How to get good looking line hierarchy in sections & elves

[Anonymous]

I love what archicad has done for my workflow, but drawing quality has taken a nosedive. Looking back at the elevations, sections & details I did in 2D cad programs, everything was so much more visually pleasing & easy to read. Sections had a heavy line where a composite was cut, and thinner lines within. Is there any way to get this effect in archicad without converting the section to 2D?

[Erwin Edel]

You can set the 'uncut line' pen for walls, slabs, roofs etc to something bold, but that's all the uncut lines it generates, so not just the outer outline.

You could probably get really clever with model views (hide all openings), layercombinations (hide the layers of elements you do not want bold), make an extra elevation and set it to override the projection pen to the thickness you want (or just use two pen sets). Overlay two linked drawings on your layout. It seems like a lot of work, but will be more automatic than polylines.

[Anonymous]

Hi, I was reading this post, cause I'm having the same issue here, I wanted to refine the pens in an elevation.
And this is one of the reasons why I Submit this wish:
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=51595

Something like this would help a lot, imaging just overwrite the uncut pen for every element only for this view.
Or something else will be adding more distant area levels to sections and elevations.

Anyway, what I'm doing is making a worksheet of the elevation and because is converted to 2D I have more control over pens and I'm changing there the pens, and when the model change I update the worksheet and again change the pens. (Yes is also painful but that's a solution by now)
And I'm showing my worksheet as my Elevation.

[Anonymous]

arqrivas wrote:
Anyway, what I'm doing is making a worksheet of the elevation and because is converted to 2D I have more control over pens and I'm changing there the pens, and when the model change I update the worksheet and again change the pens. (Yes is also painful but that's a solution by now)
And I'm showing my worksheet as my Elevation.

I can't see how this would be any easier than changing a polyline outline. But I do like your ideas for changing display in specific views. Thought about that years ago.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I think you're right s2art, probably changing outline is easier than my technique (is really time consuming:cry: ). And that's exactly why I came to see if I could find some help here. Actually, I'm going to try the Polyline outline in a project that is coming soon.

PD: But probably I'll get the polylines from my worksheet and paste it into the elevation...

[Bruce]

If you're going to polyline in a worksheet, why not just leave them in the worksheet? That way, you can trace & reference in your elevation, which makes selection of the polyline to edit a lot easier.

[Anonymous]

I've been using archicad since version 6.0 (1999 or so), from a background of manual drafting and (briefly) 2d CAD (autocad).
My experience is that archicad documentation can easily be produced to match the "clarity" of manual drafting (manual referring to both hand drawing and 2d CAD).

Having said that, the main issue I have encountered is with clients/collaborators/employers who are used to alternative workflows who get hung up on the appearance of drawings rather more than legibility/clarity. There may be certain "styles" which are not readily replicable, however for the substantially increased functionality (3d documents, generated sections, integrated linking of the various drawing types due to the BIM process etc. etc. etc., compromising on strictness of drawing "style" represents better value in terms of time and cost.