Storefronts and Door Scheduling

[POA]

Hello, just having a crack at my first VW BIM model so expect a lot of questions from me!

Firstly I need to create a "Storefront like" element of curtain walling to be set within a wall. To do this I followed a VW tutorial and created a curtain, converted it to a symbol and inserted it into the wall.

It looks correct, but how do I now get the door that is in the curtain wall to schedule?

If I can't is there another method I should be using?

Thanks for reading.

[PVA - Admin]

What version of Vectorworks are you using? In Vectorworks 2015 there is a Curtain Wall tool that you can insert door and window objects into directly, they should then appear on a schedule.

[zoomer]

It looks correct, but how do I now get the door that is in the curtain wall to schedule?

I'm sure there are some people here that can make that happen.

But I would not set a wall into a wall by a symbol but surround the

curtain wall by the closed wall parts.

F.e.

Left wall + curtain wall with closed wall above + right wall ....

Edited November 12, 2014 by zoomer

[Guest Wes Gardner]

It might be as simple as getting into the Database Header row of the Door Schedule and "telling" the worksheet to "look" in Symbols by checking the box - see attached with box UNCHECKED which I believe is the default....

Wes

Edited November 12, 2014 by Wes Gardner

[POA]

JimW - 2015 is the version Im using, I did create a curtain wall but then I couldn't find a way of inserting it into another wall.

zoomer - Thanks, I did try that but I could not get it to look right in plan. I also have similar issues with windows on this project (they are all in reality to be curtain walling) and creating a lot of small walls above and below seems like I would be asking for trouble down the line.

Wes Gardner - Thank you, that works perfectly! I haven't got into schedules much but that solves the problem.

Moving on from that is there a way to also schedule elements of curtain walling?

(If I should post this as a new thread let me know and I will)

[cberg]

I find the new curtainwall tool a little frustrating for the reasons POA describes. It assumes that storefront/curtainwall systems are free-standing wall elements rather than insert-able window-like elements. In the real world, sometimes storefront is conceptually more like a wall, but it also can act more like a punched opening in a larger expanse of other wall. The examples of ribbon windows or storefront set into brick come to mind.

I do wonder whether there are any architects on staff at VW and whether they have they ever worked on projects bigger than a single family house….

All that aside, it seems a little counter-intuitive to be forced to create a symbol and insert that symbol element into a wall. It works, but I haven’t figured out a way to schedule any of the curtain wall elements as symbols or standalone elements. It would be nice.

I have resurrected the legacy window wall tool for stuff like this, since it does most of what I need. It has record fields that can be quantified, and you can set some user specific. Ideally the good VW programmers would reintroduce a revamped window wall tool with the functionality of the curtainwall tool baked into it.

Edited November 12, 2014 by cberg

[POA]

cberg - glad I'm not the only one. I have had some success creating a curtain wall, making it into a symbol and creating a window that uses that symbol's geometry. This way it schedules but there is a detachment between he geometry and the data that doesn't seem very BIM.

[zoomer]

It might be as simple as ....

Wes

I knew there would be someone

I too think BIM in VW is not as much BIM as advertised.

So there is a lot of playground to BIMitize VW further

in the near future.

[Guest Wes Gardner]

There are some really helpful comments here..I would also like to ask everyone to show respect for one another, please.

And now, if you'd like to know how to create your storefront system or strip window system or what have you and schedule it correctly, feel free to email me at wgardner@vectorworks.net

Edited November 13, 2014 by Wes Gardner

[zoomer]

Don't see any disrespectful comments here, so maybe it was me

who was misunderstood. Which is likely to happen with my poor

english.

I saw many threads where people showed some deep insights and

creative solutions with schedules and scripting.

Things that I'm not experienced at all.

So I was just happy that there came a simple solution to the initial

problem so fast.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't go on elaborate on how to use VW walls

and if there could be some improvements on how the wall Tools work

in VW

Edited November 13, 2014 by zoomer

[Mark Flamer]

Maybe this.....?

"I do wonder whether there are any architects on staff at VW and whether they have they ever worked on projects bigger than a single family house…."

[VincentCuclair]

Maybe this.....?

"I do wonder whether there are any architects on staff at VW and whether they have they ever worked on projects bigger than a single family house…."

Well, it wouldn't be the first time that this critique has popped up, albeit in a more diplomatic way (though at the spur of the moment my reaction has been the same when confronted with similar 'in your face' omissions...... :grin:)

[POA]

If anyone is up for a challenge I have a further development on the topic. This one has really thrown me.

The storefront style curtain walling symbol mentioned at the start is scheduling as I wish and showing perfectly in plan and elevation viewports. However in Section viewports its performing rather strangely.

I have most of my section viewports set to hidden line or open gl background and hidden line foreground render (to show all surface hatches etc.). The curtain walling element of the symbol is shading in OpenGL but not appearing at all in hidden line. (See attached screenshot)

So far my testing has revealed: symbols appear fine, curtain walling appears fine, curtain walling in symbols does not appear.

and: Doors within curtain walling within symbols appear fine! windows using the geometry of curtain walling within symbols appear fine!

So, any ideas?

[Guest Wes Gardner]

Hi Mark,

Couple of things...can you include in your signature your system config, etc. sometimes it makes it easier for folks to speak more intelligently about where/what is going on. MyStuff>Edit Profile

Is it possible to provide a file where this is happening (or a portion of a file)?

Wes

Edited November 14, 2014 by Wes Gardner

[POA]

Hello,

Signature duly updated.

Not so sure about the file, I shall have to enquire on Monday, (it is officially the weekend over here).

On a side note, since I tagged the symbol as a window it displays properly in the view. Something a little odd going on I think.

[POA]

Hello, Happy Monday,

As I sort of fixed the problem on the previous curtain walling by tagging it I didn't want to start messing with it again and so I placed another instance of the symbol and took another view.

This one was even more interesting, I believe the element of curtain walling in the middle of the building is the line work that should appear bottom left. It does not appear there on any of the design layers at all.

Again in OpenGL everything appears fine, its only with the hidden line rendering that it seems to jump several meters back.

Another point of note, I tried to recreate this in a new file and could not so its almost definitely something I have done in this file.

[Sky]

I just came across this thread because I was just working with storefronts in a wall and wanted to know if there was a good way to dead with this.

What I ended up doing was putting a Door "Opening" into the wall and then placed the curtain wall into that opening.

Has anyone found a better way of doing this?

[bohlr]

I use the "put the door in the wall" approach then place the curtainwall in the opening. It is a bit of a pain when moving things around as you have to move several elements.