Archipack Tutorial

[Bigg Gernes]

HelloEveryone, I apologize if this is the wrong place to post this. I am seeking someone who has experience in Archipack that would be available to answer questions on occasion as I am working through the process of learning to use the add on in Blender. Recently I decided to make a career change and I'm teaching myself to make architectural renderings using open source software. I have lots of experience using various CAD platforms, graphic design tools, and Blender (admittedly my Blender skills withered on the vine for about 7 years) so I'm not a complete ignorant newb. I have struggled to find decent Archipack learning resources online or a community that supports the add on. Stephen made an amazing product and I want to make full use of it but I'm struggling to find the right resources. If anyone can point me in the right direction or put me in contact with someone I'd be much appreciated.

Thanks @tlang I've added that link to the Archipack page since no-one else has ... but do those discord links expire?

@Dillscallion the best way to learn is to teach, so think about working on the Archipack page of the wiki with whatever resources you find.

@Nigel and @Coen, I've spent many productive hours on Youtube learning from Stephen's and CG Essentials content and it has been an incredibly helpful jumping off point. I am now looking for help beyond the basics that these tutorials provide.

@Moult, I've reached out to @stephen_l and he has helped me work through an issue I had regarding adjusting wall heights on individual sections. He was actually very responsive to my query and appreciated greatly. I'm looking for more points of contact with experienced Archipack users in the industry. I don't want to become a burden to any individual with my silly questions.

@tlang and @duncan , Thank you! I'll be joining the Archipack Discord channel as soon and I finish this post.

@duncan, I completely agree. I taught graphic design and multimedia classes for 8 years and fully plan on drawing from that experience in creating some more advanced tutorials to release on Youtube to give back to the OS community and Archipack. My biggest interest right now would be some in depth tutorials on complex roof structures as I'm finding that to be my biggest obstacle. I'd like to get my feet under me a bit more so as to not lead anyone down the wrong path.

Thank you all for your responses, I can tell this is a great community and look forward to being a part of it. For anyone curious what roof issues I'm trying to solve, I've attached a pdf of a project I'm working on for a friend of my who designs homes. I finally gave up trying to use Archipack and just modeled the roof the old fashioned way but I would love to know if Archipack can accomplish this.

@Coen

The house plans were made in Autocad by a friend of mine who designs houses. Sadly, he is not interested in changing platforms or in OSARCH at all. I've tried. I suppose when you've been using the same CAD program for 30 years and making a very comfortable living from it, its hard to convince them to change.

I've made great strides in learning Archipack. Joining the Discord has been the most fruitful advice I've received. I am still looking for someone who is experienced in Archipack and architectural renderings (where I've chosen to focus my energy) to be a direct resource but I assume that will come as I get more involved in the community as a whole.

Maybe you could try to look at it from a different perspective, for me one of the philosophies of open source is to do everything in the open so that anyone can chime in, teach or learn something from every exchange. So you may have better luck if you start threads about more specific problems you want to solve, or areas you want to explore so that anyone can bring their experience to the table.

That way, you maximize your chances of having someone react and the gathered information and discussion gets added to the collective hive mind and further down the line when someone like you wants to get answers for questions that you have already asked, they'll get answers and debates and resources and user names they can ping, etc.

I do the test without addon Auto Blueprint.

Some test results, for the moment I have not yet found the right setting for the roof.

(all you have to do is make linesets that are grouped and then put each object in the group to associate it with a style.)

Is it possible to lock dimensions when you manipulate archipack objects? When I change a measurement the angles change and when I correct the angles other measurements change and when I correct them another angle or two change, resulting in the building cantering more and more off from perpendicular.

Why I am saying it - in a house modelling workflow I use both Archipack objects and plain (nonarchipack) blender objects. Would be nice to have something like Section tool (or camera section) for groundplan projection too (as an addition tool to Layout). Just a tool to cut selected objects horizontally. Or is it better to do some script with blender bisect tool instead, what do you mean?

But have a problem with how it displays units, especially for US. When I record dimensions of a room, I either will record in total inches, or feet and inches. Never in feet and decimal feet. Decimals work perfectly for metric and Blender units of course, but the US is still using Imperial and decimal feet are a hassle to compute for every dimension.

Blender allows for checking the Separate Units to separate feet and inches but it works only for display in each Wall Part, but not in the 3D view which remains in decimal.

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Another Archipack units issue; The checkbox Dimensions (seen in the image above) only displays in meters and on my display the font is very small. Any chance this excellent feature can be updated to use user preferences for units?

Other notes:

Units in Blender as seen in Archipack are confusing me to no end. I created my own presets for US standards to use Imperial. I set Feet and Imperial in Scene Units panel. (Blender has a default in the Units setting for Scale of 0.3048 but this seems wrong. the internet says conversion from inches to metric is 0.3937)

Hello, Please I need resources on how to start using the BlenderBIM addon.

I have installed the BlenderBIM addon.

How do I assign the objects I have modeled in blender to IFC classes? I have come across the IFC object, Representations, Classification References in blender's object properties tab, but I have not been able to figure out how to use those properties. I have a small building I have modeled using normal blender mesh modelling techniques - Walls as mesh objects, Windows as mesh objects with a separate mesh object cutting into the wall using a boolean etc. I would like to be able to assign these objects to their "proper" IFC classes. I wonder also if it would be to automate the process; a way to tell blender that I am creating a wall object for example, and to have it automatically assigned to the relevant IFC class etc.

More importantly for me right now is how to work with views and sheets. I have come across sheets in the scene properties tab, but I have not been able to figure out how to use those properties.

I currently use Revit at my place of Employment, however my Revit models are only used to generate construction documents and as a basis for visualization in blender (exported as fbx) not for any collaborative work, For collaboration with Structural and MEP consultants, I usually export Revit views to dwg (which is what the consultants work with). I am however considering switching to using a Blender-centric workflow. I would need a way to create relevant views and export them to dwg or dxf to be able to send to my consultants, I would also need to generate views for construction documentation.

@Jaocek glad to hear you have worked out how to assign objects to classes! In the latest version, this process has been made more user-friendly by allowing you to do it from the object properties tab.

The views and sheets feature is still quite rudimentary. I must warn you before you begin that it is not feature-complete: so there will be documentation features that exist in Revit that do not exist in the BlenderBIM Add-on, and also that the BlenderBIM Add-on annotation is not associated to geometry at the moment (i.e. if you move the geometry, the dimension will not change, you need to move the dimension separately).

Unless you are ready to try something kind of broken and incomplete, do not expect it to be a drop-in replacement for your existing drafting tools. Are you sure you'd like to continue? If not, you'll probably need to wait for us to do a bit more work first.

@Moult , for some of us who would like to take the risk and play around to see how far we can go using BlenderBim as is now, would it be possible to hold a walk through focussed entirely on using BlenderBim fortnightly, (or monthly if that proves too hectic) for a set period of time and record each session for upload on Youtube / Peertube? Participants would be made to understand they're dealing with work in progress to manage their expectations. I think this would give more users in the wild the opportunity to engage with BlenderBim, ask questions, give insight which will aid development and help you identify blind spots in the UX, without you having to go over the same grounds with each person you do a video chat with. Having each session uploaded online would also help participants and new users to have a reference point to return to if they forget something (I wish the session I had with you was recorded for example). I think the Livestream / Q&A format reduces the pressure and time commitment of creating 'official' tutorials and the actual tutorials can be on a separate play list when they come so people know the features / workflow might be different. It does not have to be longer than 45 - 60 minutes.

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