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

Creating a site model using the Mesh tool

Although mesh is a generic term, often used in many 3D modeling applications for a collection of triangles connecting points, in Archicad, it is a specific tool for creating site models in the first place (and can also consist of one or more rectangles, instead of only triangles). The tool was already introduced in Chapter 8, for developing complex roof geometries, but now we will focus on its main application.

Basic mesh

A mesh is a contour-based element, just like a slab or a roof, but it has an important geometrical distinction: its top nodes can vary in height, allowing you to define multiple slopes in a single element. They are a natural fit for model terrains, but there are a few creative uses for them, as we already showed in Chapter 8, in the Complex roof geometry and skylights – sloped flat roofs using the Mesh tool section.

Drawing a mesh contour

Since you already know how to model a slab and a roof, modeling a...