Best way to model footings in v2012?

[Guest]

The wall tool is OK for Straight Rectangular Beams..How about (missing) T-Beams,L-Beams and Band Beams? Not to forget Slab and Beam combos? Slab and Beam, Band beam and slab, ribbed slab,Flat slab (with and without Drop panels) and we have flat plate slab

You can also add step downs.HTH

[Christiaan 917]

In v2013 we're modelling our foundations as extrudes and converting them to auto-hybrid objects to display correctly in Top/Plan view.

[digitalcarbon 347]

footing and foundation is all push pull tool

i cannot imagine trying to do this with wall tool or another parametric tool

[rDesign 466]

digitalmechanics-

Thanks for posting that YouTube link, it was very informative & reassuring. It's always good to see exactly what a skilled user can achieve with Vw.

Regards.

[digitalcarbon 347]

foundation with brick shelf and existing foundation

[Christiaan 917]

Dude, your voice is really calming, LOL.

[Joe-SA 24]

I use custom wall styles for footings. Pillers for monolithic pads because walls clean connect to them easily. Top and bottom steps are very easy to achieve and edit as you are just editing a wall profiles.

I create multi-component foundation wall styles in order to offset a brick ledge. I have a variety of widths saved to the library for quick reference. Its relatively easy to duplicate a style and modify a component height offset for special ledge height conditions or just to convert to an un-styled wall in a pinch.

I've also been stepping the bottom of my main floor wall styles to overlap the floor deck and sill plate with brick extending down to the ledge height.

The ability to tell individual components to follow or not to follow your wall peaks allows you to keep your framing and drywall component level with the floor while you create steps along the bottom of the wall for the brick component to follow. Simply snap the bottom of your main floor wall to the stepped ledges you created in the foundation plan.

Use the same settings to keep your framing locked to your plate height while your sheathing and siding extend up to your roof peaks.

With lines and hatch controlled by class I can modify the dash style and fills of both the footing and foundation walls just by overriding the graphic settings in those classes as needed as I move from foundation plan to elevation to building section. (this is a hassle to setup as the VW standard styles are not controlled this way but I think its worth the effort to redefine your wall library to accomplish this)

Its interesting the difference of opinions. I personally cannot imagine achieving my desired output in plan, elevation, and section WITHOUT the use of parametric objects.

Joe

[Christiaan 917]

Its interesting the difference of opinions. I personally cannot imagine achieving my desired output in plan, elevation, and section WITHOUT the use of parametric objects.

Have you tried the auto-hybrid feature?

[Dieter @ DWorks 24]

Its interesting the difference of opinions. I personally cannot imagine achieving my desired output in plan, elevation, and section WITHOUT the use of parametric objects.

Have you tried the auto-hybrid feature?

That's also a parametric object.

[digitalcarbon 347]

Foundation grade beam and fussy concrete work

[jmartinarch 4]

I'm just getting my feet wet, baby stepping into a project. I can't believe there are not foundation tools. It seems the experience users have had to dream up ways to trick VW into modeling a foundation and footing. I appreciate having a bazillion ways to manipulate graphics but is it really necessary? In probably every office any of us has worked in, the footing is a dashed line in top/plan view and side view. Solid in a section. Seems like the software eng's would take some standard methods into consideration for foundations. The above ground wall tools are awesome!

[Wes Gardner 328]

Wall Styles set with"Use Class Attributes", then you can over ride the class in your viewports on your sheets to get the dashed-line look you're after. Embed all the classing, data info, etc. into the wall style once, then it becomes a resource to be used again and again.

[Kizza 8]

Wes you miss the point.

A footing is not a wall.

Neither is a slab a ceiling.

[Vincent C 24]

Wes you miss the point.

A footing is not a wall.

Neither is a slab a ceiling.

Ah! in real life it is a little easier but in BIM and cad it's a matter of definition, just because the tool says 'Slab Tool' doesn't mean it can only be used as a slab etc.......take SketchUp for example, there you can draw/model everything with the same tools......

....even in real life the definitions can be debated, is it a roof or a wall who can tell:

Edited September 5, 2014 by Vincent C

[Vincent C 24]

......and to be honest, the more important question is "does it possess the functionality of a wall-slab-roof-footing" etc. ,that is more interesting.....I personally would prefer as few tools as possible with a large amount of versatility, Revit on the other hand does it the other way.... A tool and class for everything.......

Edited September 5, 2014 by Vincent C

[Kizza 8]

Add to my list:

A graded slab is not a Roof

It all comes down to scheduling in the end.

Difference between VW Architect and Sketchup is a few thousand dollars.

[Vincent C 24]

It all comes down to scheduling in the end.

If it all comes down to scheduling, isn't it easier to schedule using classes or IFC definitions, regardless of if the footing (or what ever) is done using walls, slabs, roofs, 3D geometry, nurbs, symbols, DTMs etc.

Difference between VW Architect and Sketchup is a few thousand dollars.

Sure but both can model slabs, roofs, walls, footing etc. and SketchUp is probably equally easy to learn as it is cheap......

I'm not disagreeing with you Keiran, just would like to simplify the program for ease of use without losing functionality, preferably enhance it. (I used Bentley Architecture at the time they were developing their 3D features and they successively faded out specific tools for specific building elements till they only had very few tools to do it all.)

Why not define a leaning wall (if finally implemented) as a roof or a graded slab when necessary and do the defining through the class and not the tool? This way you would even get slabs or grades with components......you could insert doors, windows, symbols etc where necessary, you could edit the type in the RB, do joins etc.......in other words the whole walls functionality plus more in all building elements......now that would be nice , and only one tool to do the lot.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Vincent C

[Kizza 8]

My point is, there is room within VW Architect to tighten things up by creating tools for specific building elements coupled with automated class assignment etc. As you know, I'm all for automating the class assignment process.

An example, Revit and Archicad both allow the creation of slab edge beams, the profile of which is user customisable. The edge beam, as well as the slab, are automatically categorised on creation and scheduled.

But your idea of an all encompassing "building element" tool is interesting.

[Vincent C 24]

Yeah, I'm with you, it's just 2 different approaches to the same problem:

Yours = pick one of many tools/commands and the classing happens automatically.

Mine = pick one of many classes and use one of the few versatile tools.

The result is the same, the deficiency I believe lies mainly in the cumbersome and hard to learn (for dumb asses like me) worksheets/reports/schedule setup in VWs. (Revit has this very well covered at the moment!)

[Joe-SA 24]

The Best and Worst part of Vectorworks is the ability to customize most tools as you wish. Best, because you can tailor the look and feel to your firms needs and Worst because you need the knowledge base in order to take advantage of the customization available. I've been working in Vectorworks so long that my firm practically works on a proprietary system that would in many ways be foreign to even the most experienced VW user.

For example, I really don't see a need for a specific footing tool. As I posted over two years ago earlier in this same thread and as Wes recently repeated, custom Wall Styles for foundations and footings as described above worked well then and continue to work well now.

Stepped footings are created by simply shaping the top and bottom of the footing Wall Style.

Even if you have a foundation wall with a continuous top of wall but need a stepped ledge to follow grade on the face of it....this can be made with a single Wall Style with two concrete components. One component set to stick to the wall height while the other is set to stick to the shaped top of wall edits that follow the stepped ledge. One wall object creating both continuous top of wall and a stepped ledger.

Even I, who has been working in VW since 1996, took a while to realize this duel functionality could be built right into a single Wall Style.

So the point is...often times a new specialized tool is not needed. What is needed is maximizing the use of the existing tools in ways that are undocumented. New users can only hope to stumble on these methods on their own or to learn them in places such as this forum.

New users who have just learned one of these 'tricks' often ask 'How would I have known that? Where do I find that in the manual'. This is where NNA needs to put much of their time, in my opinion. That...and Roof Components.

Joe