The Global ARCHICAD Community

[jessicaluchesi]

This is a recurring need, even more in Brazil when doing floors that need to have some form of inclination for drainage. Recently, the design for a house for the elderly, where a portion of the floor slab needed to have a 1% inclination towards a linear drain on the wall, was impossible to do within Archicad, and required in the final documentation to be done by drawing instead of in the model itself, drainage line indications done by drawing instead of having a tool for that ( as we have for floor height ) and a 3D detailing, with the adequate floor composite, done in Rhino as a 3D detailing.

I am not sure what the coding implications would be for this, but this is a recurrent need, which is quite annoying. The Ramp GDL object will serve for accessibility ramps or car access ramps, but whenever an inside or outside slab needs to be slightly inclined, it becomes a nightmare. I have used the roof tool for that in the past, which feels like a perversion of the roof tool. Because, in principle, roofs and slabs can be considered the same thing, and a one inclination roof with different textures and materials is the same as a slab. But it is not the same as me, as an architect, actually requiring for a portion of a kitchen or bathroom or swimming pool floor slab, I want to to have a 1% or 2% drainage inclination.

So, here's for a wishlist that whenever I have this on Archicad, and it is a constant "At least one per project" issue, it is a very annoying one. Even more if you consider, Revit does have that tool.

[Barry Kelly]

Have you tried the mesh tool?
The base is flat and nodes can be added to the top and heights of those nodes can be set to get the heights that you need.

Barry.

[jessicaluchesi]

Thank you Barry, but the Mesh tool doesn't allow for a composite to be used. For example, the slab composite prescribed for the bathroom floor. The roof tool would, and you could use the roof tool. But on a section cut, the roof and the slab won't join materially forming one single seamless pour of concrete., as a slab would with another slab.

Again, this is my main complaint, it becomes tiresome to have to work around a software limitation, creating fixes here and there, when in principle, when thinking of a slab, part of thinking of a slab is that it can have an inclination. Most are flat. Most isn't the same as all. The bottom of a swimming pool should be designed with the proper composite material and inclination. We should have tools to mark that slope. This isn't an extraordinary wish, this is simply being able to fully design a building within the software envelope and have the fullness of the architectural design supported by the tools. This isn't some weird, exceptional need, this is a very annoying, recurring, realistic basic feature the software should provide for.

Regarding floor slabs and roof slabs, I'd rather think a slab is a slab, it can have inclination, as the roof slab already has. But the roof slab, placed on the floor, if I do a section cut, and we often cut what is different, to show how to build what is different, they don't merge. Also, on the floorplan, you have to hide the limits of the roof if you use it as a slab, because it will show it's profile where the inclination presents it, unless you work around it. Again, you have to work around limitations that shouldn't be there... It wouldn't hurt to have, within the slab tool, as we have already several build methods on how to make our slab, one where we give the axis, the inclination, and the corners.

Since this is a wish list, this isn't at all an unreasonable one.

[vdentello]

I guess that could be something like Composites on a mesh with constant thickness? That'd be awesome.

[DGSketcher]

I guess that could be something like Composites on a mesh with constant thickness? That'd be awesome.

There is a mesh to roof tool in the "Goodies" download, although I have only had to use it once for work.

[sboydturner]

The way I do this typically is to model the way it is built, for wet area set downs and screed I model the set down as a slab which is subtracted from the main slab and then model the screed infill with a mesh infill with correct falls. For falls to slab edges etc I use a zero thickness roof which is subtracted from the slab, this way I can add cover fills to areas which are different from the main slab for our slab set out plans

Regards
Scott

[Steve Jepson]

Why don't you use the roof tool for that?

[DWilson]

I guess that could be something like Composites on a mesh with constant thickness? That'd be awesome.

Yes, a must for future updates. Let's not stop there... why not morphs, shells and objects also?
This could solve some of our landscape modelling issues also.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

.....

So, here's for a wishlist that whenever I have this on Archicad, and it is a constant "At least one per project" issue, it is a very annoying one. Even more if you consider, Revit does have that tool.

Not just Revit.
Even Vectorworks has this function and it's parametric and fully bim (displays correctly in plan and section; allows you to adjust the slope and drain type on the fly and it will update, as well as allow you to schedule them and update them as need be.)

It's shameful and pathetic that ArchiCAD doesn't have this already and forces users to rely on clunky workarounds.
It's in fact really pathetic that Graphisoft still haven't made slabs capable of hosting parametric objects like a drain object (or lamps and lights, vent openings, etc) the way that walls can host doors and windows - and also to parametrically adjust with the slabs (height, thickness etc) when the designer changes the slab.

It used to be that Vectorworks at least, was the "poorer" cousin of the Nemetschek BIM family. And yet the most recent versions have just added more and more features that just put Graphisoft and ArchiCAD to shame.
Some times it just feels like the developers of these competitor and rival programs just look through ArchiCAD wishlist pages and pick what features to add to their respective software from there, while GS are busy ignoring their own users.

[Braza]

Some times it just feels like the developers of these competitor and rival programs just look through ArchiCAD wishlist pages and pick what features to add to their respective software from there, while GS are busy ignoring their own users.

I don't think so...

As you said, Archicad and Vector Works (among many other software) are property of Nemetschek. So their develop teams just do what they are told to do. They are not really competidors. They just have the same boss.

For me it is more like this...