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: your country's template, the international one, a standard of your own or one you upload. The template brings the catalogues, the words and the rules the project is drawn with, 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 said in a toast, never repaired behind your back.
- 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 on its own, or keep a copy of the file on this computer.
- Save a copy to this computerSave a copy to 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 goes.
- Import 3D modelImport 3D model brings an OBJ or STL file into the project in hand as a component: one body per object of the file, placed once at the project's origin on the level in hand. The whole import is one change, which one undo takes back.
- Export IFC, DXF, image and PDFThe exports deliver the project as the files 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 where every file of the atelier goes.
- Project propertiesProject properties is the dialog that shows a project's name, the standard it is designed under, what it holds and when it was last written, beside the project file itself, the JSON the project is saved as. The name can be changed there, and the file can be edited and applied, as one change undo takes back.
- Template switchA template switch moves a project already drawn from one country template to another, such as from ISO to ABNT. Before anything changes, a dialog lists what the project keeps as its own, what follows the new template from now on, and what the new rules refuse or rebuild; the move is applied as one change, which one undo takes back.
- PhasesPhases are the moments of a project's life, the existing building and the final one at first, and a comparative phase shows what changes from one to another: what is demolished and what is proposed. Every element says the phase it is built in and, when it goes, the phase it is demolished in, 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 changes undone 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 the same list one change at a time.
- Copy, paste, select all and deleteCopy, Paste, Select all and Delete are the four verbs 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 takes everything the view in hand can select, and Delete takes the selection out of the project.