showing walls as dashed lines on other stories

[Anonymous]

Is there a way to show walls as dashed lines on stories other than there home story? If so please tell me how.
I would like to show the walls as dashed lines on the framing and foundation plans. Currently I am drawing the walls on these stories with the pline tool. It would be great if there is a way to show the walls as dashed lines on other stories.
Thank you,
John

[Anonymous]

This is a situation I thought you'd get many opinions on....

I just use the magic wand to create polyline shapes in every room. Those polylines will be on a unique layer such as A-Wall-frmg or something.
It is fast and therefor no biggie to toss and redo if need be.

Then use layer mangement to create the correct view.

Of course, this is not pure VB. Sure would be nice if model view included a "Wall Options" in the construction elements.
For that matter I have always wondered why walls have such obvious limitations in the "Floor Plan Display".
To paraphrase Higgins, "Oh why can't a wall be more like a roof?".

Snap.

[Erika Epstein]

If your view cut plane settings is set to show higher than the floor of the story above, then the walls be shown dashed.

In the attached screen shot I arbitrarily picked 1', but an inch would have done as well.

HTH

[Anonymous]

Thanks Erika,

Nice technique.
I can get this to work in AC-12, but not in AC-13.
Suggestions?

Snap
PS In AC-12 I had to change the uncut lines to dashed,
they did not change automatically as per your example...
Perhaps I am missing some pre-condition?

[Erika Epstein]

Show on stories:All Relevant Stories
Floor Plan Display:Projected w/ Overhead

Outlines>Overhead Lines: select the dashed line of your heart's desire.

The other settings don't affect this ability to see the dashed lines of the walls above.

HTH

[Anonymous]

Ah, ... Thanks again.
Snap

[Anonymous]

Aloha Erika,
Thank you for the tip on the dashed line setting. For some reason I'm not quite able to get what I want.

What I have is a single floor residence. I need to show a Floor Plan, Site Plan, Foundation Plan, Floor Framing Plan, Roof Framing Plan and a Roof Plan.

Ideally what I would like is that the walls showed up on each plan as follows. I could use your help and guidance on how to achieve this.

Site Plan with the walls show as solid line outlines showing where the doors and window openings are without any door or window details.

Floor Plan with the walls, doors and windows shown as solid lines showing all of the door and window details and markers.

Foundation Plan, Floor Framing Plan and the Roof Plan showing dashed outlines of the walls with the openings and contours for the doors and windows.

Roof Framing showing dashed outlines of the walls with openings and without the contours for the doors and windows. I prefer not to show the contours for the doors and windows on the Roof Framing Plan so I can draw in the door and window headers.

Is it possible to get this as live projections of the modeled walls?

I have a work around for the Site Plan that is working for me. The thing I would really like to be able to do is to show structural plans with the walls as dashed lines and the doors and window openings as dashed lines. Can you tell me how to do this from the live version of the walls, doors and windows?

Thank you,
John

[Anonymous]

johncassel wrote:
Aloha Erika,
...
Ideally what I would like is that the walls showed up on each plan as follows. I could use your help and guidance on how to achieve this.

Site Plan with the walls show as solid line outlines showing where the doors and window openings are without any door or window details.

If all the Site information is placed on the same Story as the Said walls just set your Model View Options for Doors and Windows to "Show Opening Only" and check the "with Contours".

Floor Plan with the walls, doors and windows shown as solid lines showing all of the door and window details and markers.

Model View Options with Doors and Windows to "Show On Plans" and check the "with Markers".

Foundation Plan, Floor Framing Plan and the Roof Plan showing dashed outlines of the walls with the openings and contours for the doors and windows.

Foundation -On the Foundation story (usually one or two stories below story 1, depending if there is a Pony [build-up story]) I use a Complex Profile for the Stem and Footing and Like the Stem Solid and the Footing as Hidden Line. So I set the Floor Plan Cut Plan (FPCP) through the Stem Wall (Which does not always work well on a Sloped lot that has Foundation walls that may be 6 to 10 feet in elevation difference to the top of wall). Then set the walls Outlines > Uncut Lines to Hidden (or Dashed as you like)

Floor Framing - On the Foundation Story have the FPCP above your Foundation walls and again have the walls Outlines > Uncut Lines to Dashed

Roof Framing Framing - I don't know if I like any of my Dashed options here because the solutions involve having the FPCP Above the walls and I would prefer having the FPCP go through the Openings so that they are seen. So on the Story which containd teh main walls set the FPDP above tallest wall and in the Relative Floor Plan Range: Show Up to: 1 Story above (or Current story) but Offset by the Same distance as the previously set cut plan height oif current story. And again have the walls Outlines > Uncut Lines to Dashed

And for all these views set Model View Options for Doors and Windows to "Show Opening Only" and check the "with Contours".


Roof Framing showing dashed outlines of the walls with openings and without the contours for the doors and windows. I prefer not to show the contours for the doors and windows on the Roof Framing Plan so I can draw in the door and window headers.

Yes My above options do not allow for the Openings to be Shown. Maybe that is why it is a Problem.

So I would look into making a Composite wall with the Core Lines as Dashed (although maybe not good for other views) and set the Framing Plans to Partial Structure Display to Core only.

Is it possible to get this as live projections of the modeled walls?

I have a work around for the Site Plan that is working for me. The thing I would really like to be able to do is to show structural plans with the walls as dashed lines and the doors and window openings as dashed lines. Can you tell me how to do this from the live version of the walls, doors and windows?

I blew it with most of the above discription(but look at that word count) because the started Splaining before I have all the facts. I would look into the Dashed Composite core option


Thank you,
John

[Anonymous]

Aloha Jay,
Thank you for your response. I think that your solution does well to illustrate the problem.
Someone recently explained to me that the Graphisoft's focus is commercial/multi-story architecture rather than residential architecture. This explains a lot to me. It explains why it is so difficult to create the simple and very common set of plans that I've outlined above using ArchiCAD.
The set of plans that I outlined above should be a snap for the software that I use not an arcane ritual involving a complex array of settings. It is disappointing to realize that ArchiCAD has not been designed to easily do what I need it to do which is quick and easy modeling and drafting of relatively simple residential architecture. More often than not I have used ArchiCAD as a drafting tool which cannot easily deliver the live model views that I need it to do.

I would be happy to sit down or communicate with the ArchiCAD developers the simple features that are needed to easily create a simple set of architectural plans for residential architecture. I would imagine that there might be a pool of ArchiCAD user who would be willing to to do this. I think that it would a great for the developers to open up to this kind of informed input from the users.

Thanks for listening,
John

[Brett Brown]

johncassel wrote:
The set of plans that I outlined above should be a snap for the software that I use

It's called Revit Architecture

I would be happy to sit down or communicate with the ArchiCAD developers the simple features that are needed to easily create a simple set of architectural plans for residential architecture. I would imagine that there might be a pool of ArchiCAD user who would be willing to to do this. I think that it would a great for the developers to open up to this kind of informed input from the users.

It's called the Wishes section which you have rightly posted in, but the only problem is, 99% of them fall on deaf ears.

I assume you haven't upgraded because there has been nothing in the last 3 releases to warrant it for us residential users.

Do yourself a favour (if you have not already) and check out Revit. There are many Blogs out there that show a project from start to finish, you can judge for yourself if it is worth the change.