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How do I change perspective flythrough speed on macOS / changes to customised work env

PClarke
Booster

Hello, long time Archicad user here. I have started a new job and unfortunately I have to use macOS. This throws up hundreds of problems everyday. I've listed some of the most pressing issues that are preventing me from being able to work efficiently.

 

1.  One issue I can't resolve is the perspective fly-through speed.

For no reason the perspective fly through speed has gone to zero and I cannot edit it.

There doesn't appear to be a button shortcut which I can assign to this. I have tried various "zoom" shortcuts and assigning different buttons, on Windows this is an instant fix. On macOS it does nothing. Is there an assignable shortcut / button on macOS to control the flythrough speed?

 

2. Cannot assign magic wand to space bar. There seem to be a whole lot of macros on Mac which just don't work. Does anyone know why space bar can't be assigned to magic wand on Mac?

 

3. Escape button doesn't work half the time. This one I don't know if anyone can help me with, but the Esc key just doesn't work half the time when it should - I can't use it to close a fly through, I can't use it to cancel, I can't use it to do around half of the functions it should work with in Archicad.

 

4. Keyboard macros just change for no reason. I will save a customised work environment, keyboard shortcuts, go home and then the next day all my settings are stuffed around with. This seems to have something to do with macOS updates even though its not updating. I know for a fact no one is touching the computer, and I am setting the keyboard shortcuts / work environment settings correctly and saving them. When loading a file it will show the correct user preference settings loaded but these don't come into effect until I re-load the settings.

 

All of these issues seem to be due to having to use macOS, unfortunately I can't change this. I would in a heartbeat if I could. Does anyone have solutions / know the cause of these issues?

 

I was using a Mac keyboard but I have replaced it with a cheapest keyboard I could find that cost basically nothing but works 100 times better than the Mac keyboard.

Same deal with the mouse, replaced with a mouse with a scroll wheel and actual buttons.

I've tried plugging in the original Mac keyboard / mouse and these don't resolve the button issues - fly through speed, space bar, escape button, keyboard macros changing.

This shouldn't effect anything but being a Mac, plugging in head phones will probably delete my projects so it wouldn't surprise its something to do with the keyboard / mouse.

 

Using Archicad 25 up to date, and a Mac 27 in 5k i9.

 

 

 

 

20 REPLIES 20

Hello Karl thank you for you're responses, I will make other forum threads about the other issues. For now I want to focus on getting 3d explore to work.

 

We have Archicad 25 on 4 iMac's here.

3d explore doesn't work on any of them and no one here was aware that you should be able to use "w, a, s, d" to move the view forward, left, right, back when in explore mode, because they have been trained on Mac's and explore simply doesn't work. No keyboard buttons work when explore mode, the method to escape is by right clicking the mouse.

This problem occurs on all 4 iMacs, on Archicad 23, 24 solo and 25 solo.

I am using a third party keyboard, but the problem happens on official Mac keyboard and mice, and on all the iMacs we have.

It happens after reinstalling a fresh copy of Archicad, it happens after patching, it happens after loading the default work environment.

 

There are countless forum threads talking about this issue and the problem stretches back years, I can keep pulling up more threads, it seems to be one of the most common problem people experience and the main thing in common is it happens to Mac users -

 

https://community.Graphisoft.com/t5/Design-forum/3D-Explore-Mode-is-broken/m-p/286836/highlight/true

 

https://community.Graphisoft.com/t5/Design-forum/3d-explore-help-on-macbook-pro/m-p/90994

 

https://community.Graphisoft.com/t5/Design-forum/Explore-mode-keeps-moving-can-t-stop-it/m-p/248897

 

https://community.Graphisoft.com/t5/Design-forum/Can-t-exit-Fly-mode-in-3D-navigation/m-p/231321

 

https://community.Graphisoft.com/t5/Setup-License-forum/Explore-Model-stopped-working/td-p/259706?f=...

 

https://community.Graphisoft.com/t5/Design-forum/Keyboard-doesn-t-work-for-any-commands-in-explore-m...

 

 

 

ryejuan
Advisor

interesting issues that am not also aware and I was planning on shifting to mac. 😅

In the end what is your Objective?
ArchiCAD 9 onwards

Hi @PClarke maybe you can send a screen recording of the issue that's happening so it will be more clear but I can feel your frustration.

In the end what is your Objective?
ArchiCAD 9 onwards

ryejuan, I would most definitely recommend you do not.

On Mac I am working at less than half the speed.

No ability to quickly move around and view things in 3d.

3d orbit doesn't work as intended (sometimes reverses the direction you should be orbiting)

The whole project crashes if you close a window (this was supposedly fixed in patch 5014, but still happens). So if you have a project with hundreds of views / layouts it may be unworkable on Mac if you have issues with saving changes to work environment profiles and background updating is enabled.

 

Escape key doesn't work half the time.

Program crashes regularly.

Editing certain items (such as amending a beam with a complex profile) in section or elevation crashes the program.

 

There are countless other problems, and they are driving me crazy. As previously stated I will be making other threads. I am having to go home each night to work on my Windows computer to get more done in a couple hours than I can get done in a day on this Mac.

 

Yesterday I was 30 minutes late for a meeting because I had to save a BIMx file nearly 10 times to get it to export correctly.  In the end I had to delete half the file to get it exporting only the items I wanted. I tried exporting it at home on Windows with the version of the file with all the additional layers / info, and it exported correctly first time.

Basically doing anything is a nightmare to the point that I told my bosses I will gladly buy a new drafting computer for their office in order to not use a Mac.

Sounds really bad... Do you have like a distributor there of Archicad, maybe they have tech support that can help you guys out.

In the end what is your Objective?
ArchiCAD 9 onwards

I need to figure out who our distributor is, we are based in Perth Western Australia, so the local distributor / support would normally be central innovation.

However, our office was originally based in UK / Ireland so the licences were purchased in UK and they are perpetual licences. As such, I'm not sure what the deal is with support for the "Solo" perpetual version of Archicad.

 

I will try and get in contact with Central Innovation, but I am under the impression they are over-worked at the present time; the building industry is very busy here at the moment so Archicad support is trying to keep up.

Yeah, feels like Central Innovation is the distributor there. Not much documentation, if you want to see the list of distributors in each country. Since Graphisoft have initiated the use soft key licenses I think in my opinion they need to support every customers either they got it from UK/AU distributors.

In the end what is your Objective?
ArchiCAD 9 onwards
mikas
Expert

Something must be certainly wrong with your AC installation or MacOS.

If you are on MacOS Monterey downgrading to Big Sur might help? Unfortunately it would be a fresh install and starting all over.

 

On MacOS Mojave and AC24 FIN 3D explore and WASD keys works perfectly for me, Mac Pro 2010 + Radeon VII.

Mac Pro 2013 Big Sur with an oldish D500 GPU (equals maybe radeon HD 7950), no problems with AC25 FIN 3D explore and WASD keys. Pretty fluid to me:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/facxj0ok9lddh9y/WASD_c_spacebar.mov?dl=0

Works pretty much as good on my Macs as on my HP Z440 AC24 win10, with Radeon RX 6900XT.

 

Really hope you find some help, things should not be like that at all.

AC25, Rhino6/7+Grasshopper, TwinMotionMac Pro 6,1 E5-1650v2-3,5GHz/128GB/eGPU:6800XT/11.6.5 • HP Z4/Xeon W-2195/256GB/RX6800XT/W10ProWS

We are using Monterey but I don't think downgrading is an option, although it might fix it along with a host of other problems. I'm most likely going to just get a PC for the office, Archicad 25 runs like a dream on my PC's at home, has no bugs or problems, doesn't crash from mundane tasks, and runs infinitely faster too. I've loaded it up on a few computers I've got at home.

 

I booted up 13 year old computer I had in storage and get much better performance than the Mac at work - like being able to instantly zoom in and out in a loaded plan view instead of waiting a second or two.

mikas
Expert

What kind of specs are those computer with. If it's iMac i9, you should have decent GPU too, but what about memory? Is there enough free space on the drive? What equipmnet is attached to them? Are they booted normally from internal SSD?

 

Usually on Mac one wouldn't want to upgrade everything to the latest OS wise. Apples yearly OS upgrades have never playd nicely in respect to Archicad yearly cycles. I have allways kept it to "next best" with both. That way you skip the quirks and work can go on uninterrupted. Windows is far better in this update area in my opinion.

 

I do check the latest as soon as they are out though, but never use the latest for work.

 

Maybe your employer could let test downgrading one of the Macs, that could lead to decision for those others too.

 

I really have a hunch about Monterey, based on this forum posts too. Apple is now busy with their Apple silicon coding, and intel code might see itself in a step child position among Cupertino developers.

 

ps. I use a 12 yo old Mac from 2010 for every day work too (see above), upgraded to the max of course. I've got several working computers available all the time. Newest is 2017 iMac, 64GB/1TB/RX580).

AC25, Rhino6/7+Grasshopper, TwinMotionMac Pro 6,1 E5-1650v2-3,5GHz/128GB/eGPU:6800XT/11.6.5 • HP Z4/Xeon W-2195/256GB/RX6800XT/W10ProWS