I recently had to model a Queen Anne house in ArchiCAD to produce some renderings for a client. It was a ton of fun. And I learned some cool tricks while modeling the various trim and ornamentation. I have to admit, of all the things I’ve done in ArchiCAD, this model is my favorite. Unfortunately I can’t share images of the entire house until the overall project is completed later this year. In the meantime, I’ll share some of the bits and pieces. Here’s how I modeled the stained glass window.

STEP 1: place a window and trace the extent of the stained glass. Move the traced shape away from the model so that you have a clear space to work with. It’s always a smart idea to move the 2D piece a known distance, say 50′ or 20 m.

STEP 2: Overlay the shape of the window over the image you want to replicate and trace half.

STEP 3: make fills (of the dividers/non-glass parts only), mirror a copy and use fill consolidation to make one large fill.

STEP 4: Now that you have the divisions of the stained glass, magic wand in fills for all the glass pieces. I set each glass type to be a 25% fill with a pen color to match the final glass (for ease of 2D construction and visualization).

STEP 5: Copy all the fills into the profile manager and make a complex profile (CP) for each glass color and one for the dividers. By placing all the fills into the profile manager at once, you can make sure that all the CPs line up. Just make sure to align the fills in the profile manager, copy them (to preserve their location), and then delete the extra fills before saving the CP. For the next color, duplicate the original CP, past all the fills, delete the ones you don’t need, save, & repeat.

STEP 6: Make a new material for each color of glass. It’s easy enough to duplicate the standard glass, change the color, and decrease the transparency. For this window I created five colors of glass: purple, blue, green, pink, and a milky white. Assign the materials to the correct CP.

STEP 7: Place one complex profile (I used the beam tool, with a beam length of 1/4″) and change the end material to match the CP material. Copy the beam. Change the CP and the end material to match the new CP. Paste the original beam (in original location). Repeat until you have all your pieces placed. Group the five Complex Profile beams that make up the stained glass. Make sure groups are enabled before heading to the next step.

STEP 8: Move the grouped CPs into alignment in front of the window. In this example the stained glass sits right in front of the window glass, but still within the sash frame. Use a combination of plan, section, elevation, & 3D views, whatever makes sense to you. Do it all visually. It’s easier than math.

STEP 9: View the finished stain glass in the 3D window. Call over a coworker and geek out to ArchiCAD for a few minutes. Go home and show off your modeling skills to your spouse.

Another route would be to build the stained glass out of slabs and save it as a custom window sash or custom window. In that case you’d use slabs instead of fills in steps 3 and 4, make and assign your custom glass materials, and then follow the standard steps to create a custom window sash or window. I think either process is valid, but describing the merits of each would make this post way too long.