ARCHICAD Elevations: turning on and off color
GRAPHISOFT released an update to ARCHICAD 20 a few days ago (Update 5025); read the release notes here. It incorporates a major fix that I’ve been waiting a long time for:
- 217191 EDIT: Graphic override settings did not affect shadows in sections/elevations.
With Update 5025, we can now use Graphic Overrides to do two critical things: hide shadows (but not color) and hide color (but not shadows) in Elevations, Sections, and Interior Elevations. This means we can now have one Marker that handles both color and black & white. Prior to this update, we needed separate Elevation/Section/Interior Elevation Markers for color views and black & white views because Surface color display was controlled by the Marker, not by the View.
Below is a video that explores turning color and shadows on/off in Elevations in ARCHICAD 20 using Graphic Overrides.
The techniques described in the video work because of Graphic Overrides. For more on Graphic Overrides, check out these two blog posts:
- Order of Operations: Managing Graphic Override Combinations
- Order and Complexity: Managing Graphic Override Rules and Combinations
SHOEGNOME OPEN TEMPLATE V20
I have revised my template to incorporate this updated feature, along with some other lessons learned from the past few months. Since the projects I am just starting will keep me busy until ARCHICAD 21 is released (historically new versions of ARCHICAD are announced in May and released in June), this current revision will probably be the last for my Shoegnome Open Template for ARCHICAD 20. There are some things I haven’t changed about the template that I would like to. For instance, I want to overhaul my schedules again and fix some naming conventions. But I’m not including aspirational workflow enhancements I haven’t explored to a satisfactory level. I’ll hold off on larger revisions for when I rebuild for the next version this summer.
Changes to the Shoegnome Open Template V20.3 for ARCHICAD 20:
- Layout Book:
- Layout Book – Cover Sheet: Updated Property Info to link to more Project Info
- Layout Book – Moved Revision History Object from Title Block view to Master Layout(s). Object only works if placed on Layout/Master
- Attributes:
- Layer Combination – Turn off Site.Trees on Layer Combinations 2 – Elevation and 2 – Section
- Building Material -Â Fixed Brick BMAT hatch to always show hatch
- Building Material – Rename Wrought Iron to Iron
- Graphic Overrides:
- New Combination:Â 1 Uniform Line Weight, Cover Fills (White)
- New Rules: Cover Fills to white and Gradient Fills Off
- Fixed:Â Cut fills – solid black, removed line changes in rule
- Favorites:
- 0 | Temporary Favorites folder – for project/temporary Favorites
- Added 2D Stair Fill (11” Tread)
- Added Change Marker
- Added Ridge Beam (centerline only)
- Added Shower w/ door
- Added Supply Duct (Column, Schematic)
- Added Return Duct (Column, Schematic)
- Added Plumbing Vent Stack
- Updated Elevation Marker
- Miscellaneous:
- Project Info – Updated / Added Site info
- View Map -Â New Clone Folder – Color Elevations
- View Map – New Clone Folder – Demolition Plans
- View Map – Added Project Notes
- Plan -Â Updated Elevation Markers (color, non-shaded; shadows to pen 100)
- Plan – Linked Setback text to Project Info
- Plan -Â Changed backyard setback to 25′ (typical in Seattle)
READY TO GET THE LATEST VERSION OF THE TEMPLATE?
Go download the latest version of the Shoegnome Open Template for ArchiCAD 20! Did I mention it’s free, if you want it to be? Because it is. Unless you’d rather send some support money my way. Because you can do that too by clicking on the Pay Pal link when you go to the official Shoegnome Open Template download page. Remember, if you’re updating to my current template, make sure you also update to the current version of ARCHICAD 20.
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Adam
Thanks for this great work and updating us.
Jared Banks
you’re welcome!
Santiago
Thank you very much for sharing your work, would it be possible for you to do a little tutorial? It would be interesting to know the best way to adapt your template to a object library located in another archicad language.
Jared Banks
I’ve already got that tutorial for you! Here’s a post on switching from feet to meters and swapping out the ARCHICAD library.
Pedro Nevarez
Thanks Jared for taking the time and delivering a great tutorial, I have a question for You or anyone out there in cyber space who can help me out, is there any way to display doors and windows with dashed / hidden lines on an elevation WITHOUT applying renovation filters like Demo or other graphic overrides ?
Thanks Again ; )
Jared Banks
The obvious and easiest answer is Renovation Filters (demo) or Graphic Overrides (create a rule that turns only doors and windows, or a subset of them, to dashed). I don’t know why you’d need a different solution.
Benjamin Meyer
Hi jared, Thanks for your work. You have helped me a great deal in implementing a clean working environment for my office. My question, and often comes out where I work, is this: Is there a way to turn on/off shadows using the Graphical Overrides?
Jared Banks
There is, but it’s not perfect. The Graphic Override looks like this:
-Element Type is 3D Types
-Fill Type is set to override to Empty or Background Fill and only with Drafting Fills.
-The Shadow background pen in the elevation settings needs to be set to transparent (which it should be anyways).
This Graphic Override will let you turn on and off shadows. HOWEVER it doesn’t affect marked distant area shadows. So if you have those on as well you won’t be able to turn them off.
Benjamin Meyer
That works perfectly! Thank you again.
Lilian Farah Nagato
Hello, thanks for your post! I have a different question though, and couldn’t find the answer yet… Do you know if it’s possible to have a Renovation Graphic Override on Section or Elevation with marked distant area?? Or, if it’s not possible, any ideas of how I could overcome this issue? Thank you for any help.
Jared Banks
I’m not sure what you mean. Graphic Overrides work on Sections and Elevations, but they don’t change anything affected by marked distant area.
Lilian Farah Nagato
Thank you for your answer, that´s what I wanted to know, I really can´t make them change anything affected by marked distant area. So the way to make this, would be to make a copy of the view with no marked distant area, probably?
Jared Banks
You’d need to copy the veiwpoint, so the whole section or elevation. Alternatively you could just turn off marked distant area completely for that section or elevation.