July – December 2014
ArchiCAD Training – Coaching Call – August 20, 2014

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

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 ArchiCAD Training Session Notes

QUESTION ANSWER SUMMARY AND NOTES START TIME
Adjusting order to an index. Open the source view of your index by right clicking on it. The source view is the area where you can control how your index is compiled and displayed. Indexes deal with sheets and views, where as schedules deal with elements in your project like windows and doors, walls or zones. Click on index settings button in upper right. This will show the name and its criteria within a certain subset. When you have an index you can choose what things are included and adjust the settings. “And/Or” and parentheses are used for what is and is not included. There is also Field as well as criteria. You can use this to set up your fields for your index. You can also hand number your sheets, but this is can be more tedious. This is helpful for blueprinting. 0:00:40
Rotating and multiplying objects Before AC 17 or 18 you could not drag a copy of 3D elements in section. Now you can. What it does not have is the rotate command withing the multipy command. So you will have to do a work around of making multiple copies (probably in section) then type in the values for each element. 0:32:50
How to create a curved beam as an object without turning it into a morph The old fashioned way before we had morphs you would have drawn it on plan then save the element as an object. Objects are most powerful when they are scripted. When they are created from plan they are more rigid. The morph in this case would be a more free form modeling tool. The only other reason to do it as an object is if you had a lot of them because you could count them on a schedule. Use the morph tool if you only need a few. Eric also works with the editing plane here and demonstrates how to edit a morph with the eding plane and how to join morphs using the union option. Eric also demonstrates other options with the morph tool like smoothing out the model. Curvature in the shell tool is limited. 0:43:50
Locked and hidden layers. Is there a quicker layer to modify all layers without unhihding and unlocking all layers, which can be tedious? If you open your layer setting dialogue box you’ll see your list of all layers including hidden and locked ones. Usually hidden layers are locked too. You can shorten your list by going to Options>Work Environment>Dialogue Boxes and Pop up Palettes you can choose to hide locked layers and pop up palettes. This will shorten your layer list. But if you place an object and want to put it on a hidden and/or locked layer you wont see that layer as an option on your pull down menu. You would then have to open your layer dialogue box and open and unlock the layers then you can go back and manually place your object, then go back and relock your layers. This is tedious. You can instead go to Window>Palettes>Quick Layers and then there is a toggle button to lock and unlock layers. If you toggle that it will unlock all layers and vise versa. However this will then lock the layer your object was on and you can’t change it. Instead you can put your object on the ArchiCAD layer, flip the locking, then put it on the correct layer, then undo the quick layer option to relock it. This is four clicks verses having to recreate the layer changes in your layer dialogue box. The ArchiCAD layer is the only layer that can’t be locked or hidden so it is a good placeholder location while moving from locked to unlocked layers. 1:06:09
What is the best way to trim around windows and doors, specifically an overhang on the top casing? Open the dialogue box for your window or door and look at the custom settings for casings. Here you can turn casings on and set their size. The overhang option give you the location to set the overhang width. You can also model the casings separately with moldings, but they would not move or change size with the window. Using beams and columns wont clean up to each other with miters. You can create a complex profile that will then miter clean up to each of it’s pieces. You still can’t make it vertical so you’d then need to turn it into a morph to make it vertical and then place it to your window or door. 1:22:28

ArchiCAD Training – Coaching Call – August 20, 2014

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