ArchiCAD Training – (Quick Start Course – 5-3)

This 19 minute lesson focuses on how to create the right View for particular drawings by manipulating Layer Combinations (which control what elements are seen), Model View Options (which control how these elements are shown) and Cut Plane Settings (which determine at what height the walls are cut in order to show windows and doors properly).

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QuickStart Course – Week 5 Part 3 – © copyright 2011 by Eric Bobrow QUICKSTART COURSE – MODULE 5 PART 3 – Layer Combinations, View Settings, Model View Options & Cut Plane Settings ArchiCAD Training: Laye Hello, this is Eric Bobrow. And in this lesson, we’ll be looking at how to fine tune our layer combinations to create different views of the model that will create different drawings. And also look at model view options and cut plane settings as a way to control the visibility of elements in those drawings. [00:21] When I double click on the Drafting floor plan in the U.S. version, we’ll see that we’re getting a combination of the furniture and the dimensions. So we’re having something – furniture would typically go, as far as I’m concerned, on a presentation drawing, because it’s not being built in. Whereas dimensions would typically go on a construction document, where you’re going to be building it. You don’t want to necessarily have the client be looking at a drawing with a lot of dimensional information like that. [00:54] So, this Drafting floor plan, this layer combination or this setup, is showing a lot of information that’s very useful, but may not be what we want to print out. Now let me look at the floor plan under Construction Documentation. You’ll see there’s a folder here in the standard template, and when I double click on First Floor plan here, you can see that this view turns off the furniture. So this is actually pretty good. This is let’s say, ideal for placing construction document there. Let’s look at some variations. If I double click on Structural plan, it changes it radically. It hides all of the fixtures and dimensions, and just leaves me with a plain view of the walls. [1:41] And let’s look at Reflected Ceiling plan. These other ones that are predefined in the U.S. template. In this case, we are seeing the dimensions, but we’re seeing the doors and windows in a very different way, where we just see the cutouts for their openings. Now I would like to create a furniture plan. So I’m going to teach you how to do that. I go to the first floor plan here, and now I’m going to create a variation of it. So to creative a variation, I’m going to go and open the Layer Dialog box. And when I do that with the Command+L or CTR+L, we’ll see that the Floor Plan layer combination was what was activated when I clicked on the first floor plan. [2:21] You’ll also see in the bottom right here, the words floor plan just underneath the word Properties here. That means that this particular view has that property of the Floor Plan layer combination. Now, I don’t see a layer combination called Furniture plan, so what I’ll do is use the button here that says “New”. This will create a new layer combination that’s actually a duplicate of the current one, and then we can modify it from there. So I’ll call this “Furniture plan”. You can see how it shows up in the list, whether it’s all capitals or upper and lower case, it doesn’t matter, it will alphabetize it. [2:59] Now the Furniture plan layer combination I’d like to turn off and on different things. So for example, I don’t want to see the dimensions, but I do want to see the furniture elements. So let me make those changes and click on “Update”, and say OK. Now it’s looking a little bit more like what I wanted, but, oh, I really don’t want the roof to be showing on this plan as well. So I’ll go and hit Command+L or CTRL+L, the Furniture plan is still active, and I’ll go and make one more change. I’ll highlight, or turn off the roof, and update. So whenever you make a change on the right side for a layer combination, you need to then click update for it to remember that that layer combination should be modified. [3:45] So now we’ve got something that I think will work pretty well for the furniture plan. And let’s create a view. So to create a view, we use this icon here in the View Map that says, “Save Current View”. So it’s the second one from the left in the row of icons at the bottom of the View Map list. I click on that. It allows me to set the name manually. Now you may, when you do this, you may see it by Project Map listed. It would then take the name of the Project Map, the ground floor or first floor, whatever the name of that particular story is. But we want to name it “Custom”, because in this case I’d like to designate that it’s the furniture plan. So I’m naming it whatever I want. I can edit this however I like and say “Create”. [4:37] Now, before I do that, I’ll point out that it’s picking up the current layer combination, Furniture plan, and the other settings that we’ve got in place. We may want to adjust some of these later, but let’s just go ahead and create this. Now when I create it, you can see that it shows up in the View Map list. Depending on which version of ArchiCAD, it may show up just below your cursor. It may be at the top of the list or at the bottom, but it will show up in the list. Now when I double click on one of the other views, say for example first floor plan or ground floor plan here, you see that we have the dimensions showing, the roof, etc. And when I go to the First Floor Furniture plan, ah, there we see the furniture. [5:16] Now we do have a little bit of a problem in terms of some of the elements that I’d like to just show you. For example, this text right here, if I zoom in on it, the text is overlapping the bed. And that of course, I can just move it. So I can select it, say “Move, Drag”, and move it down into a new position out of the way. But there is actually some text that as I recall I had placed in the living room that is hidden. It’s actually below things. So sometimes you may not notice this, and you may just put in another text item accidentally. But in this case I know something is behind something else. So let me take a look. [6:05] I’ll activate the Text tool; use the shortcut which we discussed called “Select All”, which will then select in this case only the text elements. And you see that there is a text element floating sort of in the area of this carpet and table location. Now, I can work with just one of these or all of the text at the same time. In this case, since I want all of the text to stay on top of other elements as an annotation, I can right click on any one of them or right click just in empty space, and when I right click, one of the options is Display Order”. And there’s a command that says “Bring to Front”. So what this will do is it will bring these elements to the front of the stacking list, and they will then appear in front of other elements that they might otherwise overlap. [6:57] So I’ll say bring to front, and you can see that living room now is showing. Now I may want to reposition it to get perhaps centered over this. So I’ll press and start to move in a single step. Whoops, I grabbed the wrong element. I grabbed the carpet in this case. How do I get out of it? I hit the Esc key, and that cancels. And I hit the Esc key again to deselect. Now perhaps I’ll grab the text by its center point. As long as I can see that it’s preselecting it, I know I can press and start to move in a single action, and that will start the Drag command. So make sure that it’s highlighting the element that you want before you start a drag. That will simplify your work. [7:39] So now I’ve got a view of the furniture plan and the floor plan that are nicely set up, as well as these other variations. Now I would also like to simplify the furniture plan by turning off the markers. So the doors and windows in the US version, in the standard floor plan, have markers indicating their numbers that will show up in a schedule. Now these may be turned off; for example in the “First Floor RCP” or Reflected Ceiling plan, they’re turned off. And the doors are showing quite differently. These are controlled – and I’ll just go back to the furniture plan – these are controlled with the Model View options. So if I open up the Furniture plan and click on Settings here, then we’ll see that the Model View options right now are set for Construction Documents. Now if I switch these to something else, perhaps the Reflected Ceiling plan, just to see what that does, and say OK, then we’ll see ooh, that looks quite different. [8:46] Now that probably isn’t the ideal one for presenting to a client, because they really can’t tell which are windows and which are doors. Now instead of going into that dialog box, I’m going to use what is called the Quick Options. So there’s a little icon here in the bottom left. It’s the third icon from the left. When I click on it, it opens up a little floating palette. Now I can move this palette wherever I like, but one of the things it allows me to do is, on the fly, switch layer combinations and Model View options. So for example, if I switch it back to Construction Documents, you’ll see oh, that’s what that one looks like. Well let’s try detailing and no fill. [9:25] So there are going to be different variations, depending on which version of ArchiCAD and whether you’re in the U.S. or not. But Detailing Fill, that looks pretty good, because it actually doesn’t have the door markers. What about Drafting Plus Fill? Oh, that has door markers. What about Presentation Solid? On now that’s interesting. Perhaps our clients would like that, where they see the sort of filled in. It might be a little bit easier for them to recognize or accept or just be able to understand. So I’ll go and click on the settings. Notice that the Furniture plan was still selected, so I can click on Settings, and then I’ll switch it from Reflected Ceiling plan to Presentation Solid and say OK. [10:08] Now the one other thing that I noticed is that perhaps we don’t want to have the markers, like this section marker, showing in the furniture plan. It probably would be a little distracting for our clients. So what I’ll do is select this and say, “Oh, it’s on a layer “A-Mark Sections”, so it’s a marker for sections. And I’ll go into the Layer dialog, I’ll just hit Command+L or CTRL+L, and again with Furniture plan still active, I’ll go ahead and say that I want to turn off this marker for sections. In fact, I’ll just turn off all the markers that are in this area. And again, in the international version, they’ll have somewhat different layer names, but the idea will be the same. I’ll say OK. Now that turned it off, but ah, I forgot one thing. [10:55] When I go back, if I double click on the Furniture plan, they’ll come back. Why? Because when I went into the Layer Dialog box, and I did turn off the markers which I’ll do again, I forgot a very important thing, which is to click on the “Update” button. When I update it, then the Furniture plan and any views that are similar or that use that will be updated. So now, when I double click on the Furniture plan, it stays constant. When I got to First Floor plan, you can see the Construction Document information, and when I go back to the Furniture plan, you’re now seeing the simplified view to present to clients. [11:38] So that finishes up our basic training lesson on understanding layers and layer combinations, and a little bit of their association with views. Now I’m going to go and switch to the international version, and we’ll take a look at some of the differences that we need to reconcile, or at least explain, in the international version. So here we have the international version, and what I’ll point out is that there is a series of floor plans and ceiling plans and structural plans. These are pretty similar. But when I double click on the floor plans here, the furniture is showing. So in this case, we might want to, if we wanted to create a version without the furniture, we might want to change the definition of what the layer combination is for this, and then create a separate one for what we want for the furniture. So what I’ll do is go into the Layer Settings hitting Command+L or CTRL+L, and we’ll see that right now we’re in the Drafting layer combination. [12:50] And that there are some, specifically for final drawings for “Plans Preliminary” or “Plans Approval”, which change some of the settings. So perhaps, when we’re working on the floor plans later on, we might change their settings to use the “Plans Approval”. And in that Plans Approval, perhaps we want to turn off the furniture. So I’ll just say Update. And so now when we’re in the final stages, when we turn that on, the furniture will be turned off. But I would like to create a furniture plan specifically. So I’ll duplicate that. I’ll say “New”, and we’ll keep the same format. I’ll say a “04 Plans and Furniture”. So I’ll just keep the same format, and it will just slip in nicely. [13:39] And that new layer, combination I’ll turn on the furniture and perhaps turn off all of the markers here. And I think the roof also probably needs to be turned off. So we have now the roof, I see there’s shell and roof is one, and there may be something else that would need to be turned off. We can look at that, and make sure it’s working. I’ll just update it here, and when I say OK, we’ll see ah, that turned off the roofs. However, the section markers were not turned off, so let’s see what layer they’re on. Now they’re on a layer called “Marker section”. So apparently, if I didn’t turn that layer off. So I’ll go into the layers here, Command+L or CTRL+L, and in the Furniture plan, I’ll turn off – oh, I missed a couple of the marker ones. There are actually more in the international version. And I’ll update. [14:39] So now on the furniture plan, we’ve got what we need here. And let me just go ahead and create a new view. So using this icon to Save Current View, and I’ll call this “Ground Floor Furniture plan”. And so now, if I double click on this one, this is what I’ve got when I double click on the one under floor plans, we can see now the roof showing, the section markers showing. But let’s just say that we wanted to change this one to have the furniture turned off. So what I’ll do is with this selected, I’ll click on the Settings down below, and switch it for example of to the layer combination. Instead of drafting, let’s say that it’s for the plans for approval. And say OK. And what that will do is it will turn off the furniture. [15:34] So now, the furniture plan of course has one view, and the ground floor plan itself has different information. So, there are other variations here, other things that are different in international version. For example, the Reflected Ceiling plan, when I look at that, we’re not seeing doors or windows at all; we can’t see where those openings are. Now if you like that, and we’re also seeing the furniture, which seems to be a little odd. So those are two things to correct. I’ll fix these, and you should get the idea by the time this is done of what we need to do or what you need to do is just to make it look the way you want. So for example, for the Ceiling plan, we want to change what is shown by turning off the furniture layer. And so in order to do that, I’ll just check. This furniture is on a layer called “Interior Furniture”, and I’ll open up by hitting Command+L or CTRL+L, and it says that the Ceiling plan is on “Plans Detail”. [16:40] So in “Plans Detail”, I would like to turn off the Furniture layer and just Update, and that will make the furniture go away. Now I noticed one other significant difference with this version of the Ceiling plan compared to the U.S. version. And that is at the doors and windows are not showing at all. We can’t see where their openings are. Now if you want to show them, then you’ll need to make a change to the Project file here. And I’ll show you where to make the change. Now when I go to the ground floor, we can see of course the doors and windows are showing. And when I go to the settings, one of the things that is usually not a beginner topic, but certainly is easy enough to understand is the Floor Plan Cut Plane settings. [17:23] So when I click on this, it brings up a dialog box. In this case, we’re cutting through the walls at a certain height off the floor, 1,100 mm. And we’re looking up to the top of the ceiling and down to the floor. So we’re basically including the entire story and cutting through at this height. So let’s look at the settings that we’ve got in the ceiling plan. When I double click on that, and I go to the settings for it, then to the Floor Plan Cut Plane settings, we’ll see oh, it’s rather different. 2,700 mm. So its way up near the ceiling that it’s cutting through. So that’s why it’s not seeing any of the windows or doors. And it’s also changing the offset so that it’s not seeing the entire story. [18:04] Let me just change these to 0, so it’s going to show the entire story, and then change this to 1,100, and let’s see what that does. When I say OK, you’ll see the doors and windows now show in the same way that they did in the U.S. version, where they are shown without the door swings, but with the cutout. So if you would like to make your ceiling plans look this way, then that’s the change that you would need to make and you would do it on each story. So for example, if I go to the next story up here, you can see that the doors and windows again are not showing. And what I’d need to do is go to the settings, go to the Floor Plan Cut Plane settings, and again change these to 0, and these to 1,100. Now it really is your preference. You may like it the other way, but I’m used to this one. And so I noticed it and I wanted to teach you how to get, if this is what you prefer as well. [19:01] So this concludes our lesson on Layers and Layer Combinations, and the beginnings of how you set up your views to work on different drawing types. This has been Eric Bobrow, and I look forward to getting your feedback. Please post your questions and comments on the page below the video. Thanks for watching. [19:21]

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

QUICKSTART COURSE – MODULE 5 PART 3 – Layer Combinations, View Settings, Model View Options & Cut Plane Settings

ArchiCAD Training: Laye

Hello, this is Eric Bobrow. And in this lesson, we’ll be looking at how to fine tune our layer combinations to create different views of the model that will create different drawings. And also look at model view options and cut plane settings as a way to control the visibility of elements in those drawings. [00:21]

When I double click on the Drafting floor plan in the U.S. version, we’ll see that we’re getting a combination of the furniture and the dimensions. So we’re having something – furniture would typically go, as far as I’m concerned, on a presentation drawing, because it’s not being built in. Whereas dimensions would typically go on a construction document, where you’re going to be building it. You don’t want to necessarily have the client be looking at a drawing with a lot of dimensional information like that. [00:54]

So, this Drafting floor plan, this layer combination or this setup, is showing a lot of information that’s very useful, but may not be what we want to print out. Now let me look at the floor plan under Construction Documentation. You’ll see there’s a folder here in the standard template, and when I double click on First Floor plan here, you can see that this view turns off the furniture. So this is actually pretty good. This is let’s say, ideal for placing construction document there. Let’s look at some variations. If I double click on Structural plan, it changes it radically. It hides all of the fixtures and dimensions, and just leaves me with a plain view of the walls. [1:41]

And let’s look at Reflected Ceiling plan. These other ones that are predefined in the U.S. template. In this case, we are seeing the dimensions, but we’re seeing the doors and windows in a very different way, where we just see the cutouts for their openings. Now I would like to create a furniture plan. So I’m going to teach you how to do that. I go to the first floor plan here, and now I’m going to create a variation of it. So to creative a variation, I’m going to go and open the Layer Dialog box. And when I do that with the Command+L or CTR+L, we’ll see that the Floor Plan layer combination was what was activated when I clicked on the first floor plan. [2:21]

You’ll also see in the bottom right here, the words floor plan just underneath the word Properties here. That means that this particular view has that property of the Floor Plan layer combination. Now, I don’t see a layer combination called Furniture plan, so what I’ll do is use the button here that says “New”. This will create a new layer combination that’s actually a duplicate of the current one, and then we can modify it from there. So I’ll call this “Furniture plan”. You can see how it shows up in the list, whether it’s all capitals or upper and lower case, it doesn’t matter, it will alphabetize it. [2:59]

Now the Furniture plan layer combination I’d like to turn off and on different things. So for example, I don’t want to see the dimensions, but I do want to see the furniture elements. So let me make those changes and click on “Update”, and say OK. Now it’s looking a little bit more like what I wanted, but, oh, I really don’t want the roof to be showing on this plan as well. So I’ll go and hit Command+L or CTRL+L, the Furniture plan is still active, and I’ll go and make one more change. I’ll highlight, or turn off the roof, and update. So whenever you make a change on the right side for a layer combination, you need to then click update for it to remember that that layer combination should be modified. [3:45]

So now we’ve got something that I think will work pretty well for the furniture plan. And let’s create a view. So to create a view, we use this icon here in the View Map that says, “Save Current View”. So it’s the second one from the left in the row of icons at the bottom of the View Map list. I click on that. It allows me to set the name manually. Now you may, when you do this, you may see it by Project Map listed. It would then take the name of the Project Map, the ground floor or first floor, whatever the name of that particular story is. But we want to name it “Custom”, because in this case I’d like to designate that it’s the furniture plan. So I’m naming it whatever I want. I can edit this however I like and say “Create”. [4:37]

Now, before I do that, I’ll point out that it’s picking up the current layer combination, Furniture plan, and the other settings that we’ve got in place. We may want to adjust some of these later, but let’s just go ahead and create this. Now when I create it, you can see that it shows up in the View Map list. Depending on which version of ArchiCAD, it may show up just below your cursor. It may be at the top of the list or at the bottom, but it will show up in the list. Now when I double click on one of the other views, say for example first floor plan or ground floor plan here, you see that we have the dimensions showing, the roof, etc. And when I go to the First Floor Furniture plan, ah, there we see the furniture. [5:16]

Now we do have a little bit of a problem in terms of some of the elements that I’d like to just show you. For example, this text right here, if I zoom in on it, the text is overlapping the bed. And that of course, I can just move it. So I can select it, say “Move, Drag”, and move it down into a new position out of the way. But there is actually some text that as I recall I had placed in the living room that is hidden. It’s actually below things. So sometimes you may not notice this, and you may just put in another text item accidentally. But in this case I know something is behind something else. So let me take a look. [6:05]

I’ll activate the Text tool; use the shortcut which we discussed called “Select All”, which will then select in this case only the text elements. And you see that there is a text element floating sort of in the area of this carpet and table location. Now, I can work with just one of these or all of the text at the same time. In this case, since I want all of the text to stay on top of other elements as an annotation, I can right click on any one of them or right click just in empty space, and when I right click, one of the options is Display Order”. And there’s a command that says “Bring to Front”. So what this will do is it will bring these elements to the front of the stacking list, and they will then appear in front of other elements that they might otherwise overlap. [6:57]

So I’ll say bring to front, and you can see that living room now is showing. Now I may want to reposition it to get perhaps centered over this. So I’ll press and start to move in a single step. Whoops, I grabbed the wrong element. I grabbed the carpet in this case. How do I get out of it? I hit the Esc key, and that cancels. And I hit the Esc key again to deselect. Now perhaps I’ll grab the text by its center point. As long as I can see that it’s preselecting it, I know I can press and start to move in a single action, and that will start the Drag command. So make sure that it’s highlighting the element that you want before you start a drag. That will simplify your work. [7:39]

So now I’ve got a view of the furniture plan and the floor plan that are nicely set up, as well as these other variations. Now I would also like to simplify the furniture plan by turning off the markers. So the doors and windows in the US version, in the standard floor plan, have markers indicating their numbers that will show up in a schedule. Now these may be turned off; for example in the “First Floor RCP” or Reflected Ceiling plan, they’re turned off. And the doors are showing quite differently. These are controlled – and I’ll just go back to the furniture plan – these are controlled with the Model View options. So if I open up the Furniture plan and click on Settings here, then we’ll see that the Model View options right now are set for Construction Documents. Now if I switch these to something else, perhaps the Reflected Ceiling plan, just to see what that does, and say OK, then we’ll see ooh, that looks quite different. [8:46]

Now that probably isn’t the ideal one for presenting to a client, because they really can’t tell which are windows and which are doors. Now instead of going into that dialog box, I’m going to use what is called the Quick Options. So there’s a little icon here in the bottom left. It’s the third icon from the left. When I click on it, it opens up a little floating palette. Now I can move this palette wherever I like, but one of the things it allows me to do is, on the fly, switch layer combinations and Model View options. So for example, if I switch it back to Construction Documents, you’ll see oh, that’s what that one looks like. Well let’s try detailing and no fill. [9:25]

So there are going to be different variations, depending on which version of ArchiCAD and whether you’re in the U.S. or not. But Detailing Fill, that looks pretty good, because it actually doesn’t have the door markers. What about Drafting Plus Fill? Oh, that has door markers. What about Presentation Solid? On now that’s interesting. Perhaps our clients would like that, where they see the sort of filled in. It might be a little bit easier for them to recognize or accept or just be able to understand. So I’ll go and click on the settings. Notice that the Furniture plan was still selected, so I can click on Settings, and then I’ll switch it from Reflected Ceiling plan to Presentation Solid and say OK. [10:08]

Now the one other thing that I noticed is that perhaps we don’t want to have the markers, like this section marker, showing in the furniture plan. It probably would be a little distracting for our clients. So what I’ll do is select this and say, “Oh, it’s on a layer “A-Mark Sections”, so it’s a marker for sections. And I’ll go into the Layer dialog, I’ll just hit Command+L or CTRL+L, and again with Furniture plan still active, I’ll go ahead and say that I want to turn off this marker for sections. In fact, I’ll just turn off all the markers that are in this area. And again, in the international version, they’ll have somewhat different layer names, but the idea will be the same. I’ll say OK. Now that turned it off, but ah, I forgot one thing. [10:55]

When I go back, if I double click on the Furniture plan, they’ll come back. Why? Because when I went into the Layer Dialog box, and I did turn off the markers which I’ll do again, I forgot a very important thing, which is to click on the “Update” button. When I update it, then the Furniture plan and any views that are similar or that use that will be updated. So now, when I double click on the Furniture plan, it stays constant. When I got to First Floor plan, you can see the Construction Document information, and when I go back to the Furniture plan, you’re now seeing the simplified view to present to clients. [11:38]

So that finishes up our basic training lesson on understanding layers and layer combinations, and a little bit of their association with views. Now I’m going to go and switch to the international version, and we’ll take a look at some of the differences that we need to reconcile, or at least explain, in the international version. So here we have the international version, and what I’ll point out is that there is a series of floor plans and ceiling plans and structural plans. These are pretty similar. But when I double click on the floor plans here, the furniture is showing. So in this case, we might want to, if we wanted to create a version without the furniture, we might want to change the definition of what the layer combination is for this, and then create a separate one for what we want for the furniture. So what I’ll do is go into the Layer Settings hitting Command+L or CTRL+L, and we’ll see that right now we’re in the Drafting layer combination. [12:50]

And that there are some, specifically for final drawings for “Plans Preliminary” or “Plans Approval”, which change some of the settings. So perhaps, when we’re working on the floor plans later on, we might change their settings to use the “Plans Approval”. And in that Plans Approval, perhaps we want to turn off the furniture. So I’ll just say Update. And so now when we’re in the final stages, when we turn that on, the furniture will be turned off. But I would like to create a furniture plan specifically. So I’ll duplicate that. I’ll say “New”, and we’ll keep the same format. I’ll say a “04 Plans and Furniture”. So I’ll just keep the same format, and it will just slip in nicely. [13:39]

And that new layer, combination I’ll turn on the furniture and perhaps turn off all of the markers here. And I think the roof also probably needs to be turned off. So we have now the roof, I see there’s shell and roof is one, and there may be something else that would need to be turned off. We can look at that, and make sure it’s working. I’ll just update it here, and when I say OK, we’ll see ah, that turned off the roofs. However, the section markers were not turned off, so let’s see what layer they’re on. Now they’re on a layer called “Marker section”. So apparently, if I didn’t turn that layer off. So I’ll go into the layers here, Command+L or CTRL+L, and in the Furniture plan, I’ll turn off – oh, I missed a couple of the marker ones. There are actually more in the international version. And I’ll update. [14:39]

So now on the furniture plan, we’ve got what we need here. And let me just go ahead and create a new view. So using this icon to Save Current View, and I’ll call this “Ground Floor Furniture plan”. And so now, if I double click on this one, this is what I’ve got when I double click on the one under floor plans, we can see now the roof showing, the section markers showing. But let’s just say that we wanted to change this one to have the furniture turned off. So what I’ll do is with this selected, I’ll click on the Settings down below, and switch it for example of to the layer combination. Instead of drafting, let’s say that it’s for the plans for approval. And say OK. And what that will do is it will turn off the furniture. [15:34]

So now, the furniture plan of course has one view, and the ground floor plan itself has different information. So, there are other variations here, other things that are different in international version. For example, the Reflected Ceiling plan, when I look at that, we’re not seeing doors or windows at all; we can’t see where those openings are. Now if you like that, and we’re also seeing the furniture, which seems to be a little odd. So those are two things to correct. I’ll fix these, and you should get the idea by the time this is done of what we need to do or what you need to do is just to make it look the way you want. So for example, for the Ceiling plan, we want to change what is shown by turning off the furniture layer. And so in order to do that, I’ll just check. This furniture is on a layer called “Interior Furniture”, and I’ll open up by hitting Command+L or CTRL+L, and it says that the Ceiling plan is on “Plans Detail”. [16:40]

So in “Plans Detail”, I would like to turn off the Furniture layer and just Update, and that will make the furniture go away. Now I noticed one other significant difference with this version of the Ceiling plan compared to the U.S. version. And that is at the doors and windows are not showing at all. We can’t see where their openings are. Now if you want to show them, then you’ll need to make a change to the Project file here. And I’ll show you where to make the change. Now when I go to the ground floor, we can see of course the doors and windows are showing. And when I go to the settings, one of the things that is usually not a beginner topic, but certainly is easy enough to understand is the Floor Plan Cut Plane settings. [17:23]

So when I click on this, it brings up a dialog box. In this case, we’re cutting through the walls at a certain height off the floor, 1,100 mm. And we’re looking up to the top of the ceiling and down to the floor. So we’re basically including the entire story and cutting through at this height. So let’s look at the settings that we’ve got in the ceiling plan. When I double click on that, and I go to the settings for it, then to the Floor Plan Cut Plane settings, we’ll see oh, it’s rather different. 2,700 mm. So its way up near the ceiling that it’s cutting through. So that’s why it’s not seeing any of the windows or doors. And it’s also changing the offset so that it’s not seeing the entire story. [18:04]

Let me just change these to 0, so it’s going to show the entire story, and then change this to 1,100, and let’s see what that does. When I say OK, you’ll see the doors and windows now show in the same way that they did in the U.S. version, where they are shown without the door swings, but with the cutout. So if you would like to make your ceiling plans look this way, then that’s the change that you would need to make and you would do it on each story. So for example, if I go to the next story up here, you can see that the doors and windows again are not showing. And what I’d need to do is go to the settings, go to the Floor Plan Cut Plane settings, and again change these to 0, and these to 1,100. Now it really is your preference. You may like it the other way, but I’m used to this one. And so I noticed it and I wanted to teach you how to get, if this is what you prefer as well. [19:01]

So this concludes our lesson on Layers and Layer Combinations, and the beginnings of how you set up your views to work on different drawing types. This has been Eric Bobrow, and I look forward to getting your feedback. Please post your questions and comments on the page below the video. Thanks for watching. [19:21]

r Combinations, View Settings, Model View Options & Cut Plane Settings

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Let us know how you feel... (6 comments so far)

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StephenWambua
12 years ago

hallo Eric,
i would like to create a slab which is like a wave form , not flat style , is it possible?

stephen
- Eric Bobrow
  12 years ago
  
  Stephen –
  
  In ArchiCAD, the slab tool is limited to creating flat shapes, although it allows an arbitrary polygonal outline and optional holes.
  
  To create a surface that has a wave form, you might try using a Complex Profile (introduced in ArchiCAD 10) which will create an extrusion with a constant cross-section and a uniform depth. You can then use a Solid Element Operation to Intersect this with a Slab to create the wave form shape with a polygonal outline rather than a uniform rectangular shape on plan.
  
  You might also be able to creat this with the Shell tool (introduced in ArchiCAD 15) which allows a profile to be extruded and can have a polygonal outline – thus combining both options into one element.
  
  These are somewhat advanced techniques, although in practice they are not that tricky or time-consuming to create once you understand how to use these parts of ArchiCAD (Complex Profiles, Solid Element Operations, and/or the Shell tool).
  
  Eric
JulianoMandinga
13 years ago

I mean the model view options does on the Int. version does not have the Presentation-Solid. How do I create one?
JulianoMandinga
13 years ago

Hi Eric,

The international version has less layer combination than the US version i.e. the presentation layer combination does not exist in the international version, I am hoping to learn more about layer combination. I have your master template but do not know yet how to take full advantage of it. It would be good to see how to use the master template on a live project from drafting, through to publishing.
JohnWalker
13 years ago

How do you show all windows if you have some high windows (daylighting only) as well as view height windows when they might not fall in the same cut plane?
- Eric Bobrow
  13 years ago
  
  John –
  
  You may set the walls and windows to use the Symbolic representation rather than Projected, and then all the openings will show regardless of height.
  
  To control this further, you may use Projected settings but change the cut plane for each View; thus you can get a standard floor plan and a separate clerestory (daylighting) plan.
  
  For split-level projects, sometimes it is necessary to create more than one View (each with a different cut plane) and combine them on a Layout sheet. When laid out properly, they will appear to be a single Drawing even though one actually has two or more side by side.
  
  Eric