ejrolon wrote:
1. The only wall conditions that you have to create are for different walls widths i.e. 6", 8", 12" etc. It should take the same amount of time as it takes now provided you have predefined the wall widths the first time. For this example doing it for the first time it took my about 5 mins. Once you create your first one and you are happy with it the others should take less than a minute to do since you only have to alter one parameter.
2a. 1 View for the normal view, 1 View for structure. Or one view type for the architectural plans and one view for the structural plans.
2b. No fills or masks needed. I did not do any extra 2d work.
I may be misunderstanding your process. Here is what I thought that your process is:
1) Create a floor plans showing the doors and windows.
2) Create a custom view of the floor plan with the Model View Setting set to show the door and window openings.
3) In this view show the walls with only the outer lines of the wall composite showing. How do would this be done?
4a) Cover the walls in this view with a masking fill that has white blocking hashing to give the walls of the appearance of being dashed lines.
4b, c, d, e, f...) Draw this fill over every wall that has a unique orientation or curved line.
Maybe this is the step that I am misunderstanding. Please explain your process if is different.
If I am understanding this step correctly please give me more information about how you get the masking fill to cover curved and free-form shaped walls so the wall appears to have a uniform dashed line.
5) Model or hand draw the framing or foundation members and notations needed for the structural plans.
6) Create a layout for each structural plan. Foundation, First Floor Framing, Second Floor Framing, Lower Roof Framing, Upper Roof Framing and the Roof Plan.
This step is a step that I normally do to create a set of working drawings so it is not an extra step.
7) Place the wall view created in steps 1-4 on the layout.
8a) Place and register the structural view on the layout.
8b, c, d, e, f...) Repeat as needed to create live layouts of the Foundation, First Floor Framing, Second Floor Framing, Lower Roof Framing, Upper Roof Framing and Roof Plans.
9) Readjust the masking fills in step 4a, b, c, d, e... every time the wall layouts changes. I often need to adjust the wall and building layout when I am creating the structural drawings.
Good architects do this to make sure that the building makes sense structurally so I consider it a very important part of designing a building that makes sense to build.
I may be misunderstanding how the masking fill that you are describing works. Please let me know if I am misunderstanding your process and how the masking fill works.
Of course I could use the masking fill method. In the end it probably would be better to use this method than the method that I currently us which involves exploding the walls and placing them on the structural views as lines. With the masking fill method the wall lines remain live even if the masking fills are not.
It will take some time to train my drafts-people how to use the masking fill method do this. I hope that they are all reading this.
THANK YOU for taking the time to share this technique with me.
I hope that the developers are reading this and thinking of ways to improve the functionality of ArchiCAD so this workaround is not necessary.
BTW I started out as a pencil draftsman. For the most part I can hand draw one of the houses that I design just about as fast as it takes me in ArchiCAD. I have only had a pencil crash once and there has only been two upgrades in the 35 years that I have been drafting.
I enjoy hand drafting but these days I am busy with doing design and managing my design business.
If I am going to use CAD software in my firm the software needs EASILY produce working drawings from live modeled objects. I don't think that is too much to ask of ArchiCAD. That is what I was told it could do many years ago.
