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

Graphical Improvements to lines

Anonymous
Not applicable
Lines which have square ends and the ability to show a line thickening left or right of the origin (see Informatix' MicroGDS method of doing this). At the moment we feel that this is ArchiCAD's biggest flaw. A much more presentable drawing could be produced with line thickening options.
22 REPLIES 22
Anonymous
Not applicable
Ben wrote:
Yes back-lining is the reason hand drawn plans have so much more style. I would love to see it implemented in archicad but judging from the poll, no one seems to care
Have you looked at the poll results? Fourteen votes:Essential - 6, Important - 5, Average - 3, with no votes for not important or not needed. Its seems to me everyone wants better looking drawings. Especially when you look at the number of improvements mentioned.

I have another to add. Better control of symbol line types.

1. It should be possible to size them to some real world units. It is very easy and straight forward with the symbol fills. Adjusting the dash and gap sizes in the present dialog is a strange trial and error affair. Maybe I haven't done it enough to understand all the subtleties, but this sort of thing should not take extensive practice to learn.

2. They should be able to be drawn left, right or on center to the reference line (like walls). I have been able to simulate this with hotspots in the copy/paste elements but this creates double wide entries in the popup list, and ( as I recall) ArchiCAD has started to actually draw the pasted hotspots making the technique useless now.

The latter feature is really the same as backlining and I hope the obvious value of this will add some force to the request.

I spend a lot of time finding ways to improve the appearance and clarity of the drawings we put out. With the rushed schedules and ever increasing demands on Architects, the quality of the drawings has suffered over the last hundred years. I see part of the promise of the virtual building and automated drawing production is to bring back some of that quality. Not to make computer drawings look hand drafted, but to use the capabilities of the computer to make drawings look better, often in ways that would be difficult to impossible with manual means.
Anonymous
Not applicable
I would say along with thickening, overshoot should also be possible.. Just woking my way out of Datacad into AC and miss it already...
Anonymous
Not applicable
I already voted but I would like to still support the request about the thicknesses I know that the principal difficulty is that it is necessary to introduce a direction with the lines so that the program knows where to "slip" the thickness but I cannot imagine to set that line by line, we need a simple method for the majority of the cases and a manual technique for the special cases. For example for all the closed polygons (slabs, walls, profiles, etc), the thickness "slips" either inside or outside. I guess 90 % of the time, we like to contrast thickness of cut elements that are 90 % of the time polygons like walls, slabs, roofs and we do not like the axially "mechanical" look. We prefer the good old architecture style, yes, yes..
And about lines style, when you have 2 or more dashed lines, a way to really hide the line below rather that the ugly mixed result we get now...
Anonymous
Not applicable
I strongly agree. The future of CAD is not paper-based. We need to think of ways to make the information on the screen read better. One day (for better or worse) everything will be electronic. The visual impact of a line "thinning" at its midpoint (like manual drafting) is one way to accomplish this.
__archiben
Booster
thouht that this could do with reviving . . .
Philippe wrote:
... I know that the principal difficulty is that it is necessary to introduce a direction with the lines so that the program knows where to "slip" the thickness but I cannot imagine to set that line by line...
with archiCAD 9 comes the display option for having cut elements show with true weight and everything else hairline. there is a logical step here toward the introduction of back-lining: any cut element has an 'inside' and an 'outside'. archiCAD should have no trouble identifying this from a fill pattern (even if it's simply 'empty').

with the use of pen-type plotters firmly in the past, there should be no problem for archiCAD to use the cut line as the 'reference line' and offset the pen weight into the fill.

whilst this probably makes very little difference to a drawing above 1:100, the back-lining effect will dramatically improve a freshly created detail or detailed section.

~/archiben
b e n f r o s t
b f [a t ] p l a n b a r c h i t e c t u r e [d o t] n z
archicad | sketchup! | coffeecup
Rakela Raul
Participant
fabrizio didnt suggest archisketchy yet??
MACBKPro /32GiG / 240SSD
AC V6 to V18 - RVT V11 to V16
Aussie John
Newcomer
Geoff wrote:
May I add my line improvement wish. That dashes share a common origin so superimposed dashed lines of the same type look like a single dashed line instead of a longer dash or solid line.

I'd like to use roof objects, displayed one story down, to show the line of roof above with a dashed line. But ridges and valleys appear as solid lines. Thus this little inconsistency forces additional drafting and coordination.
essential
Cheers John
John Hyland : ARINA : www.arina.biz
User ver 4 to 12 - Jumped to v22 - so many options and settings!!!
OSX 10.15.6 [Catalina] : Archicad 22 : 15" MacBook Pro 2019
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Dave Jochum
Advocate
Geoff wrote:
I'd like to use roof objects, displayed one story down, to show the line of roof above with a dashed line. But ridges and valleys appear as solid lines. Thus this little inconsistency forces additional drafting and coordination.
I'd like roofs to show as simply a dashed outline on the story below--with NO valleys or ridges.
Dave Jochum
J o c h u m A R C H I T E C T S http://www.jochumarchitects.com
MBP 16" (M1 Max) 64 GB•OS 13.5.2•AC 27 Silicon (latest build)
Andy Thomson
Advisor
Would be good also to be able to show roof outline only below, rather than ridges and valleys AND outline as default.

Another line comment - why so many default AC template/new and reset lines? Why not a consistent starting point? A variety of scaled dashed and dotted lines?

And an insulation line (I like the idea) that repeats properly, etc.

A.
Andy Thomson, M.Arch, OAA, MRAIC
Director
Thomson Architecture, Inc.
Instructor/Lecturer, Toronto Metropolitan University Faculty of Engineering & Architectural Science
AC26/iMacPro/MPB Silicon M2Pro
Anonymous
Not applicable
If I may add my 10cents worth....
- Adjustable line widths not based on pen selection (similar I suppose to AutoCAD Polylines)
- Adjustable linetype scale, instead of having to create a new linetype for a line that looks the same but a different size, not just "scale with plan" or "scale independent" (and possibly same for fills?)
- back-lining sounds good

For roof outlines I tend to draw a line around the perimeter and turn the roof layer off on plan. Just got to make sure you have both layers turned on if you want to adjust roof shape, so outline option would be good although I'm not sure how you'd define what lines are visible, especially on a complicated roof shape.

Cheers