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How to hide something according to criteria

Robert Nichols
Advocate

I want to hide certain elements/objects in my reflected ceiling plan, but have them show in floor plan and all 3D views. I'd rather not use layers for this, as the type of item could be anything - toilet accessory, hose bibb, specific cabinet, etc. I don't like layers that have odd collections of construction elements whose only thing in common is desired graphic behavior.

 

Ideally I would add a custom property to my environment ("Hide on RCP"), then flag that when needed.

 

I use a lot of custom GDL objects, and I could easily modify them to respect the HIDE RCP property, but I'd rather not write my own GDL simply to add this feature to AC objects that otherwise are fine.

 

Graphic Overrides was created to address this sort of thing...but lacks an option to simply not draw/show something. 

Mac Studio, 32gb ram, ArchiCAD v26 (Apple Silicon) MacOS 13
16 REPLIES 16

Would changing the floor plan cut plane so it cuts well above the objects achieve this?

Lee Hankins
ArchiCAD 4.5 - Archicad 27UKI Apple Silicon 27.1.1
macOS Sonoma (14.2)

Thanks for the response, Lee. Changing the cut plane wouldn't really help, as I'm not looking to exclude things based on range. Rather, I want to exclude an arbitrary collection of things that don't contribute to the RCP and thus are unnecessary. They may be positioned close to the ground, or relatively high.

Mac Studio, 32gb ram, ArchiCAD v26 (Apple Silicon) MacOS 13
Patrick Hayes
Booster

Hi Robert, 

 

The graphic override technique should work well enough. Just set up a new Property in property manager called "Hide on RCP" or something and make it a true/false option defaulting on false. Then make sure it's available for all your classifications that you are likely to use. (Here's an example of one we have set up to dash things below)

Screenshot 2022-11-14 101824.jpg

 

Then, with a G.O, make the criteria "Hide on RCP" is TRUE and just set it up so the line type turns to dots and white pen (the best you can vanish something on plan), fill type to background and background pen to -1. You can actaully vanish things now in 3D and sections / elevations using GO's using the hide model contours and changing your surface to an "Invisible" surface as long as you have transparency on in the section/elevation. Just make sure any surfaces you don't want the model looking through (ie glass) are set to a transmittance of 51% or more. I think plan views are still a bit of a work around though.

Screenshot 2022-11-14 102143.jpg

 

As far as an approach goes though, I'd re-think to using layers if you can develop logical breakups. Any method like a property/GO relies on each individual element being told to behave a certain way, so it's a very manual process which doesn't really leverage the "Smarts" of your system and can be suseptible to human error and less easy to audit then layers.

 

Thanks,

Patrick 

Associate | Law Architects
Melbourne, Australia

Sorry correction - GO Background pen should be set to pen 0 (Transparent), not -1.... need my morning coffee!

Associate | Law Architects
Melbourne, Australia

Hi, Patrick.

 

Yes, I had figured out the property setup and how to filter according to the value in GO dialog. But I was looking for a true "don't draw" effect, as I don't like when a white pen obscures something behind it. But...your correction above prompted me to test changing the "Line" setting to zero, rather than a defined white pen. Oddly, the GO Rules dialog accepted the zero value, even though you can't select such a thing using the color pallette popup for that particular (unlike the bg fill situation as you suggested). The effect is *almost* perfect - pen zero in that context yields a white line of maximally (?!) thin weight. 

 

And your response got me rethinking my attitude toward solving the problem with layers. My life with layers has generally improved when allowing graphic needs to influence layer organization, perhaps at the expense of construction logic. We aren't really constrained by national CAD standards or things like that, so I think I'll just make a layer to do the job. 

Mac Studio, 32gb ram, ArchiCAD v26 (Apple Silicon) MacOS 13

Nice loophole with the "0" pen. I was thinking as well you could probably make a new line type that is even less busy than "dots" - just space them out heaps and you should get one at each corner only. 

I still think this method of obscuring something from a plan based on a visual adjustment only may still cause you headaches with things like sending CADs to a consultant for their backgrounds. Archicad's DWG translators have been left behind in terms of development and sometimes don't play well with clever visual trickery - So I think Layers are a safer bet in general.   

Associate | Law Architects
Melbourne, Australia

Yes, to all of the above. 

 

But also a "HIDE" option in the GO Rule panel. When GS first released Graphic Overrides, I remembering looking for such an option for about 30 minutes - was sure that would be be one of the most common uses for the tool. 

Mac Studio, 32gb ram, ArchiCAD v26 (Apple Silicon) MacOS 13

100%. It's funny they have introduced the hide contours in 3D without doing a hide on plan. I suppose they may be in an existential crisis about the role of layers vs classification/GOs. 

Associate | Law Architects
Melbourne, Australia

@Robert Nichols wrote:

But also a "HIDE" option in the GO Rule panel.


Yes, this has been wished for by many.

I really hope they do include it one day.

 

If you are not using the Renovation Filters for their intended purpose, you can use those and really hide your elements.

Just set those elements you want to hide as 'To be demolished' and have a filter that hides demolished elements.

Then when ever you want the RCP, you activate that filter in the view you save for the RCP.

In normal views you make sure you are using a filter that is not hiding demolished elements.

 

Barry.

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