Story settings in split levels

[KeesW]

I have a complicated split level house which I am trying to model. It has lots of staggered half levels which need to be identified and labelled in cross sections. Unfortunately, every time a level is labelled in the Story Settings' tool, it also creates a story which splits the elevations and creates a level on which elevations, walls, and objects are created. It makes creating my model a nightmare.

Wouldn't it be useful if Archicad could distinguish between levels used for documentation and levels used to create models? In my case, I could then choose to only use main levels in the Story Settings to simplify modelling, and also create floor level labels that include the intermediate levels. Better still, AC could compromise its rigid approach to creating walls from story to story and allow walls to extend over multiple stories and half-stories, and display correctly on plans.

Perhaps the 'All relevant stories' option could be extended to do what it pretends to do. I still don't know what 'all relevant stories' means.

[Erwin Edel]

Take a look at the floorplan cutplane settings for your saved views. You can specify the range of the projection there.

For documentation on layouts, you might want to stitch together 2 views to create a floorplan.

This is how I've fixed this in the past.

All relevant stories means all stories where the floorplan cut plane range includes the element.

[Anonymous]

Hey Kees, I agree with your idea. I am having trouble with a 4 unit project, where all the units have different story levels. When I go to an elevation or section, I can't figure out how to display only certain story levels. It seems like they are either all on, or all off. Does anyone have a suggestion?

[Anonymous]

Rather than create a new thread, I thought I'd resurrect this one.

For split levels is the best option to patch two levels together on a plan i.e. where there is a level and a half level above it?

I've quickly done it and it looks/feels messy. Am I missing a better way?

[Erwin Edel]

I do the 'patching' on the layout.

As a 'rule' I would make extra stories for splits that are sufficiently high up to merit marking out the lower bits as open space (no floor) and stitch together two saved views with different floor cutplane for the smaller steps in level.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your reply Erwin.

I'd already created additional levels (which seems to create its own issues in terms of displaying elements at different story heights) as I need to show the levels in section/elevation and I'm used to having elements associated to stories when I used to work in Revit (is this bad practice in Archicad?).

I suppose the 'patching' of views on a layout is no different to the variation I used to do in Revit although having a 'plan region' within a view would be ideal to have in Archicad too.

[Erwin Edel]

I have no experience with Revit, however, unless you need the stories for some BIM reason (classifying elements as to belonging to a certain story ID), it is easy enough to draft up a 2D line in the section to act as the story level and to just disable the story markers and use the dimension tool to annotate the elevation/section height dimensions.

It is not easy, however, to go back on your story settings. So make sure you have a backup file, before deleting stories, as this will also remove all elements linked to those stories.

All that said, with floorplan cutplane settings, you can achieve a lot. You can customise per view how far up or down things should be projected and there is ussually an option to 'override', by settings elements to 'home story only', however that will probably not work for most walls and such that will span multiple split levels.

[Erwin Edel]

As for the layout, you are basically placing the two instances of the floor plan as drawing on the layout, cutting away / offsetting the bits you don't want to show and thus ending up with one stitched together plan.

Once your layout and views are setup, you are pretty much done for the rest of the project in terms of output.

[Anonymous]

Thanks again Erwin.

My preference is towards a separate level to associate walls, slabs etc too. Especially as it's currently at the Planning stage and the level may vary as the design develops, my intention is that I can just amend the height of the level and all the associated elements will update accordingly.

I appreciate your help and advice.