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There appears to be a bug in VW2024. You cant reshape floors with the Reshape Tool without double clicking into the shape. If you happen to reshape the floor the selection handle moves but the floor does not. There are also snapping issues, that I need to explore. May be problems on my end. If you do try to reshape, the floor gets corrupted and cannot be selected. VW 2023 does not work this way. I will submit this as a bug. Reshape floor problem.vwx

Moving/Adding curtain wall mullions is not super fun, but it's workable in a cludgy VW way. You may want to use the move/copy commands, but that doesn't work. Work in Orthogonal view, elevation. Set the working plane to the face of a mullion. Set guides. Even divide is your friend, especially with a rectangle (because you now have vertical lines to snap to). Double click to select the mullion, make sure the select frame mode is selected. Snap to the mullion center. Move by left clicking on the mullion, hold down and drag. Copy by left clicking on the mullion, drag, and holding down the option key. You can also move by a set distance by tabbing and manually entering the required units. It's harder to copy by a set distance, but you can. Select mullion. Move, tab, enter distance, and hold down the option key. As for mullions randomly appearing, usually that happens when you do something to reset the curtainwall, and the grid settings reintroduce themselves. I haven't figured out how to entirely eliminate this. Sadly there is no even divide mullion setting. C

Thank you for your response @Nikolay Zhelyazkov. It would still be great to implement this feature. (Tagging objects in symbols from outside the symbol).

Just curious. Does VW2024 add this functionality? Playing around with it, and I do not see any changes...

@Ed Wachter Unfortunately the Connect Combine tool will only join one roof to the other. It will not create a gable recess in the other. At least as far as I've been able to determine.

There is no way to do it without making two walls. Stacked/Varying sectional wall components have been requested for at least 10-15 years, and for whatever reason, the technical challenges associated with this much-needed feature have proven too difficult/costly or generally not deemed important enough to implement. Perhaps it is in a future development section of the roadmap. Even though it is probably the most frequently used VW tool, the Wall Tool is a much-neglected tool that truly needs some love. The only way you can do this is to make two stacked walls. Duplicate the walls in question. Offset the top of the low wall by the elevation of the shift. Offset the bottom of the high wall by the same shift elevation. Then, switch out the wall type. Class them by Wall High and Wall Low for plan visibility purposes. Openings that span the break will have to be duplicated. If it sounds painful. It is. And we've all been there. Best of luck.

@zoomer I always thought I learned that tip from you. As long as layers are set to Show Snap Modify others, and you group into the desired active layer, then yes the grouped objects can change layers without moving in the Z axis.

Grouping is the only way you can change an object’s layer without messing up its Z height. (Another VW quirk/hack/feature) While another step, right click the objects before grouping and activate class. This at least makes the process a little less disruptive to your workflow.

There is some way to probably join the roofs but that never works so well for me. I would copy the two sets of roofs off to the side by a set distance. Then take the roofs and subtract the solids. This gets you the intersected geometry. Using the 3d tool extract the shape of the new roof (minus the gable end). Then you can double click the roof and clip the rectangle to the new surface. Running to a meeting. Hope this helps. Roof Study.vwx

Thank you @markdd. I was having snapping problems, and couldn't for the life in me figure out what the heck I had hit to make my lines only snap to 30 and 45 degree angles.

While I appreciate the perspective of the folks above, I also think that the some of the whiz-bang features are pretty useful. For example, Graphic Legends have really helped my project documentation. I use them to generate partition types, door types, and window schedules. Sure, there were some bugs along the way. But the bugs get worked out. It often takes a few Service Packs or releases. There are also features that don't seem interesting at launch but become much more valuable over time. Data Visualization comes to mind in that regard. I use the tool regularly, but it took me four or five years to really figure out how it might benefit me. With some tools, the present-day implementation remains a bit kludgy. (The Space and Stair Tools certainly need some help still.) That said, I prefer working with software that innovates. Using a tool that gets stuck in time has it's own set of problems, because eventually that software stops being useful (Sketchup comes to mind in that regard...) VW is unusual in that it markets itself as interdisciplinary software. This has drawbacks and benefits. The BIM tools are not as robust as ArchiCAD or Revit. However, the software does many things, albeit much more generally. The 3D Modeling, Visualization, lighting, and landscape work together in one package, but certainly not all perfectly. The quirks and flexibility allow me to use the software to explore ideas, solve problems, and communicate these solutions to others.

I developed a data visualization that shows the callouts (in blue) that are associated with a database. It is useful to help me see which notes are "live". Is there any way I can further refine this set to visualize which specific database is being referenced? I know I can use the Reconcile Notes command, but the interface is clunky (at best).

The "Energy Area" parameter does indeed allow adjustment of unit precision. What exactly does that measure? "Room Dimensions" does not, which is also one I would also like to adjust.

@BartHays In my file/setup, the Units and Precision settings are grayed out, so I never thought they could be changed. I wonder how the data tags are differently configured.

Thank you! I was looking for a setting in the Windoor Object. Right click editing the 2d Component says the 2d component is generated by the plugin, but maybe it is generated under the hood somewhere. I can at least force the 2d to look like the 3d, provided I don't change the unit sizes.

Is there a way to adjust the plan spacing of the Windoor glass block window, so that it matches the 3d settings? It drives me crazy that the plan units don't match the 3d units. I can't seem to figure out how to adjust. windoor glass block.vwx

Unfortunately the units for the Space Tool settings are governed by the VW Document Settings - Units preferences. That means that if you set the rounding precision to the nearest inch, the model will show the same unit preferences in the Object Info Palette. This creates accuracy issues when modeling.

I would use the custom selection tool, and select object by type, (which would be walls). But maybe there is a reason not to do it this way?

It would be interesting to know what's parametric, and what is not in this model. Or is everything modeled...

That said... We have gone a couple of Tuesdays in August without a teaser...

Thanks @Tom W.. I don't think that solves my problem. The timber sill settings in VW and Windoor create some sort of wall element under the window frame (highlighted in pink). The product details in my first post are for a fairly basic Marvin fiberglass window; they show a sloped bottom frame. This provides space for a screen, and maintains a consistent profile. See product images below.

How would folks use the parametric Window/Windoor tools to make a fairly typical double hung window configuration like this? I would like to slope the sill. I can't figure out how to do this in either Windoor or the VW Window tool. Also is there any way to control the offset of the meeting rails?

Just an update/clarification. I don't see this as a problem, but it is something to be aware of. With 2023 SP-6, if you replace one wall with another wall definition, it will delete the annotations in the associated cell. For example, in the screenshot below, I deleted the E2 wall and replaced it with a newly defined E3 wall type. All the annotations in that cell disappeared when I refreshed the graphic legend. The other graphic legend cells were not affected. On the other hand doing something minor to the wall type does not cause the cell to reset. Changing the UL value from V348 to U348, did not cause the annotations to disappear. Editing the thickness of a R3 wall component also did not cause the annotations to disappear. Which is great. It is still a good practice, to maintain a seed file with your annotations. This is not that difficult to do since, walls are often reused from project to project.

Very nice!

Here are a few files translated from the Sketchup 3d warehouse. While not perfect, they are a little more realistic. You could make them into symbols to get better plan representation. SKP Boulders.vwx SKP Boulders 2.vwx SKP Boulders 3.vwx