Linking reference drawings
Just like CAD software, Archicad allows a designer to use existing drawings as a reference when modeling or to compare with. Especially for renovation projects, this is a good approach, as it allows you to place the existing context directly inside your modeling environment, at full scale.
However, with experience, we also learn that the unforgiving nature of an integrated 3D/2D environment tends to bring problems upfront, for example, it is common that discrepancies between a plan and section remain unnoticed in a traditional drawing-based approach, yet they need to be dealt with in a full 3D modeling approach. And to be totally clear, this is a strong added value of the BIM approach: avoid errors and contradictions between the different representations.
There are a few commands you can use to add an external drawing to your project:
- Go to File > Open. While this would appear to be straightforward, it actually starts a new Archicad project...
