Don’t be controlled by the Wall Reference Line

When you use ARCHICAD to create building models, you learn pretty quickly that thinking about the direction of a Wall and it’s Reference Line is pretty important.

Very often you spend a lot of time violently throwing the mouse from one side of the screen to the other just to change the Reference Line position of a Wall… without that, inside ends up out and vice versa!

This can be pretty annoying - but can easily be solved with the help of a couple of shortcut keys!

However, before we get to that, one of the first things you should always do when working with Wall Reference Lines and diagnosing potential problems is switch on View> On-Screen View Options> Wall & Beam Reference Lines

In the example below, a Wall has been placed with the Reference Line shown to the top (1). The new Wall being created has the wrong alignment / the Reference Line needs to be ‘flipped’ so the inside is aligned with the inside of the existing Wall (2):

Without knowing the shortcut, the only option you have is to break off from what you are doing and select the Flip Wall on Reference Line button in the Infobox shown below:

This can often disturb your workflow and break your concentration, so instead of moving the mouse at all… just press P. This will Flip the Wall. Pressing it again will Flip it back… that is all it does!

There are however situations where this shortcut will not work… if for example you need to move the Reference Line Location from the Outside Face of the Core to the Inside Face of the Core or to the Inside Face of the Wall. This is normally controlled with the button shown in the Infobox below:

As with flipping the Reference Line, the Location can also be controlled with a shortcut - this time C. Pressing C will cycle through the options available as shown for Composite Walls below:

For Basic Structure Walls, only the Outside Face, Center and Inside Face options are available. Please note: neither of these options are available for Complex Profiles If you don’t want to miss a post, please subscribe using the button above. _