Modeling
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Trace not aligning

Anonymous
Not applicable
I have a simple house/garage and want to show the relationship between the two. I go to the house section, and go to trace in the section @ the garage. When I do, it does not align in plan. The heights are in the right alignment, but it doesn't want to align horizontally. I've had this issue on other projects: I'll be in elevation and go to trace in a section, and the section is waaaay off to the side somewhere, aligned vertically but not horizontally. Am I doing something wrong??
11 REPLIES 11
Anonymous
Not applicable
Here it is in section...
Chris Grantham
Advocate
You can drag the reference to align it. Check your trace reference options.
16" MacBook Pro M1 Max
Mac OS 12.2.1
ArchiCAD 25 Build 6005
Erika Epstein
Booster
The section you show is through the garage which from the stairs in plan is several feet lower/higher than the rest of the house so the sections are aligning correctly. Turn the story levels on to check.
Erika
Architect, Consultant
MacBook Pro Retina, 15-inch Yosemite 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Mac OSX 10.11.1
AC5-18
Onuma System

"Implementing Successful Building Information Modeling"
Anonymous
Not applicable
Steven

I have often found similar situations when comparing sections. Although your plan shows the sections to be similar in horizontal - your trace may be picking up the location based on a previous trace.

As Chris said you can simply drag a reference to make it align as you wish.

Right click > Trace > Drag Trace - in my experience once I have aligned similar sections they remain aligned. (At least until I drag a trace to another reference)
owen
Newcomer
Are these sections looking in the same direction? Just thinking they might be flipped around the origin if not .. (can't see where the origin is in the image)
cheers,

Owen Sharp

Design Technology Manager
fjmt | francis-jones morehen thorp

iMac 27" i7 2.93Ghz | 32GB RAM | OS 10.10 | Since AC5
Anonymous
Not applicable
Chris wrote:
You can drag the reference to align it. Check your trace reference options.
I know I can drag them to align, but I shouldn't have to. Trace knows where things are in relation to each other and should automatically align itself.
Anonymous
Not applicable
Erika wrote:
The section you show is through the garage which from the stairs in plan is several feet lower/higher than the rest of the house so the sections are aligning correctly. Turn the story levels on to check.
Yes, the issue is not with the vertical alignment, but with the horizontal alignment. Everything is fine with the story settings.
Anonymous
Not applicable
owen wrote:
Are these sections looking in the same direction? Just thinking they might be flipped around the origin if not .. (can't see where the origin is in the image)
Yes, the sections are both in the same direction.

Most of the time, trace aligns itself. For example, I have a section cut through a certain part of a building. Let's say I go to the elevation of the building looking the same way as the section, and I turn the section on in trace reference in the elevation, it shows exactly where it should. This is what should happen. But, as you can see in this example, it is not. There is a button in the trace reference palate that says "Reset to default position". Pushing this button should put it to where it's supposed to be, but it does not.

I've found that sometimes trace shows up in the right spot, sometimes they do not. Just wondered if there was a "magic button" to fix all my problems...
Anonymous
Not applicable
Hey Steven,

There is a similar thread to yours where Greg explains the reasoning -

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=142650

The corresponding wish is here -

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=142953