There are certain things we should never do in ARCHICAD, or at the very least, avoid at all costs. Here is a brief list of things to never get caught doing in your projects:
- DO NOT Mask out and put manual text over a schedule on a layout
- DO NOT Put a fill over a sloppy junction in plan or section
- DO NOT Draft an elevation element that can/should be modeled
- DO NOT Grab all of one element type to set as operators or targets in a solid element operation
- DO NOT Work all day or multiple days without a send/receive or save
- DO NOT Manually overriding a text dimension rather than tracking down the rogue 1/64″
- DO NOT Use the bold marquee to stretch/move/delete unless you intend to edit every visible element on every story in the project
- DO NOT Copy/Paste from a file without checking for attribute pollution
- DO NOT Store model clutter on a hidden layer unless it will be used in the future
- DO NOT Use high resolution images for custom surfaces
- DO NOT Import custom GDL/SKP/RFA elements without checking polygon count and file size
- DO NOT Model anything farther from project 0,0,0 than necessary
- DO NOT Allow the view map to gather disorganized views or floating views outside folders
- DO NOT Save views with CUSTOM or MISSING view settings
- DO NOT Embed pdf’s and dwg’s in a file unless they are part of the documentation and they have a relatively small file size (10MB max)
- DO NOT Ignore the library loading report for missing or duplicated parts
- DO NOT Ignore the error report tab
- DO NOT Modify existing meshes; only add/subtract with additional model components
- DO NOT Save objects as objects/door leafs/etc. for custom GDL parts
- DO NOT Use 10 elements to model something where 1 element will work
- DO NOT Customize drawing names in place of properly naming the view and/or viewpoint
I’m sure there are plenty of other ‘bad practices’ not included on this list. These are just a few things that happen from time to time, and that we should try to avoid in the future. As always, with ARCHICAD, there are so many ways to approach any modeling and documenting problem, and we should always be looking for the best way possible.