Vent tool

[P Retondo]

I wish there were a vent tool, based on the window PIO, or added as an option to the window PIO, so that we could insert louvered vents into a wall.

[Guest]

Could you use a window symbol that had no width and one shutter w/ the louvers in the correct direction?

[P Retondo]

Hi Katie, well, sounds like it wouldn't really show the vent as it would actually be built. Almost all vents have the outer face of the louvers flush to the exterior wall surface, have a frame very much like a window, and casing much like a window. The louvers are mostly angled at about 45 degrees, and their apparent thickness varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.

In the past I've just modeled them as 3d objects in a cased window opening. It's a pain to move them or reconfigure them. I could send you a mockup of how I do it, from which the concept for a parametric method could easily be constructed.

[Guest]

True, but you could use one of the shutter symbols, modify it rather than creating it from scratch.

(It's still a good wish list item)

[Guest]

Another tool useful for creating a louvered look is the repetitive unit tool. Create the shape of one louver, with the exact angle. Create a symbol out of the louver, then w/ the rep. unit tool, draw a line to repeat the number of louvers. Draw a frame around it and extrude it.

[Jonathan Pickup]

the windoor manager from Ozcad has this ability. You can make metal vents or glass louvre windows.

[P Retondo]

Jonathan, thanks, so I understand from Mike. I'm definitely considering Windoor, and I wonder, as others have, why NNA doesn't purchase the rights to the tool if if works better than the VW PIOs?

Happy New Year!

[Petri]

WinDoor is excellent and highly recommended by yours truly, but from BIM point of view (comments by Chris Manus will be ignored along anything else this Western Australian 'expert' has to say in his obvious permanent stupor) a vent object might be more appropriate, as it also would represent a function. We have vents of all kinds, all related to ventilation, but of different types.

A proper vent object would have properties such as

- free flow or mechanical

- air flow

- net area

- function (eg. roof space, spatial, structural)

- duct or similar it is connected to

Visualisation does not require these, but permit drawings in many countries do.

EDIT

From a purely technical (BIM) point of view, there is no need to differentiate between doors and windows on object level; they would not necessarily need to be different object types. Instead, the function of a "wall opening" would be a parameter (data): an opening, a door, a window, a window wall, a vent - whatever. Behaviour in broad terms would be identical (punching a hole), in detail differentiated.

Would anything change from the current situation? Not really. An American "Colonial" window has less in common with a Finnish standard window than a Finnish standard door has.

Edited December 30, 2006 by Petri

[P Retondo]

Petri, all good points. For purposes of generating separate schedules, each type of object should be tagged if all are grouped into one "openings" parametric.