How to create indents in walls

TechTip Winner of the Month of November 2002

Originally submitted by Jonathan Webb

This tip describes how to create an indent of any shape into walls. This document applies to ArchiCAD 7.0.

1. First create a slab the size of the wall face, and set it's thickness the depth of the desired indent.
2. Cut a hole in the slab the shape of the indent. In this example we used the magic wand tool to cut the polygon line into the slab.

   Find out how to create polygon lines in the shape of letters here.



3. Create a second slab behind the cut slab. The two together should have the thickness of the wall.
4. Select the two slabs. Open the 3D window.

   Select 'side view' in image/3D projection settings.

   Set the azimuth to 90 degrees to have a frontal view of the slabs.



5. Save the slabs as an ArchiCAD Object File (*.gsm). In ArchiCAD 7.0 you can do it with the 'Save as' command in the 'File' menu.
6. In ArchiCAD 8 go to the 'File' menu/ 'GDL Objects' and select 'Save 3D model as...'
7. In the 'Save as Library Part' dialogue select the general object type and check the 'Remove redundant lines from symbol' option. Select the 'Editable GDL Script' format.

Now your object is ready to place.

In ArchiCAD 8, simply use the '3D Text' object from the ArchiCAD Library as an operator to subtract it from a wall using Solid Element Operations from the Tools menu.

Page last updated: Thursday, June 10, 2004