Wall Length

[Bruce Kieffer]

Why is the length of a wall that's perpendicular and between two other parallel walls measured from the center of one parallel wall to the center of the other parallel wall instead of what the wall would measure in real life? Also, how can I stop a wall from auto joining as it touches another wall?

[panta rhei]

How about turning off Auto join walls?

[D Wood]

Except for corners, I never use Auto join walls, it's too much trouble when I have to move one - you have to heal the old join, and the wall length dimension is wrong as you have discovered.

It also doesn't cope with different linings.

[Bruce Kieffer]

Got the auto join turned off now. Thanks. So why is the length of a wall that's perpendicular and between two other parallel walls measured from the center of one parallel wall to the center of the other parallel wall instead of what the wall would measure in real life?

[Pat Stanford]

If you made the walls with AutoJoin turned on, then the walls run from the middle of one wall to the middle of the other.

You either need to use the Split tool to shorten them to the inside face of the walls, or drag them to shorten them.

[D Wood]

The Trim tool works on walls as well.

[Jeffrey W Ouellette]

Even in the real world, measuring a wall is not THAT easy. It all depends on what side you are measuring, for which quantities of what material, also dependant on the type of wall construction. Is there a "standard" practice to measuring a wall? Most times we are measuring just one surface, for a particular reason, like extents of gypsum wall board. That measurement, though may be completely different than the framing dimension...

In the CADD world, it is common, if not standard, practice to treat the wall as a path/profile condition. The path is the centerline, or control line, the profile its width, or cross-section. In the data structure of the wall, the path is very important. It is usually the means or element to which all other elements, including other walls, are "attached". When walls connect to each other, they form a "network". This network structure makes wall joining and dynamic stretching (move a wall and its connected walls move, or heal, accordingly) possible.

In Vectorworks, the path of a wall is always its centerline. You can draw it using one edge or an offset, but the path, its data structure and resulting editing nodes, ends up being the centerline. So, the "length" of a wall is determined by the length of the path. In many cases, this means the path length is "short" for one side of the wall and "long" for the other.

In the future, we may need to completely "rethink" the data structure and the way walls are digitally represented, manipulated, and enumerated. But walls are complicated, so the solution won't come easy.

[mike m oz]

In a manual world quantity surveyors measure by the centre of the wall and then add or subtract for the corners to get the external length or internal length of the wall respectively.

In the electronic BIM world that is coming we will have to be able to provide accurate data for both the external and internal faces of different wall types.

[brudgers]

In the future, we may need to completely "rethink" the data structure and the way walls are digitally represented, manipulated, and enumerated.

Amen

[islandmon]

Thank you Mr. Ouellette for you concise summation.

This is what I've been telling my students for years.

Design by centerlines ... adjust to the assembly size as required.

[brudgers]

In a great number of wall construction scenarios, the centerline is not the control line.