Eric Bobrow has a lot of great free videos; he’s recently posted a bunch of new ones on his website that highlight his 7 Keys to Best Practices for ArchiCAD.

But my favorite one is still his terrain modeling video. The technique he shares around minute six has come up a lot recently (not only in my own work and that of my coworkers, but also in the work of some of the ArchiCAD users that I’m training via Skype). And although I’ve mentioned it before, I’m not sure I’ve actually linked to the video on the blog. It’s how I made the roads in this site from the ArchiCAD vs SketchUp competition. This video was such a revelation for me when I first watched it; my site models became so much faster to build and prettier to use after I implemented what I learned. So without further fanfare here it is (if you’re short on time skip ahead to minute six):

Your sites will be easier and more awesome now. The slab/mesh intersection/subtraction Solid Element Operation trick is the only way I do sites. It is awesome. Even for flat sites, I’ll set up the slab/mesh SEO so that the relationship is established for any changes in topography that may occur (always pays to be prepared).

If you don’t know about Eric Bobrow, he’s the creator of MasterTemplate, the ArchiCAD Best Practices Course, and the ArchiCAD QuickStart Course (for newbies and experienced users looking to brush-up on the basics).