Importing surfaces of older Archicad versions

[phelep]

Hello,

I've opened an older project and realised there are beautiful textures for natural stone walls inside the migration library of AC 22 which are no longer included in AC 26. However, as I have not been using them in the old project, they do not show up in the surface materials, I only saw the textures (jpg of normal, bump etc.) in the migration library. I could export these textures and create a new surface material with it, but that would mean messing around with the Cineware settings (diffusion, reflexion, bump etc.) and it might take a long time and end in an unsatisfactory result.. So, is it perhaps possible to access (ex- and import) the surface catalogue of older Archicad versions? Or can I download the old surface materials anywhere?

Thanks you in advance!
Kind regards,

Philipp

[Lingwisyer]

If you have access to an old file or template, can you import them?

Or might they be one of the many textures which you can fine via the "New from Catelogue" function in the New Surface dialogue? In AC22 at least, there are 35 brick textures in the base library yet I think only 8 of them were loaded into the detault AUS template.

Ling.

[phelep]

Hello Ling,

thank you for your quick response. The textures were not default in AC22, but you could seize them at the "new from catalogue" in AC22. However, sadly in AC26 they do not appear on the "new from catalogue" option anymore. And since I did not use them in the old project, they are not migrated with when opening the old file. Trying "new from catalogue" in the old project only supplies me with the current version's surface materials..

[ryejuan]

maybe you can save the original version as .pla then read directly from the .pla?

[phelep]

Hello ryejuan, can you elaborate? I saved the old Archicad file as .pla and opened it, saving the library to a certain folder. But upon opening there are just the surface materials from AC26 and then ones I had used in AC22. I guess the problem is that I hadn't used the desired material which is why I can't access it from any library.

[Erwin Edel]

You can (temporarily) add the AC22 library and AC22 premium surfaces library and then add the surface to your AC26 project this way.

You will then need the AC22 migration library for the textures that are used by the surfaces, but you can remove the AC22 library and AC22 premium surfaces after adding the ones you want. Having them along side AC26 libraries will likely lead to loading report errors.

[phelep]

But how do I temporarily add the AC22 library and premium surfaces to my AC26 project?

[Erwin Edel · Accepted solution]

You would have to download them from the Graphisoft archive or if you have AC22 already installed, add them from the AC22 folder.

[phelep]

I'm working on AC26 EDU and the AC22 is not anymore available for download.

And the Graphisoft archives are just a blank page to me.

https://Graphisoft.com/us/downloads/archives - 404 error I suppose.

[Erwin Edel]

Educational version can likely only use educational libraries and only from the current version. It is not commercial software. You would have to manually recreate the surface likely, but maybe someone with educational software can fill you in, since I have no hands on experience outside the commercial release.