Libraries & objects
About Archicad and BIMcloud libraries, their management and migration, objects and other library parts, etc.

Which is the best practice to set project constant values?

Anonymous
Not applicable
Hi,

In our library we have objects called down pipe, gutter and eaves, hip, ridge, valley and other elements, which are depends on the ceiling height. Most of the time in all elements GDL we addz to ceiling height and then what we need.

For example in a drawing if there are 10 instances of above elements, we have to select and set parameter ceiling height value 10 times. Also if we want to change ceiling height then again we have to select and set parameter ceiling height value 10 times.

It is looking not a good practice. So, I that I can use in ‘project info’ I can set another field and set value then I can use that value in all other objects. But, this try was failed because elements in the ‘project info’ can only be used for display text only.

Is there any other way I can set value in some ware and I can use that value in GDL elements?
Or is there any other practice available?

Ranga
1 REPLY 1
Barry Kelly
Moderator
There are a few possibilities.

Firstly there is no need to set the same parameter 10 times.
Select all the objects and change them once altogether.
Use Find And Select to help you add all objects with the same name to your selection set.
You can even save the selection criteria for later use.

Another ay would be to use an external text file to save the required values.
You would need an object that you can set the parameter values you want and that object can write those values to an external text file.
This text file can automatically be saved into the job folder and the file name can be set to reflect the job name and purpose (ie Smith residence ceiling height).
This way the file will not get mixed up for other jobs.
Now you need your objects to read in this value from the text file.
I prefer to use the DATA in/out routine rather than the TEXT in/out.
It is all in the GDL reference.

A third option now could be the Model View Options in version 13 and above.
This is not a perfect solution as you would have to set the values in every model view scheme that you have otherwise you will find objects moving around all over the place.
We need Graphisoft to create a similar system to the Model View Options so that we can manipulate object parameters on a global basis but not have this linked to an actual model view scheme.
This has been discussed in another thead as a wish.

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=31427

And a bit more of a discussion here.

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=32161

Barry.
One of the forum moderators.
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