Material and Composites definitions - Lack of scale-based graphical control

[A21_Ma_Si]

Many national and international standards require architectural drawings to adapt the level of graphical detail depending on the design phase and drawing scale. However, Archicad currently lacks flexible tools to control material representations and composite skin visibility per scale.

For example, during the Main project phase, where the documentation for the permits is done in a scale of 1:100, the composite wall shoud only be made of the core of the wall and external insulation. While during the Executive design phase, where the drawing for costruction are made in a sale of 1:50, the wall should be shown with finishes (internal finishes - stucco and/or ceramic tiles, and external finishes - wall insulation and facade finishing skin). This cannot be done in the current state of Archicad.

The solution, at least partly, would be the following:

• for material:
  • to be able to define for each material a different cut fill for each defined scale used,
• for composites:
  • to be able to define for each composite which skins are shown and which hidden for each defined scale used (toggle visibility of each skin in a composite based on scale),
  • to be able to define for each composite which skins are shown together as one fill (allow skins to be grouped and represented by a unified fill depending on scale)

This could be done not only based on scales, but we could define "Representation profiles" in composites and then toggle the representation you want in Model View options (based on the curret stage of the project).

Use case example:

A wall composite consisting of:

1. outer finishing skin,
2. outer insulation,
3. core,
4. inner plaster,
5. inner ceramic tile finishing

At 1:100 (permit drawings)

• outer finishing skin + outer insulation: shown as one fill
• core: as another fill
• inner plaster + ceramic: shown as one

At 1:50 (executive drawings):

• each sking shown with its own fill

And another example for a steel column:

At 1:100 (permit drawings)

• solid fill

At 1:50 (executive drawings):

• diagonal lines fill

[Barry Kelly]

You can already set up your composites with 'Core", 'Other' and 'Finish' skins.

Then with Partial Structure Display (which can be save in the view settings), you can display the 'Entire Model', 'Without Finishes' or 'Core Only'.

Is this what you are looking for?

Barry.

[A21_Ma_Si]

Yes, this could be partly the solution to my problem. But the problem is it is not really flexible, as it works only on outer skins.

Lets say for example I have a core and three separate materials on one side (each with a different cut fill). The outer one is the finishing, but I want the middle 2 skins to be shown in 1:50 (or greater) as separate fills, and in 1:100 as a single fill.

[rakurs]

If only we could assign graphic overrides for skins / individual composite materials, and not their entire elements, that would be closer to what you're trying to get. Currently, graphic overrides only apply to the whole element, and they CAN remove ALL the skin lines, but they cannot differentiate skins themselves.