USING THE POWERFUL MAGIC WAND TOOL IN ARCHICAD
This is a tool I use pretty much every day, it speeds up the modelling or drawing process for many tools by simply hold the space bar down and click. Saying this, it is very important to have the correct settings before you use this tool. There is not really a “default setting” that works for all tools, so this blog explains in detail to use which settings at which time.
Ok, let’s open the Magic Wand Tool settings!
We are going through the settings on the left first with the tracing method preference on linear segments:
Deviation from Curves
With this setting, ARCHICAD calculates the distance from a curve but be aware it is not the exact distance. In the below example I used 20 mm, 100 mm, 200 mm. The smaller the deviation the more “accurate” ARCHICAD can calculate. I put accurately in YYYY because as you can see if the distance is too large ARCHICAD will have to divide the arc into large segments, therefore, it is harder to get close to the mm distance you put in. Tip: Avoid putting in 1 mm as it will give you a lot of tiny segments which can make it quite slow in 2D or 3D when you use a lot of elements.
Segments along Arcs
Segments along Circles
The divide segment option is very useful if you as example, like to a certain area of the house into 3 wall pieces of the same length.
Segment Length
ARCHICAD will add a polygon every 1000 mm (settings in this example ), starting on one end of an arc or line and leaving a “ leftover “ distance on the other end.
Ok, we got one more setting in the Magic Wand tool of ARCHICAD which is changing the tracing method from linear to the best match.
As you can see in the screen capture when this setting is selected you only have the deviation from curves you can choose on the left, the rest is greyed out. Saying this I have yet to find out why? No matter what number you put into the deviation from curves, if the best match is selected it totally ignores the number in there.
Tip and reminder: the Magic Wand Tool can be used with almost every tool!
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