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Vol. 2
Basic ArchiCAD
Credits
Trademarks
ArchiCAD is a registered trademark of GRAPHISOFT.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.
Credits
Courtesy of GRAPHISOFT
Contents
CONTENTS
Introduction ___________________________________________ 5
Opening the Project _____________________________________ 7
Navigation in ArchiCAD __________________________________ 9
Multiplying Elements __________________________________10
Creating Curtain Wall System ____________________________14
Modifying Curtain Walls ________________________________18
Creating Interior Walls __________________________________25
Placing Doors _________________________________________32
Mirroring Doors _______________________________________34
Creating Stories _______________________________________36
Creating Flat Roofs _____________________________________38
Creating Parapet Walls _________________________________39
Placing Stairs _________________________________________40
Dimensioning _________________________________________46
Contents
Introduction
Introduction
Welcome to the ArchiCAD Training Series!
This Guide is part of the ArchiCAD Training Series, which currently includes the following
materials:
You are now reading Vol. 2, Basic ArchiCAD a comprehensive hands-on training to familiarize
you with the basic modeling and documentation tools of ArchiCAD. This guide is meant for new
ArchiCAD users. We strongly recommend that you complete Training Series Vol. 1 before starting
this one.
This guide is also suitable for using as BIM Curriculum Exercises - for Hands-on Practice in
universities where ArchiCAD is taught to students. Lecturers who would like to use this guide as a
BIM Curriculum should visit the educational sites of the GRAPHISOFT website
(http://www.graphisoft.com/learning/education/) where, after registration, they will be entitled
to obtain a full set of training materials suitable for seminar lectures.
Contents of this guide:
Training guide e-book: The PDF guide includes detailed explanation of every step, with several
screenshots.
ArchiCAD project file: The preset training file will help your learning process. Preset project views
help you to navigate between different steps thus you can focus on the core knowledge.
Movie clips: Narrated movie clips are available on the YouTube channel for GRAPHISOFT
ArchiCAD (www.youtube.com/user/Archicad) providing step-by-step instructions for each step
of the training guide. The ArchiCAD YouTube Channel can also be accessed from the Help menu
of ArchiCAD. Enter the name of this Training Guide in the search field to locate the related videos.
Introduction
You must have ArchiCAD 17 or later version installed on your computer to use this guide. This ebook and the movie clips were made with the English language version of ArchiCAD. For your
conveniance we recommend you to download and use the same version for practicing.
If you do not have ArchiCAD yet, please visit https://myarchicad.com/ to obtain a free ArchiCAD
installer:
If you are a student, a teacher or a representative of a school, register and download a fully
functional Education Version of ArchiCAD for Students and Teachers.
If you are a professional architect, register and download a fully functional 30-day trial version
of ArchiCAD. Projects saved with this TRIAL version can be automatically upgraded to FULL
versions upon purchase of a commercial license.
Please contact your local distributor for purchasing commercial ArchiCAD licenses:
http://www.graphisoft.com/purchase/
How to use this training material?
Open the related movie clips from the GRAPHISOFT ArchiCAD Youtube Channel.
Follow the instructions given in the PDF guide and the videos.
We hope you will find this training useful and wish you success with your future ArchiCAD
projects!
Good Luck!
Navigation in ArchiCAD
Navigation in ArchiCAD
At first glance you can see a Slab, a Steel Column, a Section Marker and four Elevation Views in
Floor Plan. On the right side of the ArchiCAD interface is the Navigator Palette (Navigator), a tree
structure view that lets you build up the entire logical structure of your project and navigate in it.
Here you can create folders, then copy, drag and drop views and other project items depending
on their particular purpose.
Multiplying Elements
Multiplying Elements
Lets see how we can create multiple copies of an element to speed up the modeling workflow.
1 Select the existing Steel Column in the Floor Plan with the Arrow Tool.
2 Select Edit/Move/Mirror a Copy menu command.
3 Define the mirroring axis with two clicks, as if you were drawing a Line.
4 Move the cursor near the middle of the Slabs upper edge, and click when the cursor takes on
the following shape:
6 Pick up the settings of an existing column. With the shortcut ALT + Click, the cursor will
change to an Eyedropper; click on the column.
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Multiplying Elements
7 Place the two new columns above the Slab.
8 Select all columns while holding down the Shift key and select Edit/Align/Bottom menu
command. All selected elements will be aligned to the bottommost point of the selected
group - that is, the bottom column.
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Multiplying Elements
9 To ensure the columns are all distributed evenly, select all columns and use Edit/Distribute/
Along X command.
12 The first axis point is the middle of the Slab. Draw the mirroring axis, while holding down the
Shift key.
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Multiplying Elements
13 Open the 3D Window. Press either F3 key or select the Window/3D Window command.
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4 Choose the Polyline - Single Geometry Method from the Info Box.
5 You have to place the Curtain Wall 6000mm from the left side of the Slab.
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Go back to the floor plan (F2) and move the cursor to the upper-left corner of the Slab.
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Press Enter, move the cursor down, and click when the cursor takes on the following shape:
Pencil point with intersection sign.
Click with the Sun cursor to define the outside direction of the Curtain Wall. Here, move the
cursor to the left side of the Curtain Wall and click.
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In the appearing Place Curtain Wall dialog box, modify the height of the Curtain Wall to
3000mm and click Place.
Create the other three Curtain Walls with the same method according to the first Curtain Wall
and the sides of the Slab.
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3 When the Curtain Wall is in editing mode, the model is shown in the 3D window.
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Click when the cursors shape indicates it is at the halfway point of the Boundary frame (Arrow
with Heavy Checkmark).
Draw the Frame upside down while holding down the Shift key.
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9 When you have completed your modifications of the selected Curtain Wall, click OK in the Edit
mode Display palette to save changes and return to the 3D window.
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4 The corner of the new Wall will be 10.500 mm from the left edge of the Slab and 3.400 mm
from the bottom of the Slab.
5 Move the cursor to the bottom-left corner of the Slab.
6 Type the following: x10500+. (Cursor jumps to the right.)
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8 Press Enter and move the cursor toward the upper right.
9 Define the size of the rectangular wall: x7600 and y3600.
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11 You have to edit these walls separately. The solution is to temporarily suspend groups by
choosing the Suspend Group toggle icon in the Standard Toolbar, or use the Edit/Grouping/
Suspend Groups command.
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17 Create the new walls so that they divide the existing horizontal wall into three equal
segments. Lets set the Special Snap Points to display divisions along elements. Select View/
Special Snap Options/Division(3) from Menubar.
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Hold down the CTRL/CMD key and the cursor changes to Scissors.
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Placing Doors
Placing Doors
Now well create doors in the partition walls.
1 Activate the Door tool and select Internal Door from the Favorites palette.
2 Set the Anchor Point to Side 1. The Anchor Point setting defines whether you place the Door
by its center point or its side.
3 You have to place the Door 100mm from the bottom-left corner of the wall. Move the cursor
to the bottom-left corner and type x100+.
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Placing Doors
4 Press Enter.
5 To place the Door, click at the desired opening and swing direction.
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Mirroring Doors
Mirroring Doors
Lets create mirrored copies of the door.
1 To be able to mirror the Door, first you have to set View/Special Snap Options back to Half.
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Mirroring Doors
4 Move the cursor near the middle of the upper Wall, and click when the cursor takes on the
following shape:
.
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Creating Stories
Creating Stories
Continue working on the current project or open 03 Pavilion.pln ArchiCAD file from the training
project folder.
Stories are fundamental parts of all ArchiCAD projects. Lets see how to create them.
1 Go to Design/Story Settings.
2 Select Ground Floor and click on the Insert above command.
3 Modify the Story Name to Roof.
4 Click OK.
5 Select the Ground Floor from the Navigator and right-click to bring up its context menu.
6 Choose Show as Trace Reference.
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Creating Stories
Note: Trace Reference allows you to display different model views or layouts in the
context of the active view. This feature helps you to check the consistency of your
documentation and your model.
7 You can see the Elements of the Ground Floor in the Roof story.
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Hold down the Space key and the cursor changes to the Magic Wand.
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Placing Stairs
Placing Stairs
Lets create a simple straight-run stair with StairMaker, the built-in stair-modeling tool of
ArchiCAD.
1 Double-click on the Ground Floor in the Navigator palette.
2 Open the Stair dialog box from the Toolbox.
3 Select the Create Stair command.
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Placing Stairs
4 In the appearing dialog box set the type of the Stair to Straight Run and click on the OK
button.
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Placing Stairs
5 Set the following values:
Upper surface material: Stn-Marble White; Front surface material: Paint 01; Tread surface
material: Paint 01.
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Placing Stairs
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Placing Stairs
6 If you have completed the above tasks, click Save As to give it a name: Pavilion Stair. The
Stair is saved in your Embedded Library.
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Placing Stairs
9 Modify the Relative Base Height to -1500 mm.
10 The Anchor point of the Stair is 2000 mm from the bottom-left corner of the Slab. Move the
cursor to the corner and type x2000+. The cursor jumps to the appropriate position.
11 Press the Enter key.
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Dimensioning
Dimensioning
Continue working on the current project or open 04 Pavilion.pln ArchiCAD file from the training
project folder.
Well add basic wall dimensions to the project on the floor plan.
1 Choose the Dimension Tool from the Toolbar.
2 Select Dim (2.5) from the Favorites palette.
4 Click on the upper-left corner of the vertical wall, then the bottom-right corner of the other
vertical wall. You can see two reference points.
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Dimensioning
5 In order to finish the dimensioning you have to double-click on an empty space area.
6 The next step is to move the Hammer cursor to the position where you want to place the
dimension line.
7 Click on the side of the vertical walls. Two reference points will appear on each wall.
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Dimensioning
8 Double-click on an empty space and move the Hammer cursor to the position where you
want to place the dimension line.
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Automatic Dimensioning
Automatic Dimensioning
Automatic dimensioning is a very powerful tool that allows you to apply the most typical
dimensions on the floor plan views with only a few clicks.
1 Select all Walls:
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Automatic Dimensioning
3 Define the appropriate preferences for the dimensioning.
4 Click OK.
5 Define the direction of the dimension lines. You can do this in one two ways:
Click the side edge of an existing Wall (the dimension direction will follow the Wall direction);
Click in an empty area, and then click a second time to define the dimension direction.
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Automatic Dimensioning
6 Click with the Hammer cursor to place the dimension lines.
Then, with the Dimension Tool selected, CTRL/CMD-click on the desired new Reference
Point. The new point can be located between existing chain points or anywhere outside the
dimension chain.
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Automatic Dimensioning
10 The final result should be similar to the one in this picture.
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Elevation Dimensioning
Elevation Dimensioning
Elevation Dimensions allow you to place height markers in Section/Elevation/IE and 3D
Document windows.
6 Activate S/E Dim. (2.5) from the Favorites palette.
7 Open the elevations, and place individual markers by clicking the points that you want to
dimension, then Double-click or click OK in the Control Box. Use the Hammer cursor to
position the marker.
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Elevation
Elevation
Working with Elevations is very similar to Sections. The process is explained in the previous
chapter.
1 Open the South Elevation View from the Navigator palette.
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Placing Objects
Placing Objects
ArchiCAD is shipped with an extensive parametric object library, which helps you to quickly
improve your model and documentation. Lets place a few tree objects on the elevations.
1 Open the Object Default Settings by double-clicking on the Object tool.
2 Browse for a Tree object from the linked library. There are two ways to do it:
Select the tree object from the ArchiCAD Library /Basic Library /1.7 2D Elements / Plant
Symbols folder.
Choose the Find Library Parts option to locate library parts by name using keywords in a
search engine. Type the tree keyword and press the Find button.
4 Open the Tree Elevation Styles area, and select Style 3. Click OK.
5 Place the tree object in the Elevation View.
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Placing Objects
6 You have to position the tree object behind the building. To do this, you must change the
display order of the object.
7 Select the object.
Option 1: Choose the Edit/Display Order/Send Backward command. You may have to run
this command twice to achieve the appropriate result.
Option 2: Right-click to bring up the elements context menu, then select the Display Order/
Send Backward command twice.
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Placing Objects
8 Create a copy of the tree object. Activate either the Edit/Move/Drag a Copy command or use
CTRL + Shift + D (Windows)/CMD + Alt + D (Mac) shortcuts.
9 Replace the type of the tree: double-click on the Object tool and select another tree object
from the folder.
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Placing Objects
10 Place the new 2D People Symbols in the Elevation View.
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Merging Plans
Merging Plans
The furniture layout is already available in an external ArchiCAD module file. Well merge it into
our project to shorten the documentation and modeling time.
Note: You can learn more about ArchiCAD modules in other volumes of this
training guide series.
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Merging Plans
13 Click Choose Hotlink, and browse for the Furnishing_Plan.mod file and click Open.
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Merging Plans
14 Until the file is placed, its elements will be surrounded by a dashed rectangle. Click within the
rectangle to move the elements to the desired position. Click outside or click OK from the
context menu (or the Control Box) to place the elements. Enable showing and unlocking
layers, if necessary.
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Rendering
Rendering
ArchiCAD offers you various visualization modes to present your design to your customers. You
can select from two predefined Rendering Settings from the Navigator palette: the first uses the
LightWorks Rendering Engine, while the second works with the Sketch Engine.
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Creating 3D Documents
Creating 3D Documents
The 3D document is a unique ArchiCAD feature that presents your models with annotations in a
3D perspective or axonometric view. The 3D Document allows you to use the 3D view of the
model as the basis for creating a document, to which you can add dimensions, labels and
additional 2D drawing elements.
1 Open the 3D-01 Document from the Navigator palette.
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Creating 3D Documents
6 Set the Geometry Method:
7 Place individual markers by clicking the points that you want to dimension, then Doubleclick or click OK in the Control Box. Use the Hammer cursor to position the marker.
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Layouting
Layouting
Continue working on the current project or open 05 Pavilion.pln ArchiCAD file from the training
project folder.
The final documentation layouts are available in the Layout Book. Lets see how to complete your
documentation in ArchiCAD.
1 Activate the Navigators Layout Book.
2 Double-click on the A.01 Pavilion Layout.
3 Switch to the Navigator View Map, which is the second button in the Navigator palette.
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Layouting
4 Drag the 0. Ground Floor from the Floor Plans folder and drop it onto the Layout.
5 Modify the placed layout by using the Pet palette. Move the layout to the upper-right corner.
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Layouting
6 If you do not want to place the drawings one by one, select the Show Organizer command
from the Project Chooser at the top left of the Navigator.
7 Choose the View Map in the left side of the Navigator and the Layout Book in the right side.
8 Select each Elevation in the View Map and drag them into the A.01 Pavilion Layout.
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Layouting
9 Place the other drawings (Sections, Roof, Rendering) onto the Layout and arrange them into
the correct position.
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Exporting to PDF
Exporting to PDF
The project documentation can be published in many file formats with just one click of the
mouse. PDF is the most widely use document archiving format in the construction industry, so
lets see how to export to this format.
1 Open the Organizer dialog box from the Project Chooser at the top left of the Navigator.
2 Click on Publisher Sets to the right side of the Navigator.
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Exporting to PDF
7 Set a target folder for the published files in the Path field by clicking the Publishing
Properties button.
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Exporting to PDF
8 Click on the Publish button.
Congratulations!
You have successfully completed this Training Guide! We hope that you have learned many new
and exciting things about the possibilities of BIM and understood how ArchiCAD supports the
architectural design workflow. Please check the other volumes of this training series for more
details about ArchiCAD.
Should you have any questions regarding ArchiCAD or other GRAPHISOFT products, please visit
Graphisoft Help Center, our online knowledge base: http://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/.
Please feel free to contact GRAPHISOFT and its worldwide partners with further questions at
www.graphisoft.com.
We look forward to seeing you in the ArchiCAD user community.
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