Each month there are one or more coaching calls; this is a recording of the session on September 27, 2012July – December 2012
ArchiCAD Training – Coaching Call – September 27, 2012
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ArchiCAD Training Session Notes
| QUESTION | ANSWER SUMMARY AND NOTES | START TIME |
| Historic building has chimneys built (merging) into the wall, and the architect wants control on what lines show on the plan. | Basically he wants to control how the chimney and walls display. Unfortunately, he has to also have a capping on top of the wall and this extra detail makes controling what lines are seen even more difficult. Eric tidy’s up the drawing first and then tell’s the caller to open up the layer manager to work with this problem area. This is because in only one layer combination (the roof plan in this case), Eric sets the wall priority number to “2”, by doing this he ensures that this wall won’t clean up with the wall’s adjacent to it. Therefore all the necessary lines are showing. | 0:03:45 |
| This caller was navigating through his views using the project map, and Eric warns against this because the project map will retain the last previously used layer combinations. Whereas, if you navigate through the view map the layer combinations are controlled by what the user has set for that particular view and thus you have a predictable working environment. | ||
| Note: To recap – a good thing to always remember is that elements that clean up with each other can always be controlled by layers. You would open up your layer manager, and in the layer combination that you are working on, you would designate that certain layers within that combination are going to be different. This is achieved by changing the layer priority number (the number here determines whether items clean up or not), if adjacent items both have a number “1” they will clean up and if they are set to different number i.e. one item to “1” and one item to “2” then they won’t clean up. The beauty of this is that you can assign a layer combination just for this problem area, and assign a different layer combination for this area in your other storeys. Thus, you have full control throughout your project on what cleans up and what doesn’t. | ||
| Showing the walls of a building in different colours/colors on the plan; for highlighting the buildings different time periods. | The walls in this case are just simple walls and not composite walls. Therefore all that needs doing is select the walls that need changing and open the floor plan and section settings, find cut surfaces (drop down arrow), and open “cut fill background pen”, and from here it’s just a matter of changing the wall to your chosen colour/color. If you wanted to do this to a composite wall, you can only do it this way (i think) – follow the procedure for simple walls, but under “cut fill background pen” you will find a checkbox that reads “apply structures settings” if this is unchecked you can change the composite walls color, but if it is checked the color of the wall will be locked in to what it was given when it was originally made. Eric also gives a brief explanation on your options if you had “apply structures settings checked”. | 0:21:45 |
| How to switch off (pop up) error messages (e.g. a boundary line crossing itself) | Sometimes when you are working on a drawing error messages will pop up. On occasions fixing these error messages are not critical to your drawing, and you may feel that you want to keep working on your drawing. To turn off the pop up warning messages (this won’t fix the actual error, but will stop the warning messages) – options>work environment>images and calculations>3d and calculation process check controls> then uncheck “interrupt with error messages” and “write report” | 0:30:10 |
| Problem with the information from “Zones” not showing up in the schedule | Basically when the caller was opening up his, “room finish schedule” a blank page came up. He couldn’t understand why as he had set the criteria to show zones. Eric first used the quick layers tool palette to locate where all the zones in the project where – windows>palettes>quick layers. Eric also demonstrates to the uninitiated how to use the quick layers palette to find things quickly. The description on how to make zones show up in a schedule doesn’t really get going until about time 0:38:54. The problem in the caller’s case was in the zone selection settings the ID (found in tags and categories) needed changing from the letter “X” to something different. | 0:33:45 |
| Eric describes why sometimes you might have to create two zone stamps in order to get more data in it. | 0:45:00 | |
| ArchiCAD migration library | Eric briefly describes the migration library | 0:52:47 |
| Creating a view | Eric briefly describes creating views | 0:57:10 |
| Un-wanted red lines showing on screen (trimming body) | The caller had a series of red lines appearing on his drawing. The caller had inadvertently switched on trimming bodies, and it just needed to be turned off again. view>on screen options>trimming bodies. Note: The command show trimming body only occurs in ArchiCAD 15 and above. Eric also talks about what the trimming body command is used for. | 0:58:20 |
| How to save and insert a custom made panel in a curtain wall | Eric answers this question by saving an already created custom panel for inserting in a curtain wall. Eric, originally had a few problems saving and then inserting the panel in the curtain wall, but eventually he figured out how to do it. Basically when you are ready for inserting your saved panel – choose custom panel (under type), and then within the custom panel settings you click on “panel name” and this brings up a list of all the available created panels. This procedure undertaken here is also the same when choosing a custom panel you have made for a door (when you are in the door tool), this may make the explanation a little easier to understand. I have put a link to an excellent video on creating custom panels that I found on YouTube (see to the right). I would advise to either download or watch as soon as possible just incase it is taken down. | 1:05:25 |
| What is the difference between saving a custom part as a new object vs save selection as | Eric explains the differences and also how these commands have changed in later releases of ArchiCAD | 1:23:40 |
| Problem with renovation override styles in the renovation tool | The caller was finding that the fill tool in the renovation override style for “new elements” would only work if the exsisting wall had been given a fill. The caller was finding if the existing wall had no fill, then he couldn’t put a fill there when he switched over to “new elements”. Eric couldn’t solve this problem but promised to look into it further at a later date. As an observer (just a guess) it looked like there may be a little bug that was preventing the necessary changes. | 1:25:45 |
ArchiCAD Training – Coaching Call – September 27, 2012
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