Book Image

A BIM Professional's Guide to Learning Archicad

By : Stefan Boeykens, Ruben Van de Walle
Book Image

A BIM Professional's Guide to Learning Archicad

By: Stefan Boeykens, Ruben Van de Walle

Overview of this book

A BIM Professional’s Guide to Learning Archicad is a comprehensive introduction to all that Archicad has to offer for creating 3D models, 2D document extracts, and related outputs. This book is not a click-by-click series of recipes, but rather focuses on helping you understand why and how Archicad works by providing realistic examples and expert tips. The book gradually introduces you to Archicad tools using ample examples. It then helps you master its complexity through clear modules, allowing you to start your first project quickly, gain useful skills in subsequent projects, and keep using the book as a source for insights into the software. You’ll start with the basic modeling of construction elements and then move on to adding roofs, stairs, and objects to the project. Next, you’ll dive into basic drafting and 2D views for creating 2D output, and grasp how to use attributes and more advanced modeling tools for designing curtain walls and sites. The concluding chapters will show you how to extract and visualize your data and automate the publishing of your extracts and 2D documents into a variety of output formats. By the end of this book, you’ll have gained a solid understanding of Archicad, how to implement it efficiently in your architectural projects, and how BIM can improve your overall design workflow.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1: Getting Started with Archicad – Project Setup and Essential Modeling Tools for Your First Residential Project
9
Part 2: Becoming an Archicad Professional – Learn About Archicad Tools and Settings to Create and Publish Any Type of Project in Full Detail

Complex roof geometry and skylights

Although we already saw how to model Single- and Multi-plane Roofs in Part 1 – Chapter 4, there are many more shapes and types that can be modeled. This section goes a bit deeper into the options and possibilities of several tools for modeling more complex roof geometries and we will also show how to add a skylight.

Sloped flat roofs using the Mesh tool

In Archicad, it is possible to create roofs using multiple tools. We already discussed the Roof tool, but you can also use Slab, Shell, Mesh, or even Object. Just be aware that the tool defines the geometric possibilities and constraints.

For plain flat roofs, Slab may be sufficient, as we showed in Part 1 – Chapter 3, since it simply defines a contour and a Composite. However, Slabs cannot have a slope in Archicad. If you need a slope, you should use the Roof tool, which adds a pivot line and allows you to set the slope direction and angle.

An alternative that is sometimes...