Guest Blogger Endre Ilauszky: The Random City Object for ArchiCAD site models
After the successful Ceiling Editor and Floating Dimension objects the next BIM component has arrived in the “Wish upon an Object from BIMcomponents.com”. The Random City component is a very useful tool when you want to place schematic buildings or town parts simply and quickly into the background of an ArchiCAD site model. It is random, as you can adjust the buildings’ geometry and measures to be generated by the Object. Forms of the buildings can be set from rural characteristics (Village buildings) to urban types (Urban buildings) Â and to skyscrapers (Skyscraper).
Placement Method
There are a variety of options to place building(s):
- individually (Single)
- along a line (Linear), as separate houses (Detached Buildings), or attached (Terrace houses),
- into the Grid lines of a specified territory, regularly or irregularly
- or along the perimeter lines of a polygon.
Building Types and Forms (random or not)
You can set the buildings’ geometry with the help of various parameters. You can set the Building Types (village, urban, city, skyscraper, high-rise buildings) and the different Elevation Style, Roof Type and Building Elements. You can choose from dozens of floor plan forms as well. With the help of their sizes and the dispersion (%) thereof-as well as the use of Random Functions-you can obtain a perfectly random town part in the background.
By using the floor plan Editing Panel you may easily and quickly alter the previously placed Random City object buildings even more. Download the Random City BIM component to try the further possibilities of this incredible Object (MVO, day and night appearance, etc) .
Try the Random City Object Yourself
The Random City (US and INT) object is available free on the BIMcomponents portal on manuBIM’s profile page.
The Random City (HUN, FRA, GER) object is available free on the BIMcomponents portal on CADStudio’s profile page.
YouTube tutorial videos will also be available soon!
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Jared’s Bonus Note: You can read Endre’s previous guest post here. I think the Random City Object sounds amazing. Day and Night options? How cool is that?! Plus being sensitive to Model View Options is fantastic. I can’t wait to settle in to Boston and test it out. I’ve been meaning to write a few posts about site models and urban design using ArchiCAD. So expect me to add some more thoughts and ideas on what this Object can provide. It sounds like it answers and completes a few of the concepts I’ve been mulling over for the past year or so.
pallsopp42
Nice!
But what we ALSO need is the ability in ArchiCAD to read in processed point cloud data from 3D laser and LIDAR scans. DXF files generally come in as 2D flat planes. Opening DXF files as 3D objects means that we have zero editing capabilities using the Mesh tool. And bringing in XYZ files larger than just 3MB crashes ArchiCAD (a 4 acre file scanned at moderate laser resolution creates a file containing unique XYZ data that is over 12MB. ArchiCAD currnelty cannot handle files this “small”
I’d love to see ArchiCAD upgrade its XYZ read engine to be able to take in files far larger than it presently can.
Darren Bell
Blocking up contextual buildings is fine and has a purpose, however like pallsopp42, I need more.
I use LIDAR data regularly for site meshes, what I really would like to see is the ability to take in laser scan surveys within ArchiCAD to build as surveyed models. There are work around solutions such as pointCAB, which works well by turning the point clouds into flat sections, but its still another time consuming process and misses the point (Excuse the pun) of point cloud surveys.
I am still trying to get pointools to work in Sketchup, can’t seem to find a demo plugin to try out but I know its out there. This process although not perfect is still much closer to being able to achieve rapid model production and you can apply photos to the finished model, but still you have to trace over again in ArchiCAD to produce a workable building model.
First plugin developer to take the plunge developing a point cloud back end for ArchiCAD is on a winner as laser scan surveys are the future for major or complex buildings.
Ilauszky Endre
Tutorial video available: http://www.manubim.com/en/content/random-city
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