Composites - From Presentation to Construction Docs

[Anonymous]

Hello all!

New to the forum here. I've been using AC 18 for a few months now (with 4+ years of Revit under my belt, so I've seen both sides of it), and have been sticking out trying to figure out most of my issues on my own. But this one has been plaguing me for a while, and I haven't been able to figure out a good solution. Also, a small disclaimer--I did look around the forums a bit to try and find this answer already, but to no avail. Here goes:

I'm basically trying to see if there is a way to have AC show two different Model Views--one for Presentation, with just thick wall contour lines and a shaded fill for more diagrammatic drawings, and the other for Construction documents, showing wall build up (ie GWB, wood framing, etc). The issue I'm running into is switching back and forth between the two. I can get each to work independently by changing the composite of the wall and its pen weights, but I can't seem to get a setup that makes both work in each Model view without manually changing it.

For wall types like a standard wood stud wall with GWB on both sides, in Construction Docs I want the wood framing core to have the thick cut lines (Pen 5), and the GWB finish to have a thinner line(Pen 3). But, if I set it up this way (Option A), when I put Presentation model view back on the wall only shows the cut as the GWB thickness (Pen 3), not reading well at all. If I set it up the opposite (Option B), with the GWB as Pen 5, it reads fine in Presentation View but when I switch to Construction Documents, it reads incorrectly as well. See attached image for reference. Seems to me like there has to be a way to make them both work to show the proper build up and pen weights in CDs, but have the cut line show up thick in Presentation Mode.

Hopefully this makes sense, and let me know if you guys have any questions. It seems like other people must have to run into this along their workflows, I'm just still getting a sense of what workarounds are needed in AC when, so bear with me!

Thanks in advance!
Chris

[Aaron Bourgoin]

Hi Chris!

Have a look at Model View Option settings. They should give you what you're after. You'll need to sets of views: one for the presentation and one for the constructing.

[rob2218]

GOOD LUCK......getting used to Archicad I mean.
if you've had 4+ years of Revit...and that was your first BIM program....you'll be biased as to why/how/when/where Archicad does things and how objects and the information to access those objects are placed.


Families, views, line weights...layers (or lack there of) in Revit were nice.
Pensets in AC....have fun with that.
Schedules in AC....have even more fun with that....

But all in all...I've done the Revit and Archicad route as well.......so enjoy.

cdohh wrote:
Hello all!

New to the forum here. I've been using AC 18 for a few months now (with 4+ years of Revit under my belt, so I've seen both sides of it), and have been sticking out trying to figure out most of my issues on my own. But this one has been plaguing me for a while, and I haven't been able to figure out a good solution. Also, a small disclaimer--I did look around the forums a bit to try and find this answer already, but to no avail. Here goes:

I'm basically trying to see if there is a way to have AC show two different Model Views--one for Presentation, with just thick wall contour lines and a shaded fill for more diagrammatic drawings, and the other for Construction documents, showing wall build up (ie GWB, wood framing, etc). The issue I'm running into is switching back and forth between the two. I can get each to work independently by changing the composite of the wall and its pen weights, but I can't seem to get a setup that makes both work in each Model view without manually changing it.

For wall types like a standard wood stud wall with GWB on both sides, in Construction Docs I want the wood framing core to have the thick cut lines (Pen 5), and the GWB finish to have a thinner line(Pen 3). But, if I set it up this way (Option A), when I put Presentation model view back on the wall only shows the cut as the GWB thickness (Pen 3), not reading well at all. If I set it up the opposite (Option B), with the GWB as Pen 5, it reads fine in Presentation View but when I switch to Construction Documents, it reads incorrectly as well. See attached image for reference. Seems to me like there has to be a way to make them both work to show the proper build up and pen weights in CDs, but have the cut line show up thick in Presentation Mode.

Hopefully this makes sense, and let me know if you guys have any questions. It seems like other people must have to run into this along their workflows, I'm just still getting a sense of what workarounds are needed in AC when, so bear with me!

Thanks in advance!
Chris

[Laszlo Nagy]

Do I understand correctly that you always modify the definition of the Composite? Or you model the Wall twice, one for each option?

Just to make sure we are on the same page: I assume you know that while Revit you have 16 Line Weights, in ArchiCAD you have Pens, and the definition of each Pen contains its color as well as its line weight. So all 255 Pens can have different line weights and different colors, if you want. Also, you can define as many Pen Sets as you want, each Pen Set can have a different definition for each of your 255 Pens.

So I think the solution to your case will need to use the combination of use of Model View Options Combinations and Pen Sets.

Let us take the Construction Document look as the baseline, I will try to explain what you need to modify on that to achieve the Presentation look you are after.

In the Model View Options Dialog, in the Override Fill Display panel, you will need to adjust the Override Cut Fills settings for your Presentation View. Check the Override Cut Fills checkbox, select the Solid Foreground radio button and uncheck the Show Skin Separator Lines checkbox. Then click the Store As button at the top to store this Model View Option (MVO) combination.

If you now apply this MVO and check the result you will see that the thick lines disappeared, so you are almost there. The only thing now is that the fill of the gypsum Wall board is white, while the middle portion is gray as intended. You have to achieve the same gray fill for the gypsum as well.
As you probably know, Composite Structures are composed of skins (layers in Revit). In the Composites Dialog you can assign a Building Material (BM) to each skin. Part of the definition of a Building Material is its cut fill. If you check what BM is used for the gypsum skin, and edit the definition of that BM in the Building Materials Dialog, you will see that you can define a Cut Fill Type, a Cut Fill Foreground Pen and a Cut Fill Background Pen for each Building Material. The important thing here is the Cut Fill Foreground Pen, because in the Model View Options Dialog we specified that the fill of the Composite skins be overridden with their Solid Foreground Pen.
So what you need to do is use two Pen Sets. In the first Pen Set, the Cut Fill Foreground Pen of the gypsum's Building Material can stay what it is (a white Pen), but for the Pen Set used for the presentation look, you should redefine that Pen to the same gray color as that of the middle skin of the Composite.
Two additional considerations: for this to work your Cut Fill Types for each BM cannot be "Air Space" or "Background" because these two will not display the cut fill foreground pen. The "Foreground", the "25%", "50%" or "75%" or any other Fill Types are fine, just the two above mentioned ones will not give you the proper 2D result.
Another thing is that most of the Pens in a Pen Set are used by various elements of ArchiCAD. So if you redefine your Pens, I would suggest to redefine Pens 181-255 and then assign these Pens as Cut Fill Foreground Pen to these Building Materials. If you redefine other Pens, like Pen 19, which is white, it will probably mess up other parts of you project file. For example, many GDL Objects use Pen 19 for a white background so those Pens are better left untouched.
So for the middle skin's BM you have a gray Cut Fill Foreground Pen defined, which does not need to change between the two looks.
Then let's say you change your gypsum BM's Cut Fill Foreground Pen to Pen 181. For the CD look it can be white, for the Presentation look it can be gray. This is the same gray color as the color of the Pen used for the middle skin of the Composite.
Create two Pen Sets, in the first Pen 181 is white, in the second Pen 181 is gray.

I hope this makes sense, I hope it will when you do the steps.