How to Use the Story Bar in BricsCAD BIM

Quick answer: The Story Bar displays the currently active building and its stories, giving an overview of every story, showing which one (if any) is active, and letting you activate or deactivate one. This confirms Top View Mode (TVM), mentioned without full explanation on this hub’s selection dimensions and library panel pages. A project can handle multiple buildings even with completely different stories, click the building icon to open the Spatial Locations Manager dialog and create or edit sites, buildings, and stories, or click the building label at the top of the drawing area to switch between buildings. The Story Bar only shows when STORYBAR is set to 1 or 2.

The Story Disk Context Menu

Right-click a story disk for these options:

• Activate story: makes it active.
• Exit active story: deactivates it.
• Update story height: opens the Update Story Height command context panel with the story selected in the Spatial location tab (see BIMUPDATESTORYHEIGHT).
• Select: selects every entity belonging to that story.
• Open Story Plan: opens the drawing file related to the story’s BIM section entity (see BIMSECTIONOPEN).

The ‘No Building’ Mode

With no spatial location available at all, the Story Bar automatically enters No Building mode, showing a single disk labeled No story. Left-click it to enter Top View Mode without needing a spatial location first, using an elevation of UCSZ = 0.

If at least one building already exists, an extra No Building item appears in the buildings list at the top of the drawing area too, select it to enter this mode manually.

Activating a Story

By clicking a story disk directly:

• Top View Mode (TVM) enables.
• Perspective turns off, if it was active.
• Two temporary section planes cut the view above and below the story’s elevation, with sliders on the Story Bar to adjust each plane’s position within its story slot (the bottom section can even be dragged above the story elevation). The active story’s top and bottom elevations are remembered between BricsCAD sessions.
• Elements below the elevation display greyed out, not highlighted, and not selectable, though they remain snappable and magnetically sticky when editing or creating entities above the elevation.
• The UCS sets to the story elevation, and OSNAPZ switches on.
• Click another disk to move to that story without changing zoom.
• Selecting a wall, window, or door shows its editable positioning dimensions, the same selection dimensions covered elsewhere in this hub, and their reference point can be moved.

Via the story disk context menu: behaves almost identically, except the view itself doesn’t change. Section planes, greyed-out elements below the elevation, the UCS shift, and OSNAPZ all work the same way, and you can still click another disk to move to a different story.

You can also activate a story directly with ACTIVATESTORY.

Deactivating a Story

Click the Exit button at the top of the drawing area to deactivate the active story without changing the view; the UCS, OSNAPZ, and perspective (if it came from Top View Mode) reset to their original values. You can also use DEACTIVATESTORY, or choose Exit Active Story from the story disk context menu.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the actual difference between activating a story by clicking its disk versus using the context menu? Clicking the disk directly changes the view (enabling Top View Mode and turning off perspective); activating via the context menu keeps the current view unchanged while still applying the section planes, greyout, and UCS shift.

How do I work with a drawing that has no spatial locations defined yet? The Story Bar automatically enters No Building mode, showing a single No story disk you can click to enter Top View Mode directly, using an elevation of UCSZ = 0.

Does the Story Bar remember where I positioned my section plane sliders? Yes, the active story’s top and bottom section elevations persist between BricsCAD sessions.

Can I still snap to elements below the active story’s elevation, even though they’re greyed out? Yes, they remain snappable and magnetically sticky while editing or creating entities above the elevation, even though they’re not selectable or highlighted.