Each month there are one or more coaching calls; this is a recording of the session on May 14, 2014January – June 2014
ArchiCAD Training – Coaching Call – May 14, 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 |
ArchiCAD Training Session Notes
| QUESTION | ANSWER SUMMARY AND NOTES | START TIME |
| How to repair a project that has skewed lines that are not at exact angles. | Begin by using measure tool to check your measurements and your grid tool. When you find the angle that is not square, then you need to determine what is your reference and how to clean it up. The reference is the corner you want to be the correct angle to begin from. Work from that point to clean up walls and angles. You may need to turn off Auto Intersection to adjust wall lengths. To adjust other walls to cleanly intersect you can select it, verify it is square, then use the Adjust from the toolbar or use “Command -” on Mac or “Control -” PC, then go the main reference line (the heavy mercedes cursor shows) to the wall to be intersected with and click to adjust. You may need to zoom in or out to refresh display. Look at your slab and other elements zoomed in to make adjustments to clean up. Clean up all stories as needed. Once you clean up something, you can line up everything else to it. | 0:01:16 |
| How to cut a hole in a wall for an opening without a door. | Use the Door tool and instead of having a door, use the small button that says “Use and empty hole” and it will change to Simple Door or Empty Door. It can be framed or unframed. | 0:25:40 |
| Making walls have the same reference line and connecting walls. | To change the reference line without moving the walls go to Edit>Reference Line and Plane>Modify Wall Reference Line and select Edit Reference Line Location. This will leave the wall in same position but changes reference line. It is useful to have your reference lines be on the same side for walls in line so that if you add or subtract thickness they will enlarge in the same direction. | 0:30:00 |
| Cleaning up stories above and below using Trace & Reference palette. | Bring up Trace & Reference Palette. You can swap from the active story to the other one showing by selecting “Switch Reference with Active” the first button on left. This did not work in this example. Another option is to right click on the floor you want to show and select “Show as Trace Reference”. Once you have the correct stories showing on Trace then you can use the “Swap” to toggle between them for editing. For easier editing, temporarily turn off the fill in the Trace & Reference palette by clicking the button on the lower right. This only affect display, not print out. Now zoom in really tight to align. A trick for points that are very close, pull wall out first then pull it on top of snap point. This make it easier to snap to a clear point. Complete for all wall intersections. You can check your work in 3D. If it cleans up with no lines showing then it is correct. Axonometric mode works best for this. | 0:34:09 |
| How to avoid skewed walls. | Using a grid can be helpful for snapping walls to, but it can get in the way if you are not paying attention to your coordinate feedback. You want to use the guidelines, make sure when you click that you have the 0 or 90, and type in the value for distance don’t move around until it looks right because AC rounds distances off and you want it to be exact. You can also use the shift key to lock on to the guideline then snap it to a point then you know that you’re exactly on. Zoom in as much as needed to snap to the correct point. A course lesson that is useful for this is Best Practices Course>Modules 10-15>Week #11 Conceptual Design Strategies. Also Week #13 for guide lines and the virtual trace. Remember that in general we want Auto Intersection turned on, but when cleaning up temporarily turn it off to manually clean up the corners yourself so that AC doesn’t get in the way of clean up then turn it back on afterward. Some choose to only manually connect corners and never use Auto Intersection. | 0:45:53 |
| Running Start Edition 2013 regarding 3D View | View>3D View Options>3D Window Settings. Here the background color and line weights can be edited. If you save that view with background color you can go back to it and it will keep those specific changed colors and line weights for that view. Make sure to save your views. | 0:54:00 |
| How to pull the color wheel down in 3D Window Settings. | View>3D View Options>3D Window Settings and double click on the sample color chip to bring up the color wheel. This true for any color chip in any menu. | 0:58:25 |
| Editing Plane Display | The Editing Plane is the plane is space that is the base of what you are drawing. It can be useful for orienting yourself and drawing/editing in 3D. To turn this on or off go to View and check or uncheck Editing Plane Display. You can edit the Editing Plane View>Grid & Editing Plane Options>Grids & Backgrounds. If the Editing Plane is off the grid turns off too. | 1:03:29 |
ArchiCAD Training – Coaching Call – May 14, 2014
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