Wishes
Post your wishes about Graphisoft products: Archicad, BIMx, BIMcloud, and DDScad.

Floor Plan Cut Plane adjustable elevation (stepped)

David Larrew
Booster
The Floor Plan Cut Plane really needs to be more flexible.

Most of our projects are not on level sites. Changes in a single floor level can range from 0' to 12' difference from one end of the building to the other, yet we still need to show the entire floor as one level for documentation. Currently, the single level Cut Plane just doesn't cut it (pardon the pun).

This really is apparent when working on a multi-unit complex that sits on a sloped site. Maybe 2 out of 10 units will look correct from the settings of the single level Cut Plane.

We need to be able to step up/down the Cut Pane at user-defined points (similar to staggering the Section/Elevation cutline in Plan).

I just spoke with GS Tech Support and was surprised to find that this was never wished for, so they don't realize that there is this major flaw with the Cut Plane. There are many other issues that also need to be addressed, but that is for another post. BTW, I was told that ADT already has this flexibility.
David Larrew, AIA, GDLA, GSRC

Architectural Technology Specialist

a r c h i S O L U T I O N S



WIN7-10/ OSX 10.15.7

AC 5.1-25 USA
21 REPLIES 21
karinamdp
Booster
Already at AC18 and this option is not availabe
AC25 INT
AC 26 INT & POR 4019
Windows 11
Anonymous
Not applicable
Hi all,

1st time ArchiCAD talk user, just wondering if there are new solutions with the above question?

Im currently having the same problem. I have 40 x 2 stories townhouses across a large sloping site.

Height difference from the lowest to the highest point of the site is 4m.

I'm using modules for each of the townhouses.

I am really struggling with setting up a site plan that shows ground floor plan to all townhouses.


Any comments or advise will be much appreciated!!! Thank you in advance!

Im using AC 19 & AC20
alemanda
Advocate
@ant2017
I would use symbolic view only. I think there's no option at the moment.
AC 19 and AC21 latest hotfix
Win 10 Pro 64bit
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Anonymous
Not applicable
1.It will be a great thing if Archicad have region cut plane like in Revit.

2. Also, the AutoCAD flexibility when drawing in 2D will be much appreciated in Archicad, which has very slow 2D workflow. Layer workflow is also slow.

3.Instance drawings is a necessary thing.

3.Another thing that is going to speed up the workflow is command line. It will
synchronize working with a lot of programs, which comes very frustrating.

4. Archicad has a lot of settings that can be simplified. 50% of the time i am wasting energy searching for a setting that is slowing me down. It needs to be more intuitive and the most important settings at the front.

5. Archicad - Grasshopper connection is great, but its meaningless and not working for me because export geometry is rough for 3d visualizations and is not working for 2D at all./For more complex projects/ Maybe with very big and simple project is time saving.
6.It will be useful you make changes in working with complex geometry, morph and shell flexibility is wooden, awful and it needs improvements. As an architect, i want to have a program which allows me to hand model any form, make it architectonic, disintegrate it into parts and panels, make junctions and freeform beams in any direction, not only vertical and horizontal. And it needed to be done in Archicad, not making plugin that only complicates the workflow.

So conclusion for me so far is that Archicad needs to be more like Autocad in terms of 2D drawing and more like Rhino and grasshopper for complex projects.

It a lot to ask, but if you want to be the best architecture program, you have to consider these important aspects.
Anonymous
Not applicable
SO has there been a new thread or update on this archicad limitation?

It seems it's been 10+ years and counting.
Barry Kelly
Moderator
nrkeone wrote:
SO has there been a new thread or update on this archicad limitation?

It seems it's been 10+ years and counting.

No there has been no change in the situation.
I can imagine it would be almost impossible to implement properly.
You would somehow have to describe areas on your plan for the various heights.
These area could in theory be any shape and size.
I am not sure how you would implement it and I am pretty sure that would be the issue.

I would rather stick with the idea of joining multiple views on a layout.


Barry.
One of the forum moderators.
Versions 6.5 to 27
Dell XPS- i7-6700 @ 3.4Ghz, 16GB ram, GeForce GTX 960 (2GB), Windows 10
Lenovo Thinkpad - i7-1270P 2.20 GHz, 32GB RAM, Nvidia T550, Windows 11
cs_ryl
Booster

It amuses me that this was brought up so long ago and yet there isn't anything developed... Revit had clear advantage on this particular functionality (even though it doesn't work precisely).


Maybe less youtube video comparing speed of duplicating objects for both software from GS point of view and get into working this out - that'd be more helpful?

AC23 AUSTRALIA
MacBook Pro M1 2020 8GB Memory | macOS Monterey 12.3.1

I dont know how it works in revit, but what i envision here is that the floor levels generates a plane that acts like the cut planes you can use in 3d model to cut the model.   These plane would cover the entire project area, and you have the ability to "punch holes" or platforms within the selected plane (like doing a hole in a slab). These "plaforms, while still part of the main cutting plane of its correspondent level, have the ability to be moved in the z axis.  So you can have many platforms that cut the model at different heights in any shape, yet they are part of the same level.  so you can do this for any floor plan you have.   The current cutplane height would still function within this framework relative to the plane i just described.

 

You can copy this cut plane to the next level and so forth.

 

For better results, the ability to add levels without generating a floor plan (like in revit), would be inmensely helpful.

 

 

Agreed jl_lt. 

I don't know how exactly the code was written in Revit but it can be understood like what you described, or alternatively another cutting plane that can cut a hole in the Z direction into the existing one with a different cutting height - whichever way that is easier to program based in Archicad.

Part of the core ideas and methodology of BIM should precisely be that to replace repetitive and labour intensive tasks. Stitching drawings up sounds like the opposite of BIM. 

AC23 AUSTRALIA
MacBook Pro M1 2020 8GB Memory | macOS Monterey 12.3.1

This is not a perfect solution, but what @jl_lt describes can be done now with multiple storey views.

Just create a view for each cutplane level you want and adjust the Floor Plan Cut Plane height to the desired level.

 

Now you stack all of these views on a single layout, and crop the frame of each to the shape you require for each height.

 

So you are basically looking at different areas of you plan at different heights.

 

Reading back through the post I see that Karl had suggested this already.

 

Barry.

One of the forum moderators.
Versions 6.5 to 27
Dell XPS- i7-6700 @ 3.4Ghz, 16GB ram, GeForce GTX 960 (2GB), Windows 10
Lenovo Thinkpad - i7-1270P 2.20 GHz, 32GB RAM, Nvidia T550, Windows 11