Wishes
Post your wishes about Graphisoft products: Archicad, BIMx, BIMcloud, and DDScad.

Better controls for Graphic Overrides for replacing surface materials, or better Renovation filter

Chris Hough
Booster
So, the renovation tool is great for doing remodels, but lacking if you want to leave the wall itself, but change the surface material. So (as an example) if I want to show a blue paint for the interior of a wall for an existing version, but a red paint for the wall on the "Planned Status" version, there does not seem to be a good way to model this. You have to show the entire wall as demo and then add a new one if you are using the renovation filter, which isn't really showing a true picture of demo vs. new construction if you are simply doing a material chance. And adding a "new wall" (say 1/2" thick) that represents the new material over the existing one is time consuming and difficult if you have openings in the existing wall that you'd then have to line up with the existing one.

I also had the thought to use graphic overrides to set up rules to rework certain surfaces between new and old, (overriding one existing surface with another). Unfortunately, the override section right now overrides the surface for the entire wall (both sides) as opposed to being able to select an outside skin or an inside one to replace. You can use the inside or outside skin as parameters for selecting the walls to be overridden, but then the option for what happens to that wall is the entire wall (inside and out) gets overridden with the new surface.

Better control for overriding individual surfaces given certain conditions, or adding an option to replace a specified surface within the renovation filter without demoing the entire wall is needed I think, as I don't see a way to do this in the current version of the software (unless I'm mistaken).
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13 REPLIES 13
Anonymous
Not applicable
Its my problem also. There is not another way to change this. Graphisot should fix this.
Laszlo Nagy
Community Admin
Community Admin
I think the best way to deal with such cases is to model a separate Wall for the two Renovation Statuses as I do not have a better suggestion for you.

In terms of fixing it, let me give you some food for thought about this. So basically, what you are asking is that parameters of elements (such as the parameter that defines the Surface applied to one side of a Wall) should be made Renovation Filter-aware and capable of being Reno Filter-dependent. So how would this work? Would you have a list of Surface values for each side of the Wall: Surface A when Renovation Status is "Existing", Surface B when Renovation Status is "Temporary", Surface C when Renovation Status is "New".
Then, if we generalize this, we could say: why is it not possible to make any setting or property of an element Renovation Filter-dependent, like the Wall Height, Wall Type, Wall Thickness, Wall Length, etc. This would make Archicad as a program a lot more complicated, and we are not even talking about how much development work it would require to do it. This is why I believe such a "wish" would be pretty unrealistic.
So I think, it is better to just model the Wall separately for different Reno Filters.
Just my 2 cents.
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Chris Hough
Booster
Yes, I understand that being able to modify the various parameters of a wall does add a level of complexity to the tool. And I think modifying things like the height or thickness of an existing wall begs the question as to what is (and is not) technically a demolition condition.

But having to model separate walls side by side to merely show a different paint condition seems equally absurd (no offense). How do you handle openings then? Windows and doors? Are you creating multiple empty openings aligned with those conditions merely to present a different finish in your model to a client who is expecting their bathroom to show updated finishes?

I get the coding of this could be problematic, but you all opened this can of worms with the renovation tool in the 1st place. I am sorry but your "model 2 walls" solutions seems completely impractical from a software package as sophisticated (and expensive) as Archicad. Replacing the surface for the entire wall simply because you want change a finish one one side- yeah it works if you want to show existing walls or removed walls as a concept, but not as a finished model for presentation.

Give it some thought please. This is a flaw in the current design of this tool in my opinion.
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Lingwisyer
Guru
Graphic Override improvements would probably be the simplest direction to go at the moment. Given how Surfaces are defined I am assuming the current surface override logic is; IF conditions equal true, then Inside, Outside, Edge equal B. Expose the output and allow for user modification or even just allow for a mirrored input to output. For walls, beams and columns, this should not be that complicated, more so given the recent reworks to the beam and column tools. For objects such as doors and windows, I can see this being a bit more complicated. That is unless we move from how the GO system works over to how the Surface Catalogue works as currently there is no way to replace material A with material B without deleting material A...



Ling.

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Anonymous
Not applicable
I think GO is not the place to include this capability, as I see it more as a presentation tool than a BIM one.
Ling is in the right direction... I would suggest an upgrade on the Surface Settings that could include a "Composite Surface" option. Where we could add several "Layers" of surfaces with individual custom properties (i.e.: Existent, Removed, New) that could be filtered by the user.
Lingwisyer
Guru
Braza wrote:
I think GO is not the place to include this capability, as I see it more as a presentation tool than a BIM one.
Ling is in the right direction... I would suggest an upgrade on the Surface Settings that could include a "Composite Surface" option. Where we could add several "Layers" of surfaces with individual custom properties (i.e.: Existent, Removed, New) that could be filtered by the user.
Better control for overriding individual surfaces given certain conditions, or adding an option to replace a specified surface

Presentation of the walls; a Graphic Overrride.

That is an interesting interpretation of what I wrote and I would have to disagree with adding reno options to them. Keep Surfaces purely visual as they are, construction does not belong there.

The end of my previous post was more about how the Surface Catalogue integrates with the GO system. When you cannot globally replace an individual Surface without deleting it, I see little hope in GOs being able to do it...



Ling.

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Barry Kelly
Moderator
Lingwisyer wrote:
The end of my previous post was more about how the Surface Catalogue integrates with the GO system. When you cannot globally replace an individual Surface without deleting it, I see little hope in GOs being able to do it...

Don't forget about the 'Surface Painter' tool.
That can replace a single surface on an element (even an object) or all of the same surface on all elements without deleting the original surface attribute.

It is not like a Graphic Override as it is a permanent change until you change the surfaces again.
But at least it does not override all surfaces of an element.


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Anonymous
Not applicable
Lingwisyer wrote:
Keep Surfaces purely visual as they are, construction does not belong there.
I have the same opinion for GO. It is purely graphic... construction don't belong there.
In other hand I think that Surfaces could become the AC element where we could place those "superficial" materials, like textiles, membranes or paint. That have its own dynamics in the construction.
Chris Hough
Booster

The GO option works pretty much exactly the same as the renovation tool currently does, and the problem with both is that you cannot change a single side of the wall, you have to override the surfaces for the entire wall, in and out. Impractical for showing a client a before and after side by side comparison easily, as the renovation tool IS INTENDED to do.

 

And the surface painter is an option, but obviously you are also not going back and forth between existing and new easily. That is the obvious strength o the renovation filter, it just needs to be able to change only a SINGLE side of the wall as opposed to overriding the entire structure (or having to model 2 walls and this create the new/ existing/ demo layers that the renovation files keeps you from having to do). 

Owner, Heritage Design Studio
AC 4.5-26
Maco OS Monterey | 2.4 Ghz i9 | 32Gb | AMD RX 6800 XT