Wall Joins - T+L join creates unexpected geometry

[StefanoT]

Hello everyone,

 

We're struggling joining walls in the conditions shown in the attached image, where an interior wall joins - with a T join - an exterior wall made out of 2 segments joined with an L join.

When applying the T join VW creates the join following a "ghost" projection/angle of one of the 2 exterior walls. We're tried all the possibile conditions/joins but we no success.

Looks like leaving the wall unjoined is the only way to deal with it. Adding components to the walls makes no difference, and this seems related to the whole wall envelope/geometry.

 

Any help/suggestion appreciated!

[Tom W.]

I have not had this exact same phenomenon but I do find T joins between three Walls often quite tricky. And yes on a couple of occasions no matter how many times I've tried I haven't been able to achieve what I wanted + ended up having to leave the Wall unjoined + use the Wall End Cap Tool to add/remove components manually to get everything joined together the way I needed it.

[line-weight]

yes this situation is often messy. Sometimes if you try each possible combination of L join then T join (starting with a different pair of walls each time) one of them will happen to work, but not always.

 

I also try doing a "remove wall breaks" inetween attempts...but that might just e a superstitious belief.

 

(Is there a wishlist item somewhere for this? It's a pretty common problem.)

[Tom W.]

You can also spend ages carefully getting the Walls to join as you need them only to come back later + find they've decided to un-join themselves for no apparent reason... At times like that I wish Top/Plan VPs didn't update automatically... 🙂

[StefanoT]

Not sure if this should be considered either a bug or an enhancement request, but since it looks like we share the same pain I thought it was worthy to submit a link to this post via Roadmap https://www.vectorworks.net/en-US/public-roadmap?url=wall-modernization (hopefully in@Matt Panzer radar 😉)!

Edited March 8, 2023 by str

[Matt Panzer]

I think the key to getting that join right is to make sure the wall perpendicular to the stem wall highlights for the second click of the Wall Join tool.  It looks like the angle wall was clicked on causing this issue.  We do want to improve these types of joins and allow joining of more than three walls as well.  This is fairly high on our list but it won't hurt making a little noise about it to push it even higher. 🙂 

[zoomer]

(This is just a single small existing residential Building)

 

 

Above VW's Wall and Component Joint pay-grade :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is still hardly inside VW's Wall and Component Joint pay-grade :

 

 

 

 

 

Interestingly this too :

(after playing through every possibleWall+Comp joining setup option combinations available)

 

 

 

 

At least with just a slight overlapping with the upper foundation.

So at a location you may not accidentally locate a Section to make it visible)

 

 

 

 

 

While with Direct Solids Modeling down to Component Level I can do this in any complexity

and even cut/align my Walls in a structural manner.

(Can't in VW as Walls can only (T) join when they at least touch completely or overlap)

And as in 3D, I also save lots of extra Wall dividing just for Z level jumps.

 

 

 

Edited March 9, 2023 by zoomer

[line-weight]

@zoomer's examples perfectly illustrate the many common situations where multicomponent wall joins just don't really work properly.

 

There are quite a lot of scenarios where I have to abandon the wall tool for large portions of buildings and just build it all from generic solids. Here's a bit of a building I happen to be working on just now. No T joins but some changes in level, and a pitched gable. Haven't even started on foundation and floor connections yet. Not worth fighting will wall tool settings for this kind of thing.

 

[zoomer]

BTW,

 

When working with Wall Component Joining

 

1. Walls need to have been Wall joined before

 

2. When Walls components do not meet in their tops and bottom heights,

VW will usually refuse to Component Join or it may badly fail.

 

3. If you have such Wall situations as in 2.,

You "have" to Wall Join in L-Mode - although you want all your Components

T-Joined. But after the overall Wall J-Join, Components finally allow

T-Component Joining and therefore allow joining Components that do not

completely overlap in Z !

[rDesign]

@zoomer I was wondering how you achieved these wall joins in Vw (even though you said it was ‘above Vw’s pay grade). It wasn’t till the end when I realized these screen shots might have been from another BIM software package (ArchiCAD maybe?)

Edited March 9, 2023 by rDesign

[line-weight]

1 minute ago, rDesign said:

@zoomer I was wondering how you achieved these wall joins in Vw (even though you said it was ‘above Vw’s pay grade). It wasn’t till the end when I realized these screen shots were from another BIM software package (ArchiCAD maybe?)

I think it's just the last one that's from another package (I'm going to guess Bricscad)

 

The first 4 VW ones each have something that hasn't worked as you'd want it, for instance internal or external finishes continuing through junctions.

[zoomer]

19 minutes ago, rDesign said:

@zoomer I was wondering how you achieved these wall joins in Vw (even though you said it was ‘above Vw’s pay grade). It wasn’t till the end when I realized these screen shots might have been from another BIM software package (ArchiCAD maybe?)

 

No, all VW, beside the last screenshot. As @line-weight said

 

But I really couldn't believe that I will finally manage the cellar edge situation.

I tried every few days for some minutes ....

But two Walls only are most times managable, even if they have different widths

and/or Components.

 

It is the three Walls meet at one point situation that causes problems.

It is usually already enough that not all three Walls have the same thickness.

Even worse different angles as in the initial example or different Component

structure.

 

I always had about 3-5 of such Wall Join issue examples in any Building

I modeled in VW.

 

[StefanoT]

Thank you @Matt Panzerfor you kind reply: I thought this was how it used to be and I have the feeling I did it in the past, but now clicking on the perpendicular stem gives some unexpected output (screencast attached)

[line-weight]

The way VW tries to join walls, with a kind of diagonal mitre, to me is just fundamentally wrong - hardly any kind of wall is built like that in real life.

[JMR]

Something has changed between 2021 and 2023?

 

2021:

 

 

 

2023:

 

[JMR]

...and if I save the 2021 file and open it in 2023, it works fine:

 

[JMR]

It would seem it has something to do with the core component:

 

[zoomer]

On 3/8/2023 at 9:55 AM, str said:

 

 

 

Could you copy these 5 Walls into a new file and upload them here ?

[rDesign]

I don't have 2021 installed, so I can't duplicate @JMR's positive results in 2021 - but I just tried the same three wall joins in Vw2020, Vw2022, and Vw2023 - and I can't get any of them to join correctly. Using Vw standard Imperial walls with fixed heights. Files attached.

 

Additionally on the 2020 and 2022 versions after the top wall is joined to the other two -- part of the gypsum wallboard component fill in the right horizontal wall disappears, along with some of the gypsum wallboard component fill in the top wall. I added a color box behind to show what is happening -- it follows the angle of the 45 degree wall.

 

In 2023, at least it doesn't lose the component fill like earlier versions.

 

vw2020 wall join test.vwx 1034944575_vw2022Walljointest.vwx 1727291521_vw2023walljointest.vwx

[Tom W.]

After moving the vertical Wall to the right by 0.5mm I got this:

 

 

 

😃

 

Then turned it into this with Component Join Tool:

 

 

This is the VW2023 file.

[rDesign]

@Tom W. - hmmmm... when I move the vertical wall right by 0.5mm (using the 2023 sample file I uploaded), I get a failure notice that 'The parts do not completely intersect.' The line I draw at the beginning is to show that the vertical wall is exactly at the corner of the two other walls. Since it's off-screen in my recording, I'm using the Wall Join in 'T-join mode' with uncapped join mode.

Edited March 10, 2023 by rDesign

[Tom W.]

Hmm indeed sorry I just tried again + 0.5mm didn't work but 0.75mm did - I must have lost track of how much I moved it by! I tried 0.1mm initially, then the same again, then a little bit more...

[rDesign]

@Tom W. Ha ha! I think what you discovered is that we shouldn't have to resort to randomly nudging walls like this just to try and get a proper wall join.

 

This doesn't seem like the Wall Join is 'Working As Designed'. 

Edited March 10, 2023 by rDesign

[Tom W.]

20 hours ago, rDesign said:

@Tom W. Ha ha! I think what you discovered is that we shouldn't have to resort to randomly nudging walls like this just to try and get a proper wall join.

 

This doesn't seem like the Wall Join is 'Working As Designed'. 

It could DEFINITELY be more robust + consistent + just do what you want + expect it to do the first time + not require repeated attempts + cajoling... I use it with my eyes shut + fingers crossed most of the time...🙂

[JMR]

As of 2023 SP4 wall joins regarding this situation seem to work fine, although component join operations are needed to clean up some lines:

 

 

The core component type doesn't seem to have any negative effect any longer.

1243255895_Walljointest.vwx

[Tom W.]

1 minute ago, JMR said:

The core component type doesn't seem to have any negative effect any longer.

 

Were you getting different results depending on which component was specified as the Core? And if no Core specified at all?