Listing default planes

Module(s): Roofs, Planes, Sections + Landscaping + Urban Planning

You can define the height of architectural elements by entering values for the top and bottom levels relative to an imaginary pair of reference planes. The List Default Planes tool defines the position of these default reference planes. You can change the default planes in active documents in a single operation.

By default, every document has its own imaginary pair of planes. These are generally referred to as ‘default reference planes’ or just ‘default planes’. The planes (which are parallel, invisible and extend to infinity) are located horizontally in space and are set to 0 and 2.50 for the lower and upper plane, respectively. Custom planes have precedence over default planes. In other words, an architectural element delimited by a pair of custom planes will adjust to the height imposed by them, except for the parts of the element which extend beyond the boundary of the custom planes (in which case it will assume the height imposed by the default planes).

Note: Default planes belong to the document in which they are defined and are saved with this document as soon as it contains elements.

Note: You can also define height settings for new documents. These settings are used whenever you activate a new document which does not yet have default reference planes.

Note: When working with the building structure, use the floor manager.

More information on entering height values associated with reference planes

Behavior of default planes when copying or moving elements between documents

To change the position of the default reference planes

1. Click List Default Planes (How).
   

   Activate List Default Planes in one of the following ways

   • Menu bar: Create Architecture General: Roofs, Planes, Sections

   • Palette: Tools Create area in the following module(s):

   General: Roofs, Planes, Sections

   Landscaping

   Urban Planning

   • Configuration: Architecture Roofs and Planes flyout

   The List Default Planes dialog box appears. All active documents and their default plane settings are listed.

2. Select the document whose planes you want to modify.
   To select several documents, press the CTRL key and click the relevant documents. The changes you make apply to all selected documents.
3. Change the parameters of the default reference planes.

   Note: You can define defaults for the heights of the upper and lower reference planes in new documents without a building structure. To do this, open the Options - Planes page - Default reference planes area. Allplan uses these heights when you select a new document which does not yet have a pair of default reference planes.

4. Click OK to confirm your entries.

   

   A Height at top = upper default reference plane
   B Height at bottom = lower default reference plane
   C XY plane
   Fig.: section through default reference planes

Tip: The advantage of this method is that all architectural elements whose heights were defined relative to the default pair of reference planes can be moved up or down in a single operation, simply by changing the settings of the planes.

Note: Custom planes have a higher priority than default reference planes. In other words: positioning a custom pair of planes over an element whose height was defined relative to the default pair will cause the element to lose its association with the default pair and to adjust to the new envelope imposed by the custom pair.