Credits
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Credits
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Contents
CONTENTS
Introduction _______________________________________________4
The ARCHICAD Interface _____________________________________6
Navigation in ARCHICAD __________________________________ 12
Navigate the Floor Plan_________________________________________ 12
Navigate the 3D Model _________________________________________ 14
Introduction
Introduction
Welcome to the ARCHICAD Training Series!
This Guide is part of the ARCHICAD Training Series, which currently includes the following
materials:
Vol. 1 - The ARCHICAD BIM Concept
Vol. 2 - Conceptual Design in ARCHICAD
Vol. 3 - Intermediate ARCHICAD
Vol. 4 - Advanced ARCHICAD
Vol. 5 - Using Teamwork
You are now reading Vol. 1 - The ARCHICAD BIM Concept a comprehensive hands-on training to
familiarize you with the modeling and documentation concepts of ARCHICAD. This guide is
meant for new ARCHICAD users, prospects, as well as students and teachers using it as part of the
BIM Curriculum Exercises.
Contents of the training material
PDF guide an e-book including detailed explanation of every step with screenshots
ARCHICAD project files - preset training files to help your learning process
Narrated movie clips are available on the YouTube channel for GRAPHISOFT ARCHICAD
(www.youtube.com/user/Archicad) providing step-by-step instructions for each step of the
training guide. The ARCHICAD YouTube channel can also be accessed via the ARCHICAD Help
menu by entering the title of this training guide into the search field.
How to use this training material?
You must have ARCHICAD 19 installed on your computer to use this guide. The e-book was made
with the INT (English) and US (Imperial) version of ARCHICAD, therefore we recommend using the
same version for practicing.
Introduction
How to get ARCHICAD?
If you do not have ARCHICAD yet, please visit http://www.graphisoft.com/downloads/ to obtain
a FREE installer:
In the browser dialog box, we locate and open the NHS Office 19_metric.pla or NHS Office
19_imperial.pla project file (depending on the system of units of your location) from the
extracted training project folder.
Click the Convert to Education button. Since we are opening a so-called archive project that
contains all the external elements used in creating the project, we are asked how we wish to
handle these elements. For the time being we ignore this and keep all the project elements in the
archive file so without changing the radio buttons simply click Open.
The central part of the interface shows the floor plan of our project. On the top of it, the Tab bar
shows the other open views. At the bottom of the screen, a set of icons help to navigate in this
view and set the drawing scale and zoom factor.
To the left, the Toolbox contains all the tools necessary to build the 3D model and complete the
documentation.
To the right, the Navigator lists all aspects of the project here we can jump from story to story
or to different 3D views, sections, elevations and details.
The Teamwork menu supports collaborative work, and the Window menu sets the visibility of the
toolbars and palettes.
The Standard Toolbar contains some of the commands and functions available from the menus.
It can be found right below the Menubar and can be fully customized. (The whole user interface
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Navigation in ARCHICAD
Navigation in ARCHICAD
Navigate the Floor Plan
Lets take a closer look at the floor plan. From the icons at the bottom of the floor plan, lets select
the Increase Zoom icon.
The cursor changes to a magnifying glass. Lets click two corners of a rectangle around the
upper right entrance area of the building.
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Navigation in ARCHICAD
After the second click, you will see the zoomed-in view of the floor plan in the main window.
Try the other icons for Panning, Reducing Zoom, Fitting in Window the contents of the floor plan or
switching between Previous and Next Views.
There is an even faster way to navigate in all views. With the cursor in the main window, press the
mouse scroll button to pan around the floor plan in real-time. Remember to keep the scroll
button pressed.
Rolling the scroll button away from you will zoom in and rolling it towards you will zoom out in
real-time. In these cases the cursor position will act as the center point of the projection.
This technique will let you move from one location of the floor plan to another very quickly.
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Navigation in ARCHICAD
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Navigation in ARCHICAD
As a result you will see something like this:
Within the 3D view, the real-time navigational tools (zooming and panning) function exactly as
on the floor plan. Use the scroll button of the mouse to move from one part of the model to the
other.
Stay in a view where the building more or less fills the main window. There are two fundamentally
different ways of navigating in a model: Orbit and Walk. Lets see how they work. From the
bottom Toolbar select the Orbit icon.
The cursor changes to a little orbit sign. Click and keep the left mouse button pressed and
move the mouse around to view the building from all sides.
While in Orbit mode, real-time zoom and pan can still be used. Try them both to explore the
whole model. To quit Orbit mode, press ESC.
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Navigation in ARCHICAD
There is an even more exciting way of getting around the building. In order to see this, lets
double-click Generic Perspective from the 3D section of the Navigator. The result is something
like this:
In this view orbit, real-time zoom and pan work as we have seen already. The only difference is
that here they affect the camera position rather than the projected image. Lets try and move
around a little.
For a different way of exploration, lets get into first-person shooter mode by selecting the
Explore icon at the bottom toolbar.
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Navigation in ARCHICAD
The appearing dialog box explains the controls, which are very similar to FPS computer games.
After getting familiar with the controls, click 3D Explore to start the fly-through inside the
building and navigate around.
Walls will not stop you in this game but to get the hang of it try using the doors.
To quit the Explore mode, just click into the 3D view.
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In the Geometry and Positioning panel we can specify the geometry of the wall, including
height and shape information as well as its vertical position.
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Referenced views have many user options for positioning, rotation, or display. Let's open the
Trace and Reference palette for quick access. Click the icon on the Standard Toolbar, and select
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Re-color the reference to its original by clicking the Reference's color icon.
Zoom in so you can see the reference south side of the building. Select the wall next to the
entrance, and open its settings.
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The elevation is updated and reflects the change we made in floor plan view. Open the 3D view.
As you can see, the wall now shows the surface material correctly.
Return to Floor plan to explore another useful feature of the Trace Tool. You might need to see the
arrangement of other stories, while working on a particular floor plan. Right-click on the 1. 2 floor,
and display it as Trace reference. Change its color to red. Click the Show/Hide Splitter button to
display the virtual splitter lines on each side of the graphic area.
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Close the Trace and Reference palette, and turn it off by clicking its icon on the Standard toolbar.
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Lets get back to the initial floor plan again, double-click 0.1 Floor Plan in the Navigator. Zoom
out in order to see the entire floor plan.
Having a BIM model also means that we dont have to set up complicated layer sets for the
different stories within the project. Stories, sections and elevations are just separate views of the
virtual building model. In ARCHICAD, the Navigator window makes it easy to toggle between the
different views and representations of the BIM model.
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All these views are merely derivatives of the BIM model. Any number of them can be generated
and they are all linked together, so if anything changes in one view, the changes are also reflected
in all other views throughout the entire project. This is a huge advantage compared to the
traditional 2D drawing based documentation method where coordination of the drawings had to
be done manually. It is not only more productive but also more reliable as it reduces the risk of
coordination issues to the minimum.
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As you can see, this part lists plans instead of stories. Of course a plan can show any model view
(stories, sections, elevations, details, etc.). Double-click on 1st Floor Plan in the RCP folder of the
View Map.
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How is this plan different from the floor plan we have worked with up till now? One difference is
obvious: we see the tiles of the reflected ceiling and the lighting elements. These must have been
on a layer that was switched on when changing to the views of the RCP folder. (Layers are like
vellums of old times, layered on top of each other. If we pull one out of the stack, it will be
invisible. Elements that have common characteristics like exterior walls, interior walls, furniture,
etc. should be placed on a common layer, so that their visibility can be regulated together.)
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Layer Combination determines which layers are switched on or off for that particular view.
Here, layer combinations were set up and named in advance. The one that is used here is
named Reflected Ceiling Plan.
The other factor is the Scale of the drawing. For instance, plans that are submitted to the
municipality for approval have a smaller scale than construction documentation. In
ARCHICAD, objects like doors, windows or other custom elements are scalesensitive, that is,
their 2D representation depends on the current scale of the drawing.
The third factor is the Structure Display. This function allows us to display construction
elements in various ways depending how we define the components of elements. We can
choose one of these options:
- Entire Model
- Without Finishes
- Core Only
- Core of Load-Bearing Elements Only
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The fourth factor is the Pen Set. We can define different line weights to the different colors.
The following factor is the so-called Model View Options Combination. These settings
control the behavior of ARCHICAD elements beyond merely toggling visibility on and off.
These combinations were also set up and named in advance. The one for reflected ceiling
plans can be viewed when selecting Document/Set Model View/Model View Options from
the menu.
The last factor is the Renovation Filter. We can provide visual feedback on the status of each
element at a particular stage of a renovation project.
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Click on any of the buttons and see what changes occur on the floor plan when the settings are
changed.
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You can organize your layouts several ways using folder hierarchy. To maintain documentation
consistency, numbering of folders and sheets are automatic.
Double-click on the Floor Plans/0102.2 1st Floor Plan layout. The floor plan is visible with its
original colors. To change its appearance, simply select it, and change the pen set to Black and
White using the Info box.
Note: Drawings have many settings, so you may have to scroll the Info box to
display the pull-down list of available pen sets. Move the cursor over the Info box,
and use the mouse wheel to scroll its content.
You can place any BIM content, including projected model views, 3D views, details, or even
schedules, as well as external content (PDF, DWG, images) or, combinations of these on a layout.
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The available publisher sets are visible in the list. You can create as many sets as you want in a
project.
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Communication with the project participants can be 3D-based also. The most common format of
BIM data exchange is the IFC format. Open the 03 - IFC publisher set. Here, you can see two
examples of IFC model communication. The entire model is useful for IFC model viewer
applications, where you can merge multiple IFC models, and check collisions. The story-based IFC
output is useful for structural engineers, who analyze the building story by story in their
application.
Another powerful way of model communication is BIMx. This application allows sharing model
and documentation (so called Hyper-model) on mobile devices and desktop machines on an
easy to use and visual way.
Open the 04 - BIMx publisher set. You can see both 3D models and layout sheets included here.
The published file will contain both the layout and the 3D views with intelligent links and
element info included, so in the viewer BIMx application, clients can explore the entire project.
To download the BIMx model of this project and the viewer application, click here.
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Congratulations!
You have successfully completed this Training Guide! We hope that now you understand the
fundamental concept of BIM workflow in ARCHICAD. Please check the other volumes of this
training series for more details about the design workflow.
Should you have any questions regarding ARCHICAD or other GRAPHISOFT products, please visit
Graphisoft Help Center, our online knowledge base:
www.graphisoft.com/learning/training_materials.
Please feel free to contact GRAPHISOFT and its worldwide partners with further questions at
www.graphisoft.com. We look forward to seeing you in the ARCHICAD user community.
The GRAPHISOFT Team
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