On Land

Isn't north up? Probably not. Since the orientation of the project is driven by the geometry of the plan, north can be any which way.

In the Sun dialog

Note: Though it's called 'Project' north, it's true north, in that it's the only north, and the north used by the sun settings. Archicad doesn't directly support a project north environment variable separate from true north.

There are at least four reasons to set project north correctly:

• Accurate sun shadows

• Automatic orientation of north arrow symbol objects.

• Automatic dimensioning of metes and bounds using the Survey Dim RND9 object.

• Correct naming of interior elevations with the Orientation autotext. (A real project north would be nice here.)

For the purposes of sun shadows and interior elevation names, you can eyeball the north direction by moving the pointer in the Sun dialog. A degree or two off isn't going to hurt.

For the metes and bounds to work, you need to set the direction exactly.

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If you have a DWG or DXF from the surveyor, drop it in the floor plan and trace it. (Such a drop creates a drawing element in the plan.) If you trace carefully, the shape will be as accurate as the DWG itself.

But, very often, instead of a DWG from a surveyor you have a plat or 'location survey' from the homeowners' closing documentation. Even if you scan it in, you can't accurately trace it because it doesn't have any real lines. Scan or no-scan, you need to manually create the boundary polygon using the metes and bounds on the plat as a guide.

1. Set the working units. Set the length unit to decimal feet and the angle unit to surveyors' unit [sic].

2. Line tool. Pick a line on the plat, any line. Start drawing. Type A, which highlights the 'a' field in the coordinate box. Enter the angle of the line, which is something like N 26º 14' 51" W. Omit the punctuation; it's just n 26 14 51 w. When you finish typing, don't strike enter. Hit Option+A, which looks the angle you just put in the A field. Type R, which highlights the R field. Enter the length of the line, the hit return to finish it.

Don't worry if the line looks funny. The surveyors' units follow the project north setting, so if you haven't set north yet the direction will seem rather random.

3. Draw the next line the same way, starting at the end of the first line. Pay attention to whether the line goes in the expected direction. If it doesn't, move it so its other end touches the first line.

Why? In surveyors' units, any vector can have two directions, depending on which way the guys went around the lot. Following their numbers will sometimes give you a line that looks crazy, but it's just 180º off.

Do all the lines this way and hook them up.

4. In the case of an arc, do it last. They usually give you the degrees and the radius. Using the circle geometry method of the arc tool, start drawing by clicking anywhere. Move straight to the right and type R followed by the arc radius. Hit return. Type A followed by the angle, then return. Drag and rotate this arc to fit the other segments. If you have multiple arcs ask for help.

5. When all the segments are connected, magic-wand a fill element onto the whole thing and trash the lines and arcs. A fill is good because it can report its area, which you will need for the project information. Line type: Property Dot-Dash. Layer: +C Site Line.E Pen: 45 or other 5-weight.

When the boundary is done, drag and rotate it to the proper place with respect to the project. Use the boundary to create the grade mesh.

Once you have the north direction set correctly, you can use the Survey Dim RND9 object to dimension the boundary for the site plan.

Don't forget to put your working units back.

Steps:

1. Make a new project. Use settings of latest project, launch new instance of AC.

2. Set up the stories to match the main project. For some reason the 'latest project' settings don't include this.

3. Save with a name like '[Project] for roof plan.PLN'. Put it in 1 Design / Modules.

4. Hotlink the model's project file into the new project.

5. Set up the 3D window with top view, internal engine, shaded. Turn off the undesired layers. There's a layer combination 'x Shoot Roof Plan'; that's a good place to start. Most of the visible elements will be on A Roof2, A Deck2, A Fireplace, etc.

6. And, most of the visible polygons will be of a handful of materials. Determine which materials these are.

7. In Attributes -> Materials, redefine all these materials to the same gray color. (Try 75%.) You only need to change the main material color.

If you don't see the color changes right away, try updating the hotlink. As you gray-ify materials, you might see more that need to be done.

The trick here is that there's no damage to the materials in the main project.

There's your gray model. I can think of at least three ways to get it back in the main project.

• Save a 3D view of the gray model, and place that view as an external drawing on top of the site plan. Pro: It's direct. Con: Tricky to line up with site plan drawing. External updates increase overhead, and at the moment they're buggy in 11.

• In the gray project, copy and paste from the 3D window to a detail window. Save a view from there and place as an external drawing on top of the site plan. Pros: You can edit the 2D image to erase elements or change line weights. The 2D drawing is more detectable and easier to line up with the site plan. External updates of 2D views run faster and more reliably. Con: Copy, paste, and subsequent editing needs to be done over if the model changes.

• Copy and paste to a detail window as above, then save a module of the lines and fills. Hotlink the module into the site plan in the model environment, using a site annotation layer to control visibility. Pro: Visible in model environment, no second drawing to align in the layout. Updating hotlinks does not need a second session of AC, so it's faster. Con: Copy, paste, and subsequent editing needs to be done over if the model changes.

All three methods require that you open the gray project in order to modify the content. There's no way for the gray project to know the model has been modified and the hotlink needs to be updated.

I'm using the third one. A 3D external drawing is a big chunk of overhead. Both view solutions require an additional drawing in the layout, and the shaded content isn't visible in the model environment. Editing the lines and fills is an extra step, but it also looks better.The external 2D drawing and the hotlink give the same graphical result, but the hotlink update is faster.

If you ever need to update the image for changes in the model, all you need to do is:

• Save the main project, open the gray project, and update the hotlink.

• Re-copy and paste to the detail window. Mess with the lines again as needed.

• Select, copy, save as module from clipboard, write over the existing one.

• Back in the main project, update hotlinks.

Drop the DWG in the floor plan window. It becomes a drawing. (Use inches for the units, unless it doesn't work, in which case you should use feet.)

UPDATE: In Archicad 11 and above, you can drop the DWG into a worksheet window and then ghost the worksheet into the plan. (I still can't say 'trace', and notice again how much better 'ghost' is as a verb. 'Place as trace reference the worksheet into the plan.' Ugh.)

Trace the geometry you need. (See, 'trace' is already a word.) This is, at least:

• The property lines and setbacks
• The topographic contours (use splines)
• Streets and driveways
• Other critical features such as wells and septic fields
• Trees, if provided. Tip: Put the tree description (18" Oak) in the ID field of the tree object.
• North arrow, or at least a line showing the direction. (Needed to set north in the sun dialog.)

Watch your layers and linetypes. Note there are favorites for the contours and the boundary and setback lines.

I'm fairly confident the drop-trace method is best for our site plan needs. If you open the DWG, you need to manage the layers, the pens, and the objects created from blocks. It's a lot more fiddling, and then you need to trace the contours anyway.

Remember PDFs can be drawings too. If you have a PDF survey or plat, the principles are the same. BUT: Since PDFs don't have 'lines' in a CAD sense, you'll need to draw the boundaries and such using the given dimensions. Tracing PDF contours is probably OK.

Details need to be processed before merging them into running projects, or into a details PLN. It is important to avoid merging unwanted attributes, especially layers. This process simplifies the layers and gets rid of all the unneeded attributes.

This method should be considered alongside A Method For Standard Details.

Standard details will be administered by one or two people at the most.

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In framing plans, it's often helpful to show the walls on stories below with dashed lines. Especially roof framing. Well how do you do that.

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Update: This refers to the old version of interactive schedule, now called 'Element Schedules'. The principles are the same, but some of the names and menu commands have changed.

Zones are better than fills for area measurement because they can be updated when the walls (&c) enclosing them have moved.

(Zones are cool for so many reasons, but let's try to stay on topic.)

You can use Interactive Schedule to get the area of each story, of the rooms individually, and of the entire project.

I will describe two methods of floor area calculation: First, the gross area of each story, ignoring interior walls. Second, The total room area, or usable floor area, which will be less since the area occupied by partitions is not counted. There are different occasions to use each one.

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Some typical applications for Wood Beam JAM9.

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Deprecated. Read this instead.

I think I need an Obsolete category.

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• Switch the title block to the RND9 version. Required. Use Cmd+Opt+click on the new object to retain settings. This is very important. If it fails, that is, you get the new object with default settings, cancel out of the settings box and try again. Delete all the hotspots. Place new hotspots in the sheet number box and the corners of the main drawing area.

• The grays as they come out of the new plotter are all darker. This affects the gray poche in the walls, etc. and the gray lines we use for floor and material fills.

The poche is a little dark, but we can live with it. If you change it it will look better, but it's a chore: You must change the fill background color of all 3D building elements (walls, roofs, slabs), and the background color of all the skins in composites whose settings are used in elements, and the fill color/background color of any masking fills, and the fill color/background color of any objects that show poche in plan or section, keeping in mind that some of them have special parameters for these fills. A chore. If you choose to go through with it, use pen 50. This is our new, dedicated poche pen. The idea is to make the next gray revision simpler; with a dedicated pen, we can just change the color of it rather than the settings of dozens of elements. I wish I'd thought of it sooner. So, poche pen change: Optional.

The fills, however, aren't quite OK. They should be changed to pen 150*. Strongly recommended. The fills include:

1. Fill elements, many of which will be on the F Floor Fin2 layer. Use find and select, on each story, for fills with pen 93.

2. Cover fills on 3D elements, including slabs, roofs, meshes. Do this in the 3D window to get all the stories at once.

3. Vectorial hatching pen on materials. You have to do each material separately in Options -> Attributes -> Materials. (Attribute Manager doesn't work for this.)

• In addition to the grays being darker, all the line weights are heavier, so we need to make all our pens slightly thinner. You will have to do this by hand in PlotMaker. In ArchiCAD, you can use Attribute Manager to import the pens from 3 Resources : Attributes : Color Pens 0105. Required.

All the changes discussed above will be made in the templates.

*UPDATE: This used to say 92. 92 is the right color for plotted output, but in ArchiCAD it looks too light on the screen. Read this post about the new material fill pen. As for changing the pen, either 92 or 150 will work in PM.

This is an unpleasant task you should never have to do, unless we get a new plotter. You don't even have to do it then.

On the Options menu, All Pens And Colors. You get this:

A pen has two attributes, color and width.

Set the width using the field marked "Pen". Make sure the units are mm, not Pt (points).

To change the color, double-click the pen's square in the grid, or select it and click "Edit Color". I recommend using the HSB sliders to edit color.

You can select multiple pens at once and edit their color or width together. Cmd+click on pens to accumulate them, or Shift+click to select a range. Like a lot of things.

Selecting all the pens between 21 and 141.

Editing pens in ArchiCAD is similar, but we can use Attribute Manager instead.

The zTemplate folder has been updated to accommodate the new SK layout tools. If you need to issue SKs for current projects, you should bring the stuff in.

In AC:

1. Create an independent detail window with the ID 'xSK Block'. The name can be blank. Set the scale of the window to 1.

2. Place a 'Title Block SK RND81' object in the window. Place hotspots at the corners of the white space.

3. Save a view of the window in the #2 CDs viewset, Notes folder.

Note: This view is used in PM to generate SKs where the imported drawing does not have the SK title block in it, such as a scanned image.

4. To place SKs in plan or section windows, you need to create the layer '+Z SK Title'. (Everything in that article is true, except the misleading parts. This new layer should be hidden and unlocked in every LC, which is what happens naturally, except for the LC selected when the layer is created. After creating the layer, hide it in the current LC and click update.)

In PM:

1. In the Tree By Subsets view of the Navigator, right-click on the layout book name and pick 'Create New Subset'. Call the subset 'SK'.

2. Right-click the SK folder and pick 'Subset Settings'. Make the box look like this:

Subset Settings, really just auto-numbering setup.

3. File | Import. Navigate to 3 Resources>SK>SK Layouts.lbk. In the Import dialog, check the box next to the layout book name, all the way at the top. This means you will import everything. Click 'Import'.

4. You should get two master layouts, 'SK' and 'SK Empty + Title', and one regular layout 'SK Sample'. Move the 'SK Sample' layout into the 'SK' folder. With the 'SK Sample' layout selected, check the settings at the bottom to make sure it's linked to the 'SK' master.

As you need new SK sheets, you will need to create new SK layouts and link them to the appropriate master. If the SK comes from ArchiCAD with a title block, use the 'SK' master. If you are importing a drawing without a title block, use the 'SK Empty + Title' master. SKs of both types should be kept in the SK folder, in the order they are created, so they number themselves properly.

See also:
Sketch Revisions (SKs)
Title Block SK RND81