Powerful Design Presentations with Archicad

[Gabriel Dantas]

Surface Textures on Section/Elevation/Interior Elevation Views

Limitations on graphic representation tools require time-consuming workarounds and the help of external software that breaks the BIM workflow. In previous Archicad versions, displaying hi-res surfaces on 2D views could be a constraint. 

With Archicad 25, it is possible to display high-resolution surface textures on sections, elevation, and interior elevation views as seen in the 3D window. A new, realistic soft shading option and a cover fill option on top of the Textures are also available.

Surface Textures on Elevation

It is easy to unify your design appearance with the expanded options for Section/Elevation/Interior Elevation Settings, allowing you to display the same Textures as in the 3D window. Besides the textures, a new Soft shading option has been introduced, and Fading of the distant element has been reworked.

The new realistic soft shading option on Textures enhances your graphic representation, improving the depth aspect and highlighting the details of your design. Furthermore, now you can apply Cover Fill (previously called Vectorial Hatching) over the top of Textures.

There are also new options for Uncut and Distant elements representation added to the revamped Model Appearance panel of Section/Elevation/Interior Elevation Viewpoint settings:

• Nothing
• Uniform Pen – Color Fill, Non-Shaded
• Surface – Color Fill, Non-Shaded
• Surface – Texture Fill, Non-Shaded (NEW)
• Surface – Color Fill, Shaded
• Surface – Texture Fill, Shaded (NEW)

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NOTE: plotters cannot handle transparent Fills. In Texture-type fills, shadows and shading are based on transparent Fills - these will appear as solid Fills in the plotter output. Fills based on Surface Color, shadows and shading are created using color mixing and are not affected by this limitation - they will look as expected on plotter output, too.

Surface-Based Fills

Fills can now access and display Surfaces. When you draw a Fill for quick touch-ups or Floor Plan/Detail presentations, you can easily apply a Surface's color, cover fill, or texture. You can also define the exact alignment and distortion abilities as any other Fill types. Even if Fills are 2D elements, they can be utilized to test and visualize multiple design options in various 2D views such as floor plans or sections, and elevations without actually changing elements.

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  Updated Fill Settings Menu

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  Example of Fills With Textures

Given the graphic representation improvements, now it is possible to use the representation of the Uncut and Distant elements to ensure a sense of "depth" on the 2D views. With Archicad 25, you can expand your creativity and achieve super-professional visualizations without spending post-processing time.

Learn about all the new visualization features of Archicad 25:

• Enhanced Visualization Capabilities for Powerful Collaboration - BIMx Improvements

To learn more about all the new features of Archicad 25, read this article.