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1. 
   Paul Demars
   13 years ago

   is it the convention that story 1 starts at the bottom of the first floor walls & story 2 begins at the bottom of the second floor walls?

   • 
     Eric Bobrow
     13 years ago

     Paul –

     Yes, the typical setup for ArchiCAD’s story structure is to have the bottom of the walls be the reference height for each story. In the U.S., we call story 1 the first floor or ground floor, and story 2 the next one up. In much of the rest of the world, story 0 is the ground floor, and story 1 is one story above that.

     Split-level projects require other adjustments, of course. ArchiCAD is incredibly flexible in this regard.

     Here are the most important things to know about story levels:

     1) When you use the Story Level lines option in Sections and Elevations, the base height of each story may be displayed and possibly printed in the drawing, to the side of the building.

     2) All elements that are placed on a particular story (technically, those that call it their “home story”) will be visible on that story plan if their layer is turned on; they may be visible in some cases on other stories as well depending on their settings. This is also affected by the Floor Plan Cut Plane settings, which change where the virtual cut is made in relation to that story.

     3) If you adjust the heights of the stories in the Story Settings dialog, all elements on a particular story will float up or down along with the story reference height change. Even though you may think of something as having an absolute height, inside ArchiCAD, it records the elevation value in relation to the home story.

     4) Project Zero is a reference point elevation that may equal the ground floor elevation, or be offset to equal the exterior grade or sea level or another height datum point. Stories are set in relation to this arbitrary reference height.

     5) All of these heights may be correlated to a standard datum point such as sea level or the AHD (Australian Height Datum) using the Options menu > Project Preferences > Levels and Project North… command.

     Eric
2. 
   Mariya Lilith
   14 years ago

   This is great. Thanks for explaining what “defining graphically” means when importing a dwg. I had several plans I needed to bring into ArchiCAD and spent hours trying to reshape each one. I knew the dimensions it was supposed to be so importing and “defining graphically” would have been much simpler.

   Next time I have to do this, I’ll know how.