Black and White 3D Documents in ArchiCAD
Some days I post zero videos or blog posts. Some days I post a lot. Today is a lot (if 3 posts and 2 videos counts as a lot). Over on BIM Engine, someone asked how exactly I do my black and white 3D Documents in ArchiCAD. I was surprised I’d never formally documented the process. Today I fixed that.
Black and White 3D Documents in ArchiCAD
Bonus Video!
(Also) over on BIM Engine, I’ve been writing a few posts about graphic fixes in ArchiCAD. The general concept is this: if you’re going to cheat in BIM, cheat in the right ways on the right things. If you have to fake something, be smart about it; don’t do something that will hinder the correct BIM data. In short, keep your faking ring fenced and coherent. I’ve written three posts so far.
- It’s not cheating if it’s just Graphic Data Fixes
- Even More Graphic Fixes – Quick 3D Visualization Tricks
- Certain BIM Aficionados are going to hate this one: The Invisible Door
When I first started doing black and white 3D documents, there was a graphic cheat I used a lot. I use it much less now because I’ve altered how I model and because the trick is a bit cumbersome. Nonetheless, the solution of making the 3D Documents even prettier is worth sharing. Enjoy…
Eric Bobrow
Great stuff Jared!
I learned a few things, as I hadn’t looked at the 3D Documents options in a while.
Thanks for taking the time to document your process and share it with us.
joaomourao
Jared, great to see some tricks on black & white 3d docs! I do love them and I will be using some of your useful tricks in my next 3d docs…
Here are some samples of 3d docs I did log time ago… Cheers!
Jared Banks
Those examples are AMAZING. Would love to hear more about that project and model. Very, very cool. Everyone else should check them out. Thank you for sharing.
João Mourão
Thank you Jared,.. It is a 220 000 m2 International Airport for Angola and it was done in 2009 by a team composed of a BIM manager, two project leaders and 7 BIM modelers, all done with ArchiCAD via teamwork 2.0. BIM was mandatory for this huge project, here are some other samples:
http://joaomourao.blogspot.pt/search/label/04%20international%20airport
Just a few ones because info for this project is almost infinite 🙂
Cheers!
Michael Montgomery
Another Tip — When I’m at the early stage of drawings… say concept or massing design I like to show my clients drawings that are a bit looser i.e. more sketchy in appearance (rather than render with the sketch render I use the method you’ve shown in your video to capture a view. This allows for a scaled version to dimension or measure from.) Then select the model copy and paste a 2D version off to the side as you’ve done. Then select all lines and change their type to ‘Sketch’ line type. If you do this in combination with creating various sized sketch line types it can look quite effective….obviously you want to do this once you have finalised the drawing so you don’t have to keep updating with changes.
Michael Montgomery
QUESTION?… Say I have 20 captured 3D Documents, Is there a simple and quick way to apply these model view options for all of them at once? This has always bugged me….Am i missing something here?
Jason Smith
Michael
I though you maybe able to change multiple 3D docs via the clone folder settings. But alas no. One thing you can set is the renovation filter overrides so you could can the line types to ‘sketch’ without needing to drag a copy just to change the lines types. This also means that its a live 3D Doc.
It would be good if the model view options in the 3D doc settings, Sections and Elevations could be part of the clone folder settings. If you need to know about clone folders Eric Bobrow has the information/tutorial http://www.acbestpractices.com/member-home/the-course/week-9/part-3
That were I learnt about them Thanks again Eric.
Jared
Excellent video. The 3D Docs in black and white look nice and clean. I haven’t really explored them very much. I have been using saved 3D window views to add where ever possible. The last project I had 2D elevations and 3D colour views on the same page.
Jared Banks
Jason, you beat me to the renovation filter solution! If you want to change multiple 3D Documents at once, you can select the ones you want in the View Map, go to their View Settings, and change them all at once. My solution is to set up a few blank 3D Documents in my template with the right View Settings. Then I just redefine them once I have my model. I typically have 2-4 per project and it’s easy to set them up early in the process-which is also nice because then my 3D documents go from crude to polished as the project evolves.
Nathan Hildebrandt
Michael, One way to change View Settings reasonably quickly is to use Project Indexes and set up a View List with View ID, View Name, Scale, Layer Combination, MVO and Pen Set. You can quickly go through this schedule and change all of the view settings here. It isn’t an all in one go solution but you don’t have to go into each view to make the change. We use the View List to Audit the settings of Views placed on Layouts to make sure no one is using Custom Layer Combinations and that the settings are correct for the specific view.
Nathan
Jared Banks
I am going to have to record a video on that trick. I think it’d be super useful for more people to use. It’s a great example of the INTERACTIVE aspect of Interactive Schedules! 🙂
Nathan Hildebrandt
Thought I would add the comments I posted on Facebook here so people could see them relative to this post better.
Good videos Jared. I am very surprised that people didn’t know that they could do this already. Another cleaver output to achieve an old school blueprint output is to change all lines to white and uncut fills to blue, it is an interesting retro look. Another favourite is the inverse look with white lines and black fills. A quicker way I deal with cut fills i want to change is delete lines and eyedrop / syringe the fills I want changed the the fill extent stays in shape and it is almost a 30 second effort on complex images.
Jared Banks
Great suggestions thanks. I used a similar retro look with the sketch rendering engine for the wall art in this post: https://shoegnome.com/2011/11/28/tvs-plotters-computer-screens-paintings-and-self-promotionv1/
Jake White
Really interesting vid & comments!
I have just recently finished my first building regulations compliant set of drawings in archicad. Whilst its not the most exciting bit of architecture, its really opened my mind to producing technical documentation as 3d drawings.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pn8w8sf6uz9wgeq/Clock%20house.png?dl=0
This work is hugely influenced by Jared’s tutorials & blogs, so big thank you for helping me along my Bim journey!!
Jared Banks
Jake, thank you so much for sharing. That’s a great looking 3D document! I’m so pleased that what I do has helped you conquer ARCHICAD. Completing the first live project in a new program is never easy (nor usually fun) and if this is what you are producing already, then I think your ARCHICAD future is very bright.
Jake White
Cheers Jared! I have been using the software on various projects for around a year now, but mainly working on concept designs. So moving onto the technical details, getting to grips with complex profiles has been a real eye opener. This model was done with your old up, down, left & right timber materials to produce the lumber cross symbol (I didn’t realise I was looking at an older video). I have just last week seen how you now go about this detail in your template, very clever stuff & loads less polygons!!
Nikola
Hi Jared,
Do you know any way to make something like camera clipping in 3D document Views, for example I need 3D document, perspective of interior, but I don’t want large camera angles, I want perspectives to look natural, but I can’t move camera behind walls so I can get full view of rooms, so I need something like camera clipping , seeing trough walls and I can’t find that. Also I don’t want to make new layer combination for every view, I need to be simple and productive.
Thanks in advance.
Jared Banks
Use the heavy marquee in plan to create your 3D view. Carefully cut out the wall(s)/elements that are getting in your way then view the marquee in 3D. You can then save the View and it’ll remember the marquee. From the saved View you can then create 3D Documents, renderings, etc.
Nikola
Thank you! This works great!