Especially neat is a new barrel vault capability, as shown in Figure 7. Simply pick the end points of an arch, pull up to the desired height, and then extrude the vault horizontally as needed. The Beam Settings dialog offers great flexibility in defining beam sections, materials, colors, penetrations and other attributes. Jumping from roofing back to ground level, ArchiCAD 6.5 adds a new beam tool that is especially handy for grade beams. The beam settings dialog box, as shown in Figure 8, affords considerable control over beam layouts in 3D, including the intersection of beams and columns, as shown in Figure 9.
Round columns are a new feature of the related column tool.
Figure settings control the import of various raster image file formats, which can be displayed and printed alongside or as layers of the CAD vector images. Happily Ever After Just as remembering to put the cap back on the toothpaste tube can be the salvation of a marriage, paying attention to small details can make or break users' affection for a CAD program. Here, Graphisoft shows off the thoughtfulness that comes with years of customer experience. ArchiCAD's figure settings tool, as shown in Figure 10, manages the import of BMP, GIF, TIF, and JPG images, yielding the equivalent of a CAD overlay or raster and vector integration on the same drawing. Move the mouse near a wall and a right-click brings up the wall setting dialog without having to mouse over to the menu and pull down the wall tool or having to specifically select the wall.