Week #18 – Complex Projects
18-1. Floor Plan Cut Plane and Clerestory Plans

ArchiCAD Training (Best Practices Lesson 18-1)

This 15 minute ArchiCAD training will teach you how the Floor Plan Cut Plane settings work. This setting allows you to choose what elevation you would like to highlight for a particular drawing, which is useful for creating variations of the Floor Plan when you have openings at different heights.

A conventional floor plan shows doors and windows cut at a 4′-0″ height in the U.S., or about 1 meter in other countries. To show a Clerestory Plan highlighting upper windows in a tall wall, the Floor Plan Cut Plane can be changed to a different elevation, and saved as part of the View Settings.

In this lesson, I go over some of the additional controls that allow you to limit the view of elements to a specific height range, rather than the entire element or story.

NOTE: The standard floor plan view setting for walls (as used in this lesson) is “Projected with Overhead”, while the option for windows and doors is set to “Symbolic”. (This is the default as set up in Graphisoft’s standard template.) This combination allows simple controls for the Floor Plan Cut Plane that work nicely for most vertical (i.e. non-tilted) walls. In subsequent lessons, I will show how changing these options will result in drawings with different graphics, and suggest when these variations will be useful for certain design conditions.

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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Eric

ArchiCAD Training: Floor Plan Cut Plane and Clerestory Plans

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  1. Avatar photo
    RobertWilkanowski
    9 years ago

    Eric,

    Adding the custom Google search bar is a great amenity to the BP site. Thanks for adding this. Just one note: it does not show up in safari. I just signed into ACBP site on chrome and there it was…


    • Eric Bobrow
      9 years ago

      Hi Robert –

      I’m glad to hear that you find the search bar useful.

      I checked in Safari and the search bar does come up – perhaps there was a temporary issue, or it was delayed in appearing and you moved on to another page? I suggest you try it again.

      NEWS: I have just added this search bar to the sidebar of all lesson pages to provide easier access.

      Eric

  2. Avatar photo
    RichardHewitt
    10 years ago

    Another excellent outline of this subject. As with all the lessons Eric shows you several ways that come up in ArchiCAD and how you can control the 2d aspect. Well worth watching – I find the individual lessons useful even 2nd and third time round as I pick up small new hints almost every time.


  3. william campbell
    11 years ago

    Thanks Eric, you have provided an enlightening tutorial for this formidable cut plane documentation tool.


    • Eric Bobrow
      11 years ago

      William –
      Thank you for your kind words.
      I’m glad that you found the tutorial useful, and I appreciate that you took the time to post your comments here!
      Eric