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Documentation
About Archicad's documenting tools, views, model filtering, layouts, publishing, etc.

Display order

Polar Bear
Booster

Hello,

 

I would like to have some tricks on working with display order.  It does not get saved with redefine with window setting....  In a lots of documentation i am doing, very often, one thing or the other comes on the wrong display order, and leads to site confusion.  It bring high anxiety and i am soon thinking of returning to entirely work on Revit: faster and not have this headache of cross checking every bit of a dwg before printing (in case some element change order).

 

How do people manage it?  In the attached image, the building is partly underground and i used different element to do slabs, altar, roof etc...

 

Thank you very much

 

Screenshot 2023-07-10 at 14.31.48.png

Archicad 25 - 5010
Macbook pro 13" /Big sur 11.4 + External 4K 27"
5 REPLIES 5
Barry Kelly
Moderator

I don't think display order will have an effect in a 3D view - I may be wrong, never had the need to adjust it in 3D.

It will be the physical geometry of the elements and the building material strengths (as well as any trimming, merging SEOs) that will affect what you see.

 

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

You are not wrong. Display order does not work in 3D. It works with the representation of plans. 

DGSketcher
Legend

I think @Polar Bear is referring to 2D plans and I agree this has been a long standing frustration. I generally get around this with 3D Document from Plan, but that process looses the more traditional presentation for doors etc which may be a problem for some. There are still many benefits to 3DDfP and I use them all the time for my roof framing as it is nearly impossible to display everything correctly using regular plans & display order e.g similar elements are displayed in creation order.

 

The 2D plan generator really does need an upgrade to recognise the Z order of 3D elements. We use AC for its 3D capabilities, its a shame those capabilities aren’t fully utilised in the documenting process e.g. 2D representation, editing 3DDfPs, SEOs and 3D dimensioning. 

Apple iMac Intel i9 / macOS Sonoma / AC27UKI (most recent builds.. if they work)
Polar Bear
Booster

Actually, i have shown the 3d image just to show how simple is the building, despite which, the display order is a real headache (speaking from a four year experience with archicad) and a real source of problem for me.  Sometimes (often) after printing for site, i realise some small items have gone behind etc (detail: many of the building i work with have round shape and multiple levels etc...).  It is, to my opinion, an extremely backward function (which along the fact that we cannot undo so many functions and operations and the heavy size of the files) this archicad software is super backward compared with revit.  I know we could trick with Layers work around etc, but at the end of the day, i am an architect, not an IT or CAD technician, so there is only that much work around i have time to craft (frankly, i have zero time to fiddle around with software crafting..., unless i would be paid for it)

The argument that archicad existed before revit isn't really a good one.  For new comers, to grasp these small hick-ups (legacies of old time archicad) is a real hold back from adopting archicad as a long term solution.  To my opinion, legacies of earlier versions are only in favour of old users (and developers) and have a real disadvantage for any growth and progress.  (simple example: You can see serif suite vs adobe suite, or any office suite vs microsoft suite, or zoom vs team etc......)

Archicad 25 - 5010
Macbook pro 13" /Big sur 11.4 + External 4K 27"

Maybe it is the type of work we are doing (residential housing), but I can say that in 20 odd years of using Archicad, I rarely have to use the display order.

 

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
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