Week #13 – Aligning and Placing Elements
13-3. Introduction to Virtual Trace and the Trace & Reference Palette

ArchiCAD Training (Best Practices Lesson 13-3)

This 14 minute lesson goes over the basics of Virtual Trace, including methods for choosing a Trace Reference, and an explanation of all the buttons and functions in the Trace and Reference Palette.

Virtual Trace was introduced as one of the major new features in ArchiCAD 11 and has remained fairly unchanged over the next several versions. It allows any View or Layout to be overlaid on top of or beside any other View or Layout for comparison, alignment or reference.

My article of March 2008, originally published in AECbytes, is an excellent supplementary reference to this video lesson. In addition to explaining the basic functionality, it includes many illustrated examples of usage.

One of these illustrations is reproduced here – it provides a quick summary of each button in the Trace and Reference Palette:

ArchiCAD Trace & Reference Palette with explanatory annotations

You will find a copy of the original article on ArchiCAD Virtual Trace posted on the main Bobrow website, and a PDF version is supplied as a download below.

Please post your comments and questions below.

Eric

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
Want to download this video, pause or resume playback, jump to a specific point or watch this video in a larger window? Click here for Video Playback and Download Notes...

Your Downloads

You may need to right-click the following links and select Save Link As to download the file to your computer

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

ArchiCAD Training: Introduction to Virtual Trace and the Trace & Reference Palette

Let us know how you feel... (2 comments so far)

You must be logged in to post a comment.


  1. John Dunham
    12 years ago

    Thanks for the straightforward intro. I’ve avoided using it because I never had the time to read up on it… 🙂


    • Eric Bobrow
      12 years ago

      John –
      I’m glad to share this with you so that you can start taking advantage of this wonderful tool that we have available to us in ArchiCAD!
      Eric