

[Karoly Horvath]

@Lingwisyer 

Yes, I tried roofs, and when I have a sloped floor orj ust a ramp I have to use roofs, but it's not very intuitive and roofs don't solve the problem of proper plan representation on floors below or above. 

The line between 2 roofs at same level and same surface can't disappear  (like with slabs)

It is not possible to change the roofs reference plane...

Etc. Etc.

If at least slabs and roofs plan representation above or below home storey would be linked to floor plan cutting plane view range, a lot better representation could be done, but the proper solution would be a proper ceiling view. Same as the plan view but reflecting the model elements above the cutting plane.

I know I can do a 3D doc, but that is a dummy. Can't be edited, and doors/windows can't have symbolic views either.

[Karoly Horvath]

@Eduardo 

It's pretty clear that you don't understand the problem.

If I have a 10 storey building and I have concrete slabs that step up and down and if I want to produce a plan showing the soffits of the varying level slabs above me, how do I do it?

If I always model the slabs on the floor I'm standing on, they can be set to show a dashed line on the floor below, but then those dashed lines will always be there!

I will see the dashed lines of the slabs above, when I want to do a concrete set out plan of the floor that I'm standing on. At that point I don't want to see the dashed lines of the slabs above, but if I turn their layers off, I won't see the slab that I'm standing on either!

You can't solve this with layer combos unless you put the slabs of each floor onto a dedicated storey related layer.

If I'm documenting a small 10 storey building that would mean 10 extra layers and 10 extra layer combos. Do you really think it's a feasible option?

For those wo work on 1-3 storey projects, maybe, but even there it is a nasty workaround.

I mentioned earlier, that ceiling plans are key for services coordination.

Soffit plans would be key for form workers.

Today we try to avoid providing soffit plan like a plague only because it is very-very hard in Archicad. 

[Lingwisyer]

I was making reference to things on the Road Map.

Coming Soon: Consistency-All-Relevant-Stories-for-Slab 
In Progress: Consistent 'Show on Stories' behavior for all construction elements 

Was sure there was one about roof reference planes, but I cannot see it there...

If I'm documenting a small 10 storey building that would mean 10 extra layers and 10 extra layer combos. Do you really think it's a feasible option?

I have placed ceiling slabs under slabs that overhang just so that I can toggle toggle slab over to a limited extent.

Ling.

[Karoly Horvath]

@Ling 

I am not saying there are no "smart" workarounds to documenting slabs/ceilings properly, but they are all exactly  that: workarounds.

Something basic, like a ceiling/soffit plan should be done natively, not with smart workarounds.

What we have now feels like as if we had to draw walls using lines and fills, then extrude them. Sure enough, that would produce the required results, but would it feel right in 2025?

[jl_lt]

Personally, all these documentation processes are beginning to not feel right in 2025. 

[Lingwisyer]

Yeah, so many of these things have been missing and requested for so long, yet update after update we have just been seeing things aimed at bigger multidisciplinary firms and AI features rather than core improvements...

Ling.

[mthd]

Would a staggered horizontal cut plane feature solve this problem for us ? If so why not make a detailed wish for it. We can stagger cut plane sections in the vertical plane. So why not in the horizontal ?

[Lingwisyer]

There were wishes for that in regards to buildings on sloping sites. Did any of them survive?

[mthd]

Probably not, we will just have to draw our buildings sideways or rotate them so we can use the staggered cross section method lol.