Installation & update
About program installation and update, hardware, operating systems, setup, etc.

!Restored: AutoCAD convert's questions

Anonymous
Not applicable
Hello. New here, new to ArchiCAD.

I have been working on ACAD for many years now. Mostly 2D layouts. Whatever needed 3D has been done in MAX. But now i'm thinking stepping up a bit and doing most of the stuff in 3D from the start.

I have a big problem - need to convert to ArchiCAD from AutoCAD. Not a happy puppy at the moment.

So, the question is - where does one start converting from ACAD ? Worst thing i can do is read dry manuals of course. Dont want to

Are there any DO's and DONTs while converting ?

Where do i pick up STEP-BY-STEP tutorials for AC10 ? I'd rather stick to practical excercize, than read thru manuals.

I'm gonna miss my command line, by the way...

Are there any touching points between 3dsMAX and archicad ? besides the obsolete 3DS file format ? Can i get fully textured objects from MAX over to AC10 ?

Is there any way to properly rework autocad made line drawings (plan layouts) into archicad elevated walls, etc ? I still prefer doing precision 2D drawing on acad...

#EDIT1# Did some more reading on the board and some questions popped up. Does AC10 support proper multi-core or multi-cpu utilization ?
Or multi-core multi-cpu for that matter ? My rig is well off for acad2000 but i doubt ids gonna cut it for AC10. Thinking of getting a new rig, possibly with couple of dualcores onboard (quadcores are a bit too hip for now.)?

Sorry if i lack of consistency in the post - its 5:06AM now, cant sleep over the converting issue, searching the net for AC stuff, etc...

Thanks...
17 REPLIES 17
Anonymous
Not applicable
But which 8800 ? with more or less memory ? 384 or 768 ? Will AC10 make use of 768 megs of onboard ram ? Will it impact performance ?

As for home computer, well, the sole purpose of that machine is to play games and enjoy DVDs on big screen, so no serious AC is being done on it.

What you people are saying is - get a mean gaming rig and use it to do AS ? Machine has to last at least 2 years, as did my old cadding iP4 here.

So, if i go like quadcore, 4gb, top range 8800, and possibly 10k rpm system hdd ? Will that hold for next 2 years ? When AC11 is coming out ? Will AC11 run on that machine ? These are the questions my boss will ask me to answer. I'm a technical guy, i know my ways around in hardware (more or less), but i have NO CLUE WHATSOEVER about AC and hardware it relies on the most...

Any help appreciated...

P.S. Is there any way of changing workspace background to colour black ? I hate working on white space, and that carries on to any other app i ever worked with (except coreldraw and general illustration)...
Anonymous
Not applicable
threedee wrote:
P.S. Is there any way of changing workspace background to colour black ? I hate working on white space, and that carries on to any other app i ever worked with (except coreldraw and general illustration)...
I'm not a techie, so I'll answer the easy one.

Go to View > Grid Options > Grids and Background
KeesW
Advocate
Hello threedee

I think that you are asking questions that require a crystal ball - even Autocad couldn't possibly think more than a few years ahead.

Have a look at the hardware section of this list - minimum requirements are listed. From these it seems that a good quality 256 video card will do the job. Therefore a basic 8800GTS is sufficient. However, also look at the video card tests and you'll some that work and others that don't. The 8800GTS has not yet been tested and without this, we can't know how, or if, it performs. If I get one, it will be on a sale or return basis.

You might also check this: http://www.aaarchitect.com/archicad_benchmarks.htm

There is lots of useful stuff on ArchiCad-Talk and most of your questions can be answered if you spend a bit of time looking for them. Reading Archicad 10's instructions won't do any harm either!
Cornelis (Kees) Wegman

cornelis wegman architects
AC 5 - 26 Dell XPS 8940 Win 10 16GB 1TB SSD 2TB HD RTX 3070 GPU
Laptop: AC 24 - 26 Win 10 16GB 1TB SSD RTX 3070 GPU
Djordje
Ace
threedee wrote:
P.S. Is there any way of changing workspace background to colour black ? I hate working on white space, and that carries on to any other app i ever worked with (except coreldraw and general illustration)...
Don't do that.

What you see is what you get - Archicad actually shows you ALL THE TIME what is going to happen on the paper. You don't have the abstract layer between the display and the output.

This is the first thing you shoudl unlearn.

If the pure white bothers you, go for very light grey. Try to use the colours that you would like on the printout immediately. Set your pen sets.
Djordje



ArchiCAD since 4.55 ... 1995
HP Omen
Anonymous
Not applicable
Tried that and all my hopes went out the window. I'm highly astigmatic, hard to get a proper prescroption for glasses, so things like very high contrast dont look good. I'm not half blind or some such thing, but i have trouble seeing fine lines (especially vertical) on a white background. This is fixed by setting background to black. Cant drive because of that, especially at night with lights blasting in my face...

But archicad messes the usefulness of black bkg while panning (mid mouse button). While colours are seen ok, the outline of actual walls disappear (black on black, shading disappears). Bugger. Plus, our standard of doing things dont involve many colours in drawings. We are adopting a strategy of "as simple as possible", meaning not cluttering drawings with colour and arrows,'n'stuff.

My acad set is consisting of only primary colours (7 in total), and some of them, while set to display colour are plotted in black.

But then again, my eyes are not the problem with AC so just ignore me on this

(got an appointment with optical laser surgery for a consultation of what can be done to fix this.)

#Edit1# Cant be any worse than light grey
Djordje
Ace
OUCH!

Sorry, man ... it must be hard!
Djordje



ArchiCAD since 4.55 ... 1995
HP Omen
Anonymous
Not applicable
Nothing too bad, just got used to it. Getting my eyes lasered some time this autumn...

Someone mentioned a book "Framework" for archicad here. I cant find it to buy. Amazon.co.uk doesnt sell it, ebay both .com and .co.uk dont have any...

Any other places to buy online ? Preferably sold in europe.

Any other good example/training books with CDs out there ?
Laura Yanoviak
Advocate
Objects Online still has 'em:

www.objectsonline.com/customer/product.php?productid=116041&cat=0&page=1

Not as applicable to AC10, but still very worthwhile.
MacBook Pro Apple M2 Max, 96 GB of RAM
AC26 US (5002) on Mac OS Ventura 13.5