Atelier documentation
Archsplace Atelier is a BIM studio that runs in the browser and installs on every desktop. These pages say how each tool is used, what it refuses, and what it writes to the building's contract.
About Archsplace AtelierStart here
- New projectNew project starts an empty project under the drawing standard you choose: the template of your country, the international one, a standard of your own or one you upload. The template brings the catalogues, the words and the rules with which the project is drawn, and the project can switch to another one at any time.
- Open a fileOpen a file reads a project file from your computer, a .json written by the atelier or by any program that writes its contract, and opens it as a new project in a tab of its own. The file is built as it is: what the build refuses is reported in a toast, never repaired without your knowledge.
- SaveSave sends the project in hand to your Archsplace cloud, where any atelier you sign in to can open it again. When nobody is signed in, Save asks first: sign in, and the save follows by itself, or keep a copy of the file on this computer.
- Save a copy on this computerSave a copy on this computer writes the project as a .json file on your own disk, named after the project. In a browser it goes to the folder you chose in Preferences, or to your Downloads; in the installed atelier your computer asks where each file should be kept.
- Import 3D modelImport 3D model brings an OBJ or STL file into the project in hand as a component: one body for each object of the file, placed once at the origin of the project on the level in hand. The whole import is one change, which one undo reverses.
- Export IFC, DXF, image and PDFThe exports deliver the project as the files that other people and programs read: the model as IFC, the view on screen as DXF or as a PNG image, an open sheet as a PDF and an open schedule as CSV or XLSX. Each file is named after the project and what it holds, and goes wherever every file of the atelier goes.
- Project propertiesProject properties is the dialog that shows the name of a project, the standard under which it is designed, what it holds and when it was last written, beside the project file itself, the JSON in which the project is saved. The name can be changed there, and the file can be edited and applied, as one change that undo reverses.
- Template switchA template switch moves a project already drawn from one country template to another, such as from ISO to BIS. Before anything changes, a dialog lists what the project retains as its own, what follows the new template from then on, and what the new rules refuse or rebuild; Shift applies it as one change, which one undo reverses.
- PhasesPhases are the moments in the life of a project, the existing building and the final one to begin with, and a comparative phase shows what changes from one to the other: what is demolished and what is new work. Every element says the phase in which it is built and, when it goes, the phase in which it is demolished, and each view draws the phase you choose.
- Undo historyThe undo history is the list of the changes made to the project in hand since it was opened, each one named, newest first, with the undone changes above them. A click on a row goes back to before that change, or forward to it, in one step, and Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z walk through the same list one change at a time.
- Copy, paste, select all and deleteCopy, Paste, Select all and Delete are the four commands of the Edit menu, with the same keys in every view and every editor. Copy remembers what is selected, Paste lands a copy from an anchor point you click to the point where it lands, Select all picks everything that the view in hand can select, and Delete takes the selection out of the project.