The competitive edge - documentation created while you design...

Reduce time spent on documentation! The Virtual Building™ model is the cutting edge in effective documentation and management. Construction documents and files can be derived without any additional software and practically no repetitive work. With ArchiCAD you can create unlimited sections and elevations that update as you work. Schedules and bills of materials that always reflect the current state of the building model can be generated quickly. Interactive two-way communication between schedules and the Virtual Building™ allows changes to the model directly from the Interactive Element Schedule.

Dimensioning is both automatic and associative in ArchiCAD. This also pertains to sections/elevations. Move and resize elements directly on sections/elevations, and changes are reflected in the other views, including dimensioning. Interiors, exteriors or an entire building can be dimensioned at once, in one step. Labels can attach text or symbols to easily identify parts of your design. Automatic texts and smart detail and section markers are always up-to date across all the model views and documentation layouts.

Because ArchiCAD's intelligent objects are scale-sensitive, the floor plan's appearance changes automatically and appropriately (including text, dimension lines, etc.), when the plan scale is changed. Changing the scale is as easy as a mouse click in a convenient pop-up menu.

Detailing is decidedly faster in ArchiCAD than with conventional drafting, thanks to intelligent objects and enhanced detailing and drafting features. The Detail tool features direct links to dedicated workspaces with parametric detail markers that can meet your local standards as well as your own documentation style. Details are tightly integrated into the Virtual Building™, even by using multiple customizable markers linked to the same detail.

ArchiCAD's Zone tool identifies and labels rooms, groups of rooms or any areas that you would like to manage and track. Walls are automatically identified as Zone boundaries, but columns, slabs, beams, roofs, lines, arcs and splines can also define the space. Zone space automatically fits to slanted and profiled walls, and the 3D zone space can be involved in solid operations for precise volume calculations. The Element ID manager can identify and group elements according to a specified criteria, a great resource for automatic labelling and schedules.

You will immediately benefit from the comprehensive listing, quantity take-offs and schedule capabilities of the Virtual Building™ database, which tracks area, volume, price, number of pieces, and more. As a Building Information Authoring Tool, ArchiCAD not only can automatically calculate and present the information in standard or custom layouts, but also can export it for use in other software. When you change a size, parameter or any attribute in the interactive schedules, those changes are updated in all views.

Layout Book Brings the Project to Paper

When it's time to document your Virtual Building™ on paper, the Layout Book provides the tools for producing high-quality working drawings and paper-based presentations that will be easily understood by engineers, builders and clients. Based on the different views of the model, you can easily create view sets, and place them as drawings on layouts of your Layout Book. Using carefully designed templates, even this process can be automated, so that the final drawings are created as you are modelling your building. Set up master layouts - set size, orientation, grid, and automatic numbering system; add parametric title blocks and auto-texts as well as any drawing elements. Then add any layouts to your Layout book and they will inherit properties of master layouts and project settings. You don't even need to touch the Layout - all text and title parameters will inherit the correct value automatically. Your documentation is ready in a few clicks with proper titles and numbering. Change the order of layouts and titles will update. You can also change drawing names and numbering through the interactive project indexes.

The Layout Book is directly connected to your ArchiCAD project, so even last minute changes are updated in the final drawings. Your Layout Book can also include drawings hot-linked to external files - views from other ArchiCAD projects, DWG files, images as well as PDF documents. Review the status of these drawings in the Drawing Manager, and update them if the source is changed. Define Publisher sets to automate printing/plotting or saving the documentation to different file formats.