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

Magic Wand should recognize Columns

runxel
Legend
Something really obvious, so obvious even, it should be classified rather as a bug than a wish:
The magic wand currently doesn't know what a column is.

Try to magic wand a fill into a room which has a column in one of the walls.
The fill will flow out of the room...
Lucas Becker | AC 27 on Mac | Author of Runxel's Archicad Wiki | Editor at SelfGDL | Developer of the GDL plugin for Sublime Text |
«Furthermore, I consider that Carth... yearly releases must be destroyed»
13 REPLIES 13
Minh Nguyen
Graphisoft Alumni
Graphisoft Alumni
Hi runxel,

Thank you very much for the request!

To help me understand it correctly, could you share some screenshots of the situation you are having? With 4 walls and a column inside one of the wall, the magic wand still recognizes a correct fill boundary in my test.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Best regards,
Minh

Minh Nguyen
Technical Support Engineer
GRAPHISOFT

runxel
Legend
Sure, Minh!
I had a situation similar to this one. In blue the fill I want.
As you can see the column doesn't get recognized by the magic wand.
Lucas Becker | AC 27 on Mac | Author of Runxel's Archicad Wiki | Editor at SelfGDL | Developer of the GDL plugin for Sublime Text |
«Furthermore, I consider that Carth... yearly releases must be destroyed»
vdentello
Advocate
runxel wrote:
Sure, Minh!
I had a situation similar to this one. In blue the fill I want.
As you can see the column doesn't get recognized by the magic wand.

col.png
I think it should be an on/off option, not wanting the columns to be considered could be something!
Archicad User Since 2013
GDL Developer
Experimenting with API
from Brazil
runxel
Legend
vdentello wrote:
I think it should be an on/off option, not wanting the columns to be considered could be something!
Yeah, it could be, but certainly not by me

Foremost I want my tools to behave, and in the moment they don't. If things don't adhere to standards then there is only chaos.
Lucas Becker | AC 27 on Mac | Author of Runxel's Archicad Wiki | Editor at SelfGDL | Developer of the GDL plugin for Sublime Text |
«Furthermore, I consider that Carth... yearly releases must be destroyed»
Minh Nguyen
Graphisoft Alumni
Graphisoft Alumni
Dear All,

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on this wish!

I tested with all construction tools and came to a conclusion: the contour from certain tools can become fill's boundary, while others cannot:

What works as a zone/fill boundary (these do not necessary be in the same plane - only their visible contour in 2D will be enough)
- Wall
- Slab
- Beam
- Curtain wall
- Mesh
- Morph
- Roof
- Shell
What does not work as a zone/fill boundary:
- Column
- Object
- Railing
- Stair

This, I entered a wish (#13028) for better contour detection for Magic Wand.
Thank you once again for sharing the wish! I hope our Product Management team will adopt it soon!

Have a great day!

Best regards,
Minh

p/s: certainly 2D elements can also be the fill's boundary in this case, thus, drawing a line can be an (ugly) workaround sometimes.

Minh Nguyen
Technical Support Engineer
GRAPHISOFT

DGSketcher
Legend
mnguyen wrote:
What does not work as a zone/fill boundary:
- Column
- Object
- Railing
- Stair
Spot the obvious odd one out, the other three I wouldn't expect to form part of a boundary for the magic wand.
Apple iMac Intel i9 / macOS Sonoma / AC27UKI (most recent builds.. if they work)
Anonymous
Not applicable
It also bugs me that there is no plan-intersection that you can snap to between an edge of a Column and any other 2D/3D element.

Say you have a wall and a column and they do intersect at certain points, but you can't snap to the intersection in plan.

That was one of the first things that I found disturbing when I started working in Archicad 10 years ago and I still can't understand why is it like that... But I guess this "bug" is also why the Magic Wand has no effect on Columns.
Laszlo Nagy
Community Admin
Community Admin
mnguyen wrote:
What does not work as a zone/fill boundary:
- Column
- Object
- Railing
- Stair
Just a note here:
Columns do work as Zone Boundaries, they will be recognized when creating Zones with automatic boundary recognition methods. In AC24, the "Relation to Zones" fields in on the "Column" page of the Column Settings Dialog.

So, this wish is only about the Magic Wand not recognizing Columns as boundaries.
So, this is not about Zone/Fill boundaries (it could also be about Polylines, Slabs contours, etc.).
It is about edges recognized by the Magic Wand Tool.
Loving Archicad since 1995 - Find Archicad Tips at x.com/laszlonagy
AMD Ryzen9 5900X CPU, 64 GB RAM 3600 MHz, Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, 500 GB NVMe SSD
2x28" (2560x1440), Windows 10 PRO ENG, Ac20-Ac27
Minh Nguyen
Graphisoft Alumni
Graphisoft Alumni
Hi Laci,

Thank you for the comment! Yes, this is what I clarified in the wish entry.

But your input also raises a question: if a column is set as Zone boundary, should the Zone tool recognize it when using Inner Edge method?



Best regards,
Minh

Minh Nguyen
Technical Support Engineer
GRAPHISOFT