Archicad Modeling assistance

[Brian Kitts]

Any Archicad gurus out there able to shed some light on how to model the shape in the attached image. It's a four story conical tower that will have windows punched into it.

We've been doing the DD in max and have just been pushing and pulling and cutting at it..... but now that we are working it into documents we want to get it built in Archicad. To be able to properly cut the shape and setup the window boxes the object needs to be natively built in Archicad and not imported from max as dumb geometry.

We can do cones, we can taper the cones, but what is really killing them (they tell me) is that the base extrusion isn't a circle, it's an ellipse.

If anyone has any pointers it I'd greatly appreciate the and ideas.

thanks!

[Zoltan Blaner]

Hi Brian!
First of all: sorry for my english...
I live in Budapest hungary, and use archicad over 13 years.
If i have a same problem i will try make some individual gsm (window element).
This is the safety way.
if you send me this modell i try to make this...
(archicad modell need.)

[Brian Kitts]

Hi Brian!
First of all: sorry for my english...
I live in Budapest hungary, and use archicad over 13 years.
If i have a same problem i will try make some individual gsm (window element).
This is the safety way.
if you send me this modell i try to make this...
(archicad modell need.)

thanks for the reply.

The GSM windows we can do. Its just we need to know how to make the cone.

[Zoltan Blaner]

this shape only create with maxonform i think.
or 3d max and import...

[Brian Kitts]

yeah i was kind of afraid of that. Problem is imported geometry doesn't work well with the GSM objects and generation of the 2D documentation.

[Derek Entesano]

Brian, the elliptical cone is easy enough in GDL which will make it efficient and you can control the resolution of it so that it doesnt bog down the processing. By GDLing this element you can then control and modify the object's properties as the project proceeds. I would then use solid elements to cut the window holes and place windows as objects. A bit laborious but I would imagine all your windows will be a similar shape (I couldnt imagine doing the window schedule if they werent!)
Archicads main downfall is this lack of NURB modelling that is should be able to do as you can create all these objects in GDL but they havent adapted it for the wall, roof, slab tools etc. I attached a snippet of a project I did ages ago for a punt job which exported out to Maxonform (which is now defunct as it is a free plugin for C4D now) and back into Archicad. By following that process you could try and deform an eliptical tower with windows placed into a eliptical cone but it would make it into objects.

Good Luck!...