Circles, Just Circles

[adbestias]

From time to time I need to draw some circles; and I need them to be tangent to other circles, lines or both, to contain a specific point, or to have a precise radius.

Many years ago, before I started using ArchiCAD, I could easily do all this with AutoCAD. Later, I came aware of Cigraph's ArchiRuler and, since the arcs/circles tool was available in the demo version, I had the problem solved.

Every year I update to the new ArchiCAD version; and every year I need to install an add-on just to draw some circles! Since ArchiCAD 16, Cigraph discontinued ArchiRuler. Now I have to go back to AutoCAD just to get precise drawing with circles...

Isn't it time for ArchiCAD to include a complete arcs/circles tool in one of its yearly updates?

Thank you for any comments that help me drawing some circles!

P. S.: I love geometry! Yet, I'm not interested in spending my time in (sometimes complex) constructions to get the right circles; many times just for testing the right path...

[Barry Kelly]

Archicad itself is pretty good at tangent to 2 or 3 lines (just use the tangent circle option of the circle tool) but is not so good at tangents to circles.
But a few quick guide lines usually solves that though.

Exact radii are easy too - just type the radius in using the tracker or coordinate palette and press enter.

If you can show screen shot examples of specific problems I am sure there will be people that can help out with suggestions.


I know you may not be interested in the geometric methods but here is a great post by Peter Devlin that show some great tangency methods.

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=161653


And here is another thread that talks about tangents and the last post has a parametric object by Oliver Dentan that you can use to get a tangent to 3 circles - expode and you are left with the circles.

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=2800

Barry.