Each month there are one or more coaching calls; this is a recording of the session on June 13, 2013January – June 2013
ArchiCAD Training – Coaching Call – June 13, 2013
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ArchiCAD Training Session Notes
| QUESTION | ANSWER SUMMARY AND NOTES | START TIME |
| Problem with controlling the visibility of door and window labels (in the renovation filter) | The caller is doing a remodeling project and is using the renovation filter. Eric, starts by briefly explaining the principles behind the renovation filter. He then takes a look at the “renovation filter options”. And it turns out in this filter the caller had checked the “hide opening dimension marker” option, and thus this is the reason why he wasn’t seeing them. Luckily, all the caller has to do is update the renovation filter, and then all the views will automatically up date to what the renovation filter is set to (otherwise the caller would have to update every view individually to the setting. And for most people this would be undesirable). To get to the filter options go to – window>palettes>renovation>renovation filter>renovation filter options. | 0:02:00 |
| How to turn off camera’s in a plan view | Open the camera settings>path>display options>none>ok. | 0:03:06 |
| Explanation of eyedropping in the renovation filter | Just a quick explanation of how eyedropping in the renovation filter won’t change the renovation status, or in other words the status takes priority over the eyedrop. So any object selected when using the renovation filter, will take whatever the status was set to when it was eyedropped. If anything you eyedrop is set to the wrong status, it is not a problem, as it can easily be changed. | 0:08:00 |
| Problem opening a LT dwg file in ArchiCAD | Eric explains that there is no difference between a full dwg and a LT dwg file. The only difference is between the programs themselves as the full AutoCAD has full 3d options, whilst LT is just 2d. So there is no reason for a LT dwg file not opening in ArchiCAD. The caller was also finding that the file was trying to open up in ArchiCAD 14 rather than ArchiCAD 16. Eric’s advice was don’t click on the file to open it, do it from the ArchiCAD programme itself. There can be problems when trying to open a file when you don’t have the native software that the file was created with, your computer will be trying to guess what software to use to open the file with. To bring in the dwg, Eric would first set up a worksheet to put the drawing on and then go to – file>external content>place external drawing. When Eric tried himself to open the caller’s dwg file, he too was getting a message saying “unsupported format”. This probably hints at the fact that AutoCAD have updated to a new format and ArchiCAD haven’t got round to updating ArchiCAD 16 to match this. All that you can do is try and get the sender of the dwg file to save and send again in an older format. | 0:12:08 |
| Quick explanation of the options available when bringing in a drawing | 0:15:10 | |
| Explanation of the “library loading report” (and what might be causing faults) | You will get a library loading report when you open a file and ArchiCAD loads the libraries for the first time, or when you do some modification management. | 0:21:54 |
| Is it possible to modify part of an ArchiCAD object (and turning object into a morph)? | The caller wanted to be able to modify a “ladder with platform” object in the ArchiCAD library. Eric says that you can modify some things about the object by going to the object’s settings and parameters. Eric says if you can’t get what you want through the objects’s settings consider turning it into a morph go to – select the object>design>convert selection to morph. When the object is turned into a morph (only available in ArchiCAD 16 and above) you can start deleting things you don’t want, and you can also add things to it. A good thing to know about morph’s is that when you join all the individual parts together – select morph>design>modify morph>union – you can then change how the morph is seen on the floor plan display – for example you can change from “projected” to “projected with overhead”, and you could then change the outlines from solid lines to dashed lines, if you wanted to. | 0:32:33 |
| Is there a way to show textures in sections and elevations? | Caller says ” I can choose between internal and open gl in the 3d window. In the elevation window I can show colours, vectorial hatching, and shading, but not textures. Is there a way to show textures in sections and elevations”. There is no option for showing textures in sections and elevations, so Eric goes through the various things that you can and can’t do. There is a tedious work-around for bringing in textures in sections and elevations (if you absolutely must have them) and it involves bringing in “image fills” and then drawing them to the shape that you want. | 0:48:14 |
| Quick explanation on sun shadows | 0:50:00 | |
| In a schedule how not to show the elements on your master-template legend | 1:06:35 | |
| How to make an empty door opening or window not show up in a door/window schedule | For the empty openings set the id to “x” and turn off the dimension marker. In the door/window schedule scheme settings for criteria set the element id to “< x”. Eric shows the full procedure to do this. | 1:13:22 |
| How to show quantities in schedules (e.g. number of items such as doors) | 1:20:50 | |
| Unwanted lines appearing in renderings | The explanation to this problem starts at time 1:33:00. Part of the problem was the caller had items passing through each other in his drawing, and therefore the join line was showing. Another issue was the join line was showing where three walls were joined together, and to solve this problem Eric looked at the wall priority number where they were joined together – go to – floor plan and section>structure>wall priority. Another issue that Eric found was walls being joined together that weren’t on the same story, in this case walls on story 2 joining with walls from story 4. Another problem the caller had was that he had a bunch of stories that hadn’t been assigned a height in “height to next” (in the story settings). | 1:23:13 |
| Is it a good idea when merging a dwg that needs mimicking in ArchiCAD to clean out all layers other than the ArchiCAD layer before merging the file? | The particular file in question would be sent backwards and forwards between the architect and engineer over the project’s life. Eric talks about the issues involved. | 1:26:46 |
| A complex profile not cleaning up properly | The caller had made an intricate steel profile using the complex profile tool. The steel profile created was running really slow and not cleaning up properly when used in the caller’s model. When Eric opened up the complex profile he found that it had been made using many different fills (over twenty), and he decided to consolidate them together – go to – edit>reshape>fill consolidation. This didn’t work in this case, so Eric made a copy of the caller’s steel profile using the complex profile tool, but this time Eric drew it using one fill for its entirety and this time it cleaned up perfectly. | 1:46:34 |
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