Change wall thickness options

[P Retondo]

When I change a wall thickness, the wall is enlarged or reduced equally in both directions. This is seldom the desired mode of change. Usually we want it to hold one side or the other fixed, and moving a set of walls to one direction or another by half the change in thickness is quite a chore. It would be very useful to have a way to choose to maintain the center, left or right side of the changed wall. Left or right could be relative to the wall's direction, and when changing more than one wall the program could query for each wall, or allow the user to change all in the same way. One way to get around confusing the terms "left" and "right" would be to have a completely graphic interface: highlight the wall in question, and allow the user to click on "left," "right," or center to select the mode, without actually using any language.

[Guest]

I'll add this.

[Tom W.]

On 2/21/2003 at 7:04 AM, P Retondo said:

When I change a wall thickness, the wall is enlarged or reduced equally in both directions. This is seldom the desired mode of change. Usually we want it to hold one side or the other fixed, and moving a set of walls to one direction or another by half the change in thickness is quite a chore. It would be very useful to have a way to choose to maintain the center, left or right side of the changed wall.

 

I have thought this for a while + today finally decided to post on the Wishlist about it + found this 20 year old post... I found lots of other later posts as well + the advice every time was to use Styled Walls. I do use Styled Walls in most cases but not when I'm modelling existing walls in old buildings where the thickness varies so much: I have a Wall style I use but I set the thickness each time in Preferences + so it becomes unstyled. It would be really useful to be able to edit the thickness of a wall instance + have it resize from one edge or the other rather than always from the centre. Given this wish has attracted a grand total of zero votes in 20 years I can't imagine it's going to happen any time soon but thought I'd get it off my chest all the same 🙂

[Christiaan]

I never knew this issue existed until reading this, because I always use Wall Styles.

[Tom W.]

Cast your mind back to 2007 Christiaan... 

🙂

[Christiaan]

Haha, all that experience isn't as useful with a faulty memory

[zoomer]

I also had a my first wish thread about unstyled Wall's

control in 2014 or 2015.

 

I am not even sure if you can control the insertion line of

an unstyled Wall while replacing with a styled Wall (?)

(Looks strange when I try)

 

But it is even hard to draw a simple unstyled Wall now in general.

I can't select unstyled from dropdown.

I can only open Settings - select a Wall Style !?

and convert this to unstyled - but it will keep all settings and

components !?

[zoomer]

4 hours ago, Tom W. said:

I do use Styled Walls in most cases but not when I'm modelling existing walls in old buildings where the thickness varies so much

 

I can't edit unstyled Wall's width in OIP later ?

 

 

Looks like unstyled Walls silently disappear ?

 

I think, if so, we urgently need a "flexible-width" Wall Component Option.

(for Slabs too of course)

[Tom W.]

3 hours ago, zoomer said:

But it is even hard to draw a simple unstyled Wall now in general.

I can't select unstyled from dropdown.

I can only open Settings - select a Wall Style !?

and convert this to unstyled - but it will keep all settings and

components !?

 

Yes I created a Wall style called 'Default Wall' as a surrogate unstyled Wall. It's a simple single-component Wall I use for concept modelling or anywhere where what the walls 'are' doesn't matter (I have a 'Default Slab' style + 'Default Roof' style as well). It has a thickness of 230mm but 9 times out of 10 I immediately change this to something else in the preferences which turns it into an 'unstyled' Wall anyway...

 

3 hours ago, zoomer said:

I can't edit unstyled Wall's width in OIP later ?

 

If the Wall has a component the thickness needs to be edited in the Component Settings. If it doesn't have any components you can edit the thickness directly in the OIP.