ArchiCAD Basic Training – Module 5
5-1. Choosing and Placing Fixtures, Cabinets and Furniture

ArchiCAD Training –  (Quick Start Course – 5-1)

This 51 minute lesson shows how to select and place fixtures, cabinets and furniture in the building, demonstrating many variations of the techniques.

Your Downloads

Please refer to the following furniture plan PDF files for guidance as to the specific objects used in this model. The labels refer to the names of the objects in the USA library; they will have identical or similar names in the International library. Feel free to consider this a starting point; use your own judgment and creativity when fitting out your building model.

Thank you for visiting the Best Practices Course website. The video lessons are available for members only. If you are an active member and would like to watch the ArchiCAD training video on this page, please login to the website. If you are not currently a member, please visit the following pages for more information and to sign up for the Best Practices Course, the QuickStart Course or for the Best Practices ArchiCAD Coaching Program. Eric Bobrow, Creator of the Best Practices Course

Your Downloads

You may need to right-click the following links and select Save Link As to download the file to your computer

Click here to see the transcript of this ArchiCAD training lesson...

ArchiCAD Training: Choosing and Placing Fixtures, Cabinets and Furniture

Let us know how you feel... (20 comments so far)

The comments are closed.


  1. LuisMadrid
    11 years ago

    Thanks a bunch for sharing your knowledge Eric, I had been around Archicad but I never really took any course I had been learning on my own and is hard, this is the way to go. I meet you like 6 years ago in LA. Im a builder but I love the Design . You are a good teacher congratulations. I got the Cadimage on my Archicad but Im Having hard time to use it. im wonder if you have any experience on that. do you know any good videos that may help.?


    • Eric Bobrow
      11 years ago

      Luis –

      Thanks for sharing your thoughts here on the site. I recall meeting you a while back, glad to have you in the course.

      I have worked with Cadimage tools from time to time, but don’t have a lot of experience with them. They do provide tech support (login to their website and open up a support ticket) and also have many videos as well as other guides available for their products in their support area.

      Eric


  2. MaureenBoh
    12 years ago

    Hi Eric

    I somehow inadvertently addressed you as Mike – please accept my sincere apologies. Wish I could blame it on my keyboard or spell checker!! You’re my ArchiCAD hero – I love your lessons and they’re worth more than every $ even as a not so financial full time student. Thank you.

    Maureen


    • Eric Bobrow
      12 years ago

      Maureen –
      I accept your apology…no problem!
      Thanks for your kind words – I’m very glad you are appreciating the course so much!
      Eric


  3. MaureenBoh
    12 years ago

    Hi Mike,

    Could you please tell me how to place the custom-made cabinet designs below on my plan? I would truly appreciate your help.

    – 1 vertical row from floor to ceiling
    – 5 different heights
    – Some shelves have doors while others are open

    – 2 similar vertical rows from floor to ceiling
    – The bottom most part is a drawer the width of 2 vertical rows

    Maureen


    • Eric Bobrow
      12 years ago

      Maureen –

      The simplest way to approach this is to build the cabinets using thin slabs for the shelves and bottom of the drawer(s), and thin walls for the sides of the cabinet and for the drawer face and doors. You’re basically going to build the model using these elements much like you would build it in the real world (although you won’t need screws or nails, of course).

      The reason I suggest this is that there is no built-in object in the standard ArchiCAD library that will create a cabinet exactly like you want. You might find a third-party tool such as Cadimage Cabinets to do this (I’m not sure) but for a basic model that will give you good interior elevations and a first pass at interior renderings, this method will work fine.

      Place these slabs and walls on different layers than the normal structural slabs and walls so that you can control their visibility separately.

      You may add in as much detail as you need for the interior elevation, including door knobs or pulls, in either 3D (if you know how to do this) or 2D (drawing on top of the model elements). It’s beyond the scope of a quick answer or a basics course to teach you how to create more complex elements such as knobs, but I will be covering this in the Best Practices Course in the section on creating your own library parts.

      Since you recently registered for the Best Practices Course, you may participate in the ArchiCAD Coaching Program calls. I’ll be happy to demonstrate what I just wrote about here on one of the calls, particularly if I know you are attending. Let me know if you’ll be able to join one of the upcoming sessions.

      Eric


      • MaureenBoh
        12 years ago

        Hi Eric

        Thank you so much for your very prompt response. I shall try to work out your suggestions. I would like to join your upcoming sessions but due to time zone difference, I may be at college. Does it matter if I simply listen to the replay?

        Maureen


  4. AmmarRija
    12 years ago

    very very nice lesson


  5. KennethMunson
    12 years ago

    Eric,

    Thank you for picking up what Virtual Tutor let go. I’m so glad that someone is taking up the reins and helping the ArchiCAD community how to fly this program.

    Question: in this last tutorial, you gave us “homework” placing other objects in the rooms. How do we center objects (i.e. the sofa) on wall segments or other objects or maybe in the middle of the room? I couldn’t find/get an indicator that I was in the middle of the wall segement as opposed to the middle of the entire wall.

    Thanks again for taking this on…I’m in it for the long haul…if I can become productive and proficient….in several months?

    ~Ken

    ~Ken


    • Eric Bobrow
      12 years ago

      Ken –

      Thanks for your kind words – I’m glad to fill in the gap to supply excellent training for ArchiCAD users.

      If the built-in snaps aren’t sufficient – for example, to find the mid-point of a wall segment between two objects – you can use the Create Guide Line Segment command to draw a line between the two points. You’ll find a snap will show up along that Guide Line, just like it will along a wall or an ordinary line. The difference is that the Guide Line will disappear after you place the object or draw anything.

      You’ll find this command under View menu > Guide Line Options > Create Guide Line Segment, or from the small pull-down menu next to the Guide Line icon in the Toolbar; there is also a keyboard shortcut available as well.

      I hope that helps!
      Eric

  6. Avatar photo
    MariyaLilith
    13 years ago

    Hi Eric,

    It’s the little things, you know?…like any point that is magenta is stretchable; customizing cabinets (I knew how, cut wasn’t in regards to sinks) and inserting objects with the Rotated insertion command.

    Thanks again 🙂

    Mariya


  7. Eric
    13 years ago

    Iain –

    I appreciate that you trust me to “drive the locomotive” and am very happy to hear that you are thoroughly satisfied and enjoying the course.

    While on some level I am glad to see you stand up and defend me, it isn’t really necessary in this case. I didn’t feel offended by Vadim’s comments.

    A newer user will always see things differently than someone who has been around for a while. The QuickStart Course is really aimed to help users like Vadim, so his feedback is valuable to me. For example, roofs are confusing when first explained and demonstrated. For you, this may merely be filling in some gaps and giving you some shortcuts – for newer users, it is a new language and methodology, and will often be hard to assimilate at first. I’m doing my best to explain as I go along, and I know I’m pretty good at it – but still and all, it’s harder to learn new things than to go over things you sort of know and learn them better.

    Anyway, you are both part of my extended family, and there’s no need to fight or criticize. Let’s focus on the main task – getting better at using this wonderful tool called ArchiCAD!

    Eric


  8. AnthonyWarburton
    13 years ago

    Hi Hope you are getting well. These lessons are great only wish they were around about 12mths ago when i first started archicad. At that time i just muddled my way through. there didn’t seem to be any tutorials that were of any use or easy to understand. Hope archicad takes notice of the great work you are doing and points every new user in your direction.

    Cheers

    Tony Warburton [Australia]


    • Eric
      13 years ago

      Tony –
      Thanks for the kind words. I’m sorry you didn’t have tutorials like this when you were in the learning process, but I suppose it’s better late than never!
      Eric


  9. Vadim Hsu
    13 years ago

    Eric-
    I don’t feel ‘used’ at all — even though I know that was in jest from a seasoned user. As a total novice just making the big switch from ACAD & PC, I found the QuickStart lessons very helpful and reassuring that some basic concepts of CAD are fairly similar.
    I like how the basic layering is already set up, I like the graphics for the most part, your explanations to a beginner like me seem helpful at this level, and I’m sure will lead to more detailed questions later, which if part of the plan, is fine with me. I want to learn it right from the start not figure out my mistakes at least big ones, later.
    That being said, I had a few questions/comments only for now, until I dive into a real project of my own soon.

    1) How do you manipulate the Door and Window symbology? The all have #’s and when you copied a door in your example, it had the same number. Having them the same is confusing.
    2) You need to explain wall cleanups a little better.
    3). Separate the US from the Metric lessons. I realize we’ll all be metric someday, and the US version is use for ‘us’ but try to stick with the user group… I drifted off during your metric switchovers.
    4). The roof lesson wasn’t as clear as the others.
    5). Perhaps an entire module should be just for manipulating attributes and ‘styles’ that went very quickly and I had to watch several times, especially about marquees and the magic wand…
    6). Is the a shortcut ‘cheat sheet’ for all the keyboard commands you reference? While your icons are very helpful, being a season ACAD user with my own aliases, yours seem so well defined already: it would be nice to have a sheet of all the ‘command’ functions.
    7). Lastly, small point, but in the last lesson the sinks and the cabinets were not centered after you adjusted them, need to know how to do that…

    In general, from what I’ve seen, great job, Iike what I see..
    Vadim
    5)


    • Eric
      13 years ago

      Vadim –

      I’m glad to see you diving in, and finally getting into working with ArchiCAD after all of these years.

      1) The ID for doors and windows can be set in the Door Settings dialog – look near the bottom in the panel called Listing and Labeling. You’ll also see a place to set these in the far right side of the Info Box (when a door or window is selected).

      For a fast way to set multiple ID’s using ArchiCAD’s automation capability, please review my video tutorial on “How to Set Door and Window ID’s Quickly”:
      http://www.bobrow.com/archicad-tutorials/archicad-tutorial-video-tip-how-to-set-door-window-ids-quickly/

      2) This is an introductory course. I will go into this topic in more depth in the Best Practices Course in the sections on Construction Documentation.

      3) I repeated the exercises in some cases using the metric model for a few reasons:
      a) It was a good review, repeating the same thing, so people could learn the steps more thoroughly
      b) It allowed me to show how fast it could be done when I wasn’t stopping and explaining each sub-step
      c) It got my metric model caught up with the USA version

      You can always skip forward if you find it boring or unnecessary for your learning process.

      4) Roofs are complex and the first time you learn the principles of creating and modifying them in ArchiCAD it will be somewhat confusing. You’ll understand this better after you try to do some yourself. Then you’ll probably want to come back to the lesson and watch it again, perhaps even more than once.

      5) As I said, this is an introductory course. I can’t explain everything as I go along, if I want to cover the topics from a broad-brush general perspective. The Best Practices lessons will go into more detail on all of these areas.

      6) You can get a list of all of the keyboard shortcuts by going to the Options menu > Work Environment > Keyboard Shortcuts and clicking the button to Show Shortcut List in Browser. You can then print this list from the browser window for reference.

      7) Yes, this is a small point, and I don’t want to worry about such things in the intro course. But to answer your question, in the Object Settings dialog for the Cabinet Base 2D 15, in the Kitchen Cabinet Settings panel in the Counter section (where I changed the Sink style) there are settings for “X Dist. from Center” and “Y Dist. from Center” which you can use to move the sink into the desired position.

      I’m glad you like the lessons in general – please keep going, and start watching some of the Best Practices lessons as well. And put the learning to use – work on a real project – that’s the only way you’ll really learn and integrate all of this.

      Eric


  10. R.BruceGermond
    13 years ago

    Hi Eric,
    I’ve finally figured out your little ploy … this whole diversion of “Coaching Calls”, “Office Hours” and this “Quick Start Course” are just a clever way to find out how much we know and to get everyone on the same page … to make your life easier! And I fell for it Hook, Line and Sinker. I feel so used…

    I should refuse to learn anymore until the “real course” starts back up, but I’m filling in so many blanks. “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”.

    This is great stuff, Eric, you’re a fine (and devious) instructor.


    • Eric
      13 years ago

      Bruce –
      Yes, it’s all part of my carefully crafted master plan…
      ;->
      Eric


  11. Hector Baylon
    13 years ago

    This all so helpful. I just need to add a few more hours into my day.


    • Eric
      13 years ago

      Hector –
      Thanks for you kind words.
      Glad to know that the lessons in the QuickStart Course are helping you, someone who has been using ArchiCAD for years!
      Eric