gester

the last hope would be roof faces, i've forgotten that one. i'll check it during the day (it's almost 2 a.m. at my place?) rob

i've examined the file and there are some shortcomings. the shape isn't editable, and there's no possibility to cut holes in it. i've converted my shape (generated as an extrude) to a mesh, and the situation is the same. not a chance to cut, say, a roof entry out of the slab. leaving it as an extrude (a pretty easy action) i don't see any chance to convert it to an intelligent shape (e.g. material thickness added) but the cut-outs are possible, although not as an edition (like for any slab), but as a solid subtraction. in this way the whole object becomes of a solid subtraction type. in the ifc generated file the cut-out hole hasn't got any dimension (no perimeter and no area), but the whole slab (type: concrete) dimensions and volume are being properly calculated. the material (concrete) has a thickness 'zero', although the whole 'slab' is 22 cm thick. i think i'll have to leave it as it's currently is: as a solid subtraction. i don't see any other possibility. or am i missing something? rob

sonny, hardscapes are only in landmark and designer, i don't have those packages. rob

thanks, brian. the roof face option looks nice, i'll have to look at it. you can cut holes in it and it'd still be a roof face. actually the further goal would be to enable the reinforcement rods insertion in the structural model (the consultant's part) and the ifc proper entity setting to generate a material take-off. i don't have my dongle here to check it, can the enclosed vwx be opened in v2012, too? thx, rob

and how do i convert my volume to a slab ? i tried to do this from polyline in the side view, converted to a slab object, but the extrusion in the z-direction (in that view) would wind up as an extrude again...

actually i don't regard 'my' method as optimal. i want to have this part as a slab, not as extrude, but i don't know how...

hi, another question: what is the best way to model such a concrete slab as on the attachment picture (the slab is displayed in grey)? i have tried with the extrudes (modelled in the side view in the first place), but i can't figure out a way to have the concrete mass in the material take-off. the extrudes don't carry this information. other flat roof components i can easily insert on top of this slab, this base shape is the only challenge for me. thanks in advance, rob

i could eventually cut out the walls footprints while editing slab (cutting only particular components of the slab), but it's not intuitive and each wall translation will have to be reflected in new slab edition. is there any other workaround? rob

@wes here are a few screenshots of the project. thanks in advance for your time. rob

@mike the roof faces seem to work so far, even smoother than i've imagined. hope it stays this way thanks. rob

@sonny the slab goes to the outer face of wall core (in order to be covered by the outer insulation). the wall is supposed to stand on the reinforced concrete part of the slab (the bottom 22 cm), and not to go straight up to the slab height (which is 36 cm). in archicad you can do this by boolean cut outs. i'm just experimenting with the slab settings, but neither of the slab components' options seem to work: slab preferences -> component selected -> edit (slab component attributes) -> edge offset (auto-bound). there are 7 options there, including inner and outer faces of wall, wall core and wall component. in the section viewport there is no physical difference between the choices. update: the manual entry for slab components (setting the negative offset values for the core thickness) WORKED ! (the screenshot enclosed) the solution is but only for the outer walls, i don't know how to influence the inner walls. and the manual entry for this particular slab components doesn't work for outer walls with different thickness. any thoughts? rob

hi, i've got two questions: 1. the roof. is there a possibility to model a roof with two slopes, which is a hip roof (not gable !) ? i enclose a section scheme. 2. the wall. why the walls don't cut out the upper slab layers in a section generated from the model ? those slab layers have an edge offset auto-bound setting of 'inner face of wall core', and the walls have the cores defined. in spite of this, the wall core doesn't cut the slab. have i done anything wrong ? thanks, rob

michael, i've noticed your answer, but i haven't got time to check the result. as i've seen it briefly, the fields (columns) are not the same and vary with each database record. i've actually meant all possible column names that get populated in some records, and not populated in other ones. this would apparently generate much bigger worksheet than the one you've kindly provided. but i'll have to look at this worksheet once again, anyway? thanks, rob

not any idea?

i like one-click solutions, though. there aren't many of them rob

thanks a lot, peter. that was it rob

when i try to annotate the section viewport which is placed on a sheet layer, the lines get messed (as in the enclosed screenshot). is it a bug or a feature? is there a workaround? thx, rob

hi, the project manager asked me for a record, displaying only one worksheet, containing all building elements with their data fields. it means that the irrelevant or non-existing information isn't populated at all (ignored). the table should contain a mix of all building parts, including walls, symbols, slabs, furniture a.s.o., where rows and columns go in hundreds or thousands. the wish seems a bit strange to me, but it apparently works well with him (there are software packages for project evaluation that work this way, using ifc fields for information source). is something similar possible in vectorworks? if yes, is it a combination of database records and simple excel functionality? thanks in advance, rob

the section tool behaves strange in general. it's the same project. here the earth ribbon goes across the sections a and c, only the e (cut outside of the building conceptualisation model sketch) looks rather ok. section c actually looks terrible. the drawing won't display the cut-out in a proper way. i wonder if the cut'n fill calculation can be reliable? have i done anything wrong? it's only 3 pads (marking the bottom of the slab layers) and a boundary. rob

actually i haven't thought of this, but no, it's only one model. i enclose the settings. as i've made some more distance between the pads (now at least 2 millimetres from one another, up to 1 cm), the (newly drawn) section view has changed its appearance. it looks better now, even at the infinite depth, but there is still a ribbon matching the existing terrain slope edge over the cut-out volume and the left pad. is there any optimal pads' distance? rob

benson, the 2d and 3d displays, and all modifiers as well, apply to the proposed model. if it shows any unnecessary existing features then it was not on purpose. rob

and the pads' elevation information. rob

and the 1 cm depth of the site section. can anybody explain what's going on? rob

i've reduced the section depth to 5 cm, but still no clue what's being displayed at all? rob

ray, thanks for the reply. - as for the vwx: unfortunately not, it's a part of the bigger project file. i've made a copy, deleted all other information (dl, sl, saved views, additional classes), purged all unused elements, but the file is still over 150 mb (the original file is 198 mb). btw, how can i further safely reduce the file size? - the pads are not sloping, and they are in a distance of a few millimetres from one another (otherwise the site model wouldn't generate a proper output). the boundary encloses all three pads. rob