Shoegnome Open Template v23.1
I spent eight hours yesterday measuring a house and building the ARCHICAD model on site. Measuring and modeling is the only way to work. I arrived at the house at 10:30 am. By 6:30 pm I was heading home having measured the house, built the model to enough detail that I could start design (it’s an interior remodel), and also had a one hour dinner meeting with the clients to discuss their program in more detail, as well share the structural and plumbing challenges I discovered. The only way that all happened was because I built the ARCHICAD model on site.
It helped I’m friends with the clients and this is the fifth project I’ve done for them (two remodels on their previous home and two projects for the husband’s family’s cabin property). But I’ll for sure propose this sort of project kick off experience for other clients, if it makes sense for their projects.
During the measure I made note of all the improvements I needed to make to the Shoegnome Open Template for ARCHICAD 23, as this was the first time I was using it on a live project. I found a number of places for improvement. Below is a list as well as a link to download the revised template. Not included are some minor changes I’ve made to the template since I released it a week and a half ago.
Reworking all the Building Material priorities is definitely the biggest and most important change I made.
Shoegnome Open Template v23.1 changes:
- Composites
- 2 | Interior Wall – 2×4, 1/2″ Gyp Bd. each side, Insulation
- 2 | Interior Wall – 2×6, 1/2″ Gyp Bd. each side, Insulation
- 1 | Exterior Wall – 2×4, sheathing (uninsulated)
- 1 | Exterior Wall – 2×6, sheathing (uninsulated)
- Complex profiles
- 5 | Footing – Turn on stretch and center reference line
- Favorites
- Exterior – Single Door (new)
- Door Markers on exterior doors (fixed)
- Story Level Markers – removed brown pen on Section & Elevation Markers
- Surfaces
- 06 | Plywood – changed Surface image
- Building Materials
- Reworked all the Building Material Priorities
- Fixed color of Brick Building Material
To download the latest version of the template, click here.
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Darren Bell
How did you find juggling a laptop, laser and tape measure whilst whipping around the house?
I have thought of doing the same but struggling with the concept of too many toys to hold at one time.
Jared Banks
I don’t move the laptop very much. I still have a clipboard and take notes, but only a room’s worth at a time, maybe just notes on two windows or a door. I set up at the dining room table or kitchen island or cleanest space in an unfinished area. I then work around the area, always going back to the laptop. One location is usually good enough for most of a floor, if not more.
The trick is spending time to develop the model early in the measure. For instance on this week’s house, I measured the first floor first. The laptop sat on the peninsula in the kitchen. Once I had the first floor fully figured out, I took the clipboard and a flashlight into the crawlspace. I was able to take minimal notes and measurements. With the model, it was really quick to see where things were and find missing measurements. Then when I went to the second floor, I sketched it out like in the old days. But I took even fewer dimensions. By then I had the building figured out in section, knew what the typical window was, and could resolve weird dimensions with a completely understood crawl space and first floor using Trace and Reference.
I’ll find I sit at the computer for 10 or 15 minutes at different points of the measure just constructing the model based-setting up standard windows and doors. Constructing a simplified 2D section, etc. Whatever I need to do to verify how the building goes together.
Stewart Hart
No problem at all with a iBackFlip sling bag that enables using iPad or laptop w both hands while standing. Before my backflip I used a walker, that elderly folks use to steady their walk, as a lightweight moveable table. I have used those telescopic thingies that golfers use to retrieve balls from water hazards to help measure high places by myself by positioning the “ignorant” end of the tape w the the telescopic thingy.
https://www.ibackflip.com/
Jared Banks
I like the idea of using the telescopic thingy!
Mark Renz
Thanks for this Jared. One thing that I cannot find any information on is how to update a template by merging or somehow combining them. In other words, if I use your template but make changes to it once I download it (i.e.
Adding views, title block, wall types, etc.) how can I add your updated template to mine?
Jared Banks
Mark, fantastic question. Here’s a blog post with a video explaining how to combine the new template with the old.
Mark Renz
AWESOME!!!!! That is immensely helpful! Thanks so much for the explanation.
Jared Banks
I don’t always do video replies to blog post comments, but when I do I spend too much of the day doing it! Glad this helped.
Mark
When I use to do house extension work I use to do something similar Jared. I’d draft the existing floor plans and site plan in 2D whilst I was there, normally lap top was on the kitchen table so I’d sketch and measure room by room and then compile it to make sure it all worked. Nothing worse than traveling home, starting to draw it up a day or two later and some of the dimensions didn’t work or I couldn’t read my own scribbles.
I’d photograph most of the externals as they would ordinarily be brickwork so I could count the brickwork from photos when constructing the 3D model based on a 2D worksheet reference.
Jared Banks
Nothing worse than getting back to the office and learning what you forgot to measure. For my multi-day measures, I’ll often work in the evening for an hour or two or space out the measure days so I can build more of the 3D model at home. Especially for roofs and exterior trim. I measure enough to understand, go home model until I find problems, then go back to the site and resolve the few issues. It always wows clients to show them a model of their home at the end of the measure-even a simple, half finished one.
Christian Gladu
I use my IPAD Pro with Morpholio Trace. Does great to scale layered drawings with the apple pencil. You can underlay plans from JPG or PDF. or start from scratch and upload the underlays to Archicad.This little program basically replaces trace paper. Tons of cool drawing tools.
Jared Banks
I’ve heard so many good things about Morpholio.
BRYAN
Jared.
I think you should do a whole news letter on this topic for Apple …. and PC users. Explain
all equipment used during entire documentation process.
Jared Banks
That’s been on my to do list for a long time. I think I might even have the post half written somewhere.
Nolan Walker
I’ll be downloading and looking at the template this evening. I recently visited your pen set series, followed by your layers/layer combos series, and it is always fun to follow the evolution through time of your template, and seeing the articles that indicate where your next version will (potentially) improve based on your philosophies and what you’ve learned over time.
Jared Banks
I’m not sure if I’ll have time but I probably should do a proper 10th pen set post that formally talks about the changes to my ARCHICAD 23 template pens. It’s in the introduction video, but it’d be nice to have it written out. I really like the layer series I did on the GSNA blog. Any excuse to talk about LEGO!
Jeffg
Great job on the template! This is my first time downloading and reviewing your setup. Quick question – how do you typically document your RCP? It looks like you are using a 3D document. Are there specific view setting that you use for this? Is all of your ceiling plan annotation specific to view (ie. you would need to add all of you room names in lieu of using the zones you setup). I’ve never used a 3d document for an RCP (I do like that all modeled fixtures actually show up). Do you know of a good online reference for using 3d documents for ceiling plans? Thanks!
Jared Banks
Jeff, unfortunately I don’t have good advice for you. Or I should say any advice I have would be SUPER old and rusty. I haven’t done an RCP in ARCHICAD in close to a decade, if I had to guess. As such I don’t have anything formally set up for RCPs, just electrical plans which are close. Though I expect I’ll be doing some RCPS later this year. That caveat aside, I’d see how far you can get with Model View Options, Graphic Overrides, and Layer Combinations. If you want to go the route of 3D documents, that should work as well, and there might be some examples/explanations online, but I am not aware of them.
Darius
Have you ever thought of using HDS Imaging Laser such as Leica’s BLK360? Is quite compact, light and quick. And then you can just load the point clouds directly into Archicad and use them to model.
Jared Banks
I have thought about going more high tech with measures. However I always circle back to this: I don’t do enough measures, or do them regularly enough, to warrant the investment in new tools or time to perfect their usage. I love the idea of taking point cloud data and then modeling off of that. But I really want to hear from someone who does this and see how much time it saves them before undertaking the switch myself. And I want to see the detail level of their models.
Modeling on site with ARCHICAD saves me enough time and is accurate enough that it’ll take a lot of convincing to show me there’s a better way to get a well built model ready for design.