Stealing some inspiration from this great video on the ABCs of Architecture, I decided to do a quick list** of the ABCs of ArchiCAD. But instead of going with the obvious (B is for Beam, D is for Door, and W is for Wall), I searched out some obscure aspects of ArchiCAD. Hopefully a few will spark your interest and make you want to learn more. I know creating this list has given me a lot of great ideas for more in depth blog posts. Oh and I am fully confident you’ve never heard of Yellow Patch before. Though since I started this list, I’ve used it to explain why someone was having an issue with their model. Check it out. Enjoy!
Autogroup — Autogroup is point 17 in my master list of Group Tips. Read them all here.
Building energy Model View — The Energy Model Review only works on visible elements.
Clone Folder — Cloning a folder means that you recreate a Project Map folder inside the View Map.
Design Layers in Profile Manager — Design Layers apply to the Profile Editor window only.
Enable Back Reference — Enable Back Reference allows you to add Layout ID information to the Drawing Title.
Find Linked Markers — Right click on a placed drawing or any item in the Navigator.
Gravity — I always forget about this feature when modeling new elements.
Hide Arrowhead From — Hide your arrowheads beyond a certain scale.
Ignore Zoom when opening this view — I don’t care for this option; but I know those who love it.
Jobs — Getting paid to use ArchiCAD is always a nice feature.
Keep Distance — How do windows react when you curve the wall they are in? This is how.
Look to Perpendicular — You can find this under the VIEW/3D NAVIGATION EXTRAS menu.
Matrix — The least used of the Multiply Elements options. Stop neglecting it.
Nudge — In response to the boss asking “Can that couch scoot just a few feet that way?” “Yes.”
On-Screen View Options — None of these affect what gets printed, but they sure make working easier.
PMK — Layout Book getting unmanageably huge? PMKs might be the answer.
Quick Selection — You know how to temporarily suspend this right? Right?
Roof Wizard — Quickly and easily create roof framing.
Save as CTB — Want your consultants to have matching line weights? Here’s how.
Turn Profile Plane — Don’t let the Morph completely overshadow the Shell Tool. Learn More.
U3D — If you’re on a PC, making 3D PDFs are ridiculously easy.
Viewpoint — Can you name all the viewpoints in the Project Map?
Wallniche — You might know about the Wallhole as ID trick, but what about Wallniche as ID trick?
XYZ Data — Import any text file containing xyz data into ArchiCAD, creating a Mesh element automatically.
Yellow Patch — No hints on this one. Click the link and be enlightened.
Zones Preferences — These options define how zones are calculated in Zone Lists.
**this took much more time than I was expecting, but it was also way more enlightening than I imagined!
6 comments
Djordje says:
Feb 5, 2013
You never stop learning … I did not know about Save as CTB!!!!
Jared Banks says:
Feb 5, 2013
Paul Adams says:
Feb 5, 2013
I knew I should be cloning folders, but after reading the link I better stop and rework my template NOW.
Mattie Mcdowell says:
Feb 9, 2013
Hello you guys, I’m new here so sorry for stupid questions. I’m also just working with Archicad for 8 months, so I’m don’t know everything yet. The question. I have also problem with Archicad running very slow in 2D. I’m using Archicad 15 an a brand new iMac with the best specs, so there should be no problems with speed. Yet there is. For the project I’m working on I’ve drawn a pretty big area, about 8 square km. This so i can make nice bird view renders. In the beginning the project was not slow at all, and almost anything was ready. Later on I probably made a change somewhere or somehow. Now I can’t zoom in anywhere on the project because it gets really slow and sometimes Archicad even quits working. When I was drawing I maybe changed the zoom or drawing options in the quick menu to 1:1. I read something about this on http://www.archicadwiki.com/2dSpeed. But I’m not sure if this is making my drawing slow because I’ve no idea how I could change or check it. So please, anyone help me out. For the moment I fixed it with making the building in an other drawing and pasted it in the situation as a hotline. But later on I need to make some changes in the slow working project.
Jared Banks says:
Feb 11, 2013
Mattie, it sounds like there’s something in the file that’s causing the slow down. Perhaps bad geometry or an error in a 3D object. How big is the file? 8 km2 seems like it could be pretty big. Is the site all 3D or just 2D? A lot of 2D can really slow down a file because of redraw times.
You might want to post some screen shots to the forum http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/ or contact Tech Support.
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