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One more Offset

rocorona
Booster
People, and not only newbies, continues asking things like "how do I place a window one metre far from the corner", or "How to draw a wall at a precise distance from another"...
There are a lot of methods, but I've just thought of a new one, maybe very practical. A sort of Offset, before the FIRST click, usable for almost every tool.
Let call it a "prelude" click, or a shifted start... Activate it with an icon or a key and click on a reference point, then move in the desired direction. Type the distance then make the first click of the tool. So you can place the window, the wall, the sofa, the slab, the text, the whatever at a given
distance... more userfriendly than our normal Offset command, where you displace the element at the end of the drawing, and that can only be used for linear and polygonal tools.
But I'm not suggesting to replace it! Just to add a new option.
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--Roberto Corona--
www.archiradar.com
AC18 - ITA full on Win10
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9 REPLIES 9
Chazz
Enthusiast
Two thoiughts:
  • 1) Pretty much every person I train asks about this.
    2) The best way I have found to place an object some precise distance away from a wall or column, etc is to draw a line and then use that as a snapping point.
I find this state of affairs absurd but I have yet to find a better way. Then again, I could be missing something, I've only been using this tool since the early 90's.
Nattering nabob of negativism
2023 MBP M2 Max 32GM. MaxOS-Current
Erika Epstein
Booster
Move your local origin Alt/Option+shift to where you want to measure from then type in your coordinates and place the element.

Note that for windows and doors which can only be placed in a wall, you need only move your cursor in the direction of the wall you want to place the opening, type r and enter the value for r.

Fast, easy, no left over lines or other elements.
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
rocorona wrote:
"how do I place a window one metre far from the corner", or "How to draw a wall at a precise distance from another"...
I showed how to do this by entering "+" or "-" in the subject.
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=23262

Let call it a "prelude" click, or a shifted start... Activate it with an icon or a key and click on a reference point, then move in the desired direction. Type the distance then make the first click of the tool. So you can place the window, the wall, the sofa, the slab, the text, the whatever at a given
distance..
I can suggest another old and effective method. Assign hot key command "Temporary Vector" (I have key "N").
1. Select an object to be installed on the plan.
2. Press the hot key command "Temporary Vector".
3. Spend a vector to the desired distance and angle from any point, and then place object.
rocorona
Booster
rocorona wrote:
There are a lot of methods, but I've just thought of a new one,
As I said, being an old user (from ArchiCAD 4.55), I know many ways to do this work using the currently available techniques. The temporary snap points are very useful, but need to input the distance in a field "far" from the working area (and I think with no shortcut to activate it).
The option I'm suggesting will stay ON until the user turn it OFF, this way he/she can choose between 2 working methods:
- Place this element here;
- Place this element there, from here.

After the very first click you can input the displacement vector (if the option is active) using all the input methods (Coord Palette, Tracker, guidelines...) then -whatever tool is active- you start the normal procedure.
_________________

--Roberto Corona--
www.archiradar.com
AC18 - ITA full on Win10
_________________
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Anonymous
Not applicable
I like the method. It practically suggests the same workflow as moving the local origin, but instead of moving the origin you point with the mouse. Why not?

P.S. My students always forget they could move the origin!
Erika Epstein
Booster
Interesting voting; each category has the same number of votes!
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
not anymore
rocorona
Booster
kliment wrote:
I like the method. It practically suggests the same workflow as moving the local origin, but instead of moving the origin you point with the mouse.
Yes, sort of auto-set & auto-reset user origin.
_________________

--Roberto Corona--
www.archiradar.com
AC18 - ITA full on Win10
_________________
_________________
Anonymous
Not applicable
Hi everyone, this is a good idea and it would
help my work flow much faster. I get tired of
looking for hotspots and the like. I just want
to plop the object down and move on. In the
other program I use Allplan they have you
simply Right Click and that acts as a pause
so that you can click on something or a coordinate
to measure from, then right click again to stop.
Or if you will, moving the origin point by
Right Clicking on the mouse.
They call it "open brackets" and they don't
close until you Right Click again. I love it and
it's simple to use.
Thank you.