Wall bump out.

[Benson Shaw]

Learning Walls, Levels, Stories, modeling an existing old house.

How to join walls with different heights at wall hole?

I’m trying to assign everything to a story and level bound top/bot.

I need shorter wall height for Window seat bump out.

Wall style components are top & bot bound to levels.

Therefore, walls do not respond to top/bot offsets in OIP.

Changing the component offsets adjusts all walls of that style.

Not just at the Window Seat.

Or is there some other way to do this?

My solution is wall hole in main wall,

with separate wall style for window seat.

Components bound to new level type at window seat ceiling.

Or skip the wall hole?

Use full height walls at either end of the window seat,

plus a 3rd wall style for the header? (Soffit is not a beam. 2x4s, shiplap, plaster& lath) with components bound to window seat ceiling and floor asmbly above?

Also, how to flip the windows?

Top sash should be outboard.

Display does not change if OIP Flip or if enter Rotate value 180.

Remove from wall, rotate, replace in wall no joy either.

Thx for any comment.

-B

[Markvl]

Hi Benson,

Can't say I have solutions but I feel your pain. In plans I've done that have many different levels I simply made different copies of the same wall configuration. Unlike REVIT you cannot modify a wall in a particular location with out affecting all the others. Would be a great feature for a future version. Wish List.

As for walls not joining together...I find I need to join what I need for floor plans and then join walls I need for 3d visuals otherwise its making 3D objects to fill in the gaps. Doesn't look clean though.

Windows and doors are a big headache and need an overhawl. Parametrically they need tweaking and need more options. I've spent to much time at times trying to get sashes to sit where I want them or thresholds to look as they should thats when I make a symbol of them to kind of freeze them. I find some features to be unstable and unpredictable like trim interior vs exterior I've had it switch on me. So is the window (as it were) pointing in or out?

For the many great things I can say about Vectorworks and I'm still very new to it, there are things that need and can be fixed and make it out of this world.

This has turned into a bit of a rant.

Edited December 19, 2014 by Markvl

[Dieter @ DWorks]

For your particular situation, I draw the walls like normal, as it will be better for your spaces to bind to. By this I mean that you should not create the whole, but include that peace in the room. Then you can set the height of each wall to your liking. For the 'beam' above the hole, I solve this by drawing another wall on a different level. Your wall connection will be correct. If it's not clear, tell me.

It's no good to bind wall components to levels, as you can't control it anymore on a wall by wall basis. As long as we can't do this for each wall, it's a useless setting and far better to use the normal wall bounding settings, like it worked before. Floors will cut out the walls were needed.

Edited December 19, 2014 by Dieter @ DWorks

[CipesDesign]

Hi Folks, Believe it or not, if you don't use Stories or Wall Styles (and I have never adopted either of them) this is a fairly easy thing to model. IMO Stories (and Wall Styles) made a fairly easy-to-understand system (Design Layers with bottom Z and Z height; Walls that can have attributes by class) into an overly complicated mess. Yeah I know I'm old school, but it actually works.

[Patrick Fritsch]

In addition, joining multiple staked walls in a storey is a nightmare as well, the only way is to unjoin everything and start from the the bottom and work your way to the top...

[Kizza]

IMO Stories (and Wall Styles) made a fairly easy-to-understand system (Design Layers with bottom Z and Z height; Walls that can have attributes by class) into an overly complicated mess. Yeah I know I'm old school, but it actually works.

I do the same now.

[Dieter @ DWorks]

IMO Stories (and Wall Styles) made a fairly easy-to-understand system (Design Layers with bottom Z and Z height; Walls that can have attributes by class) into an overly complicated mess. Yeah I know I'm old school, but it actually works.

I do the same now.

If you don't use the Heights/boundings by wall style, it's really easy and far better. That's why it's really really bad that we can only set the wall component bounding through the wall style, THAT, and only THAT makes it complex and a mess. If you bound per wall, you can easily unbound the bottom, or better bound to the bottom and say that your whole is x high, to automatically adapt.

Edited December 20, 2014 by Dieter @ DWorks

[CipesDesign]

No, there's more than that. Wall styles have given me many crappy hours fighting with: Inability to quickly and easily join walls; Difficulty dimensioning to the "framing" of the wall, and then part of the drawn wall sticks out beyond the dimension, then when you turn off that class, the joins get funky, etc. etc. etc. Not to mention the confusing morass of classes and class setup needed to make the 2d and 3d actually work correctly (for models and 2d graphics).

If these (and others) have been actually fixed since a couple years ago I apologize. But just like anything else, when you fight with a "feature" so much that it hurts, then you stop using that feature and go back to the tried and true.

Although I understand (and applaud) the eventual value of BIM (which in my limited understanding was the prime driver of the addition of these "features"), I personally have no use for it in my one man, custom residential arena. Not one of the builders or the clients/owners, or the building officials I deal with would know what to do with that data. They just want clearly legible plans that are easy to bid and build from (and will get permit stamps). As for me, I want to be free to design graceful and functional structures without software getting in my way.

So I have a long-proven methodology that works. The only real annotations I need, aside from dimensions and notes (which are needed by all, regardless of the VW's methodology used) are the dressing up of sections, which I enjoy and is a valuable part of the process, for me.

All Plans, Site Plans and Elevations are generated directly from the model, with hardly any fussing at all. The Sections are generated from the model, then dressed up graphically as I desire (which in the past I have tried to get from Wall Styles, etc. but it generally failed miserably so I stopped fighting with it.).

So there. That's my 5¢... Additional comments welcome!

[Benson Shaw]

Keep it comin' everyone.

It will take a few days, but I will try add some of the suggested alternates as screen shots.

Can someone suggest why the Stories/Levels concept was introduced? Why we need it?

Seems it does at least two things:

1. Change a Story or Level height causes the rest of the model to automatically adjust up or down.

2. A drawing file with Stories/Levels activates the Standard Viewports and other drawing setup Standards.

I'm just starting to investigate Stories/Levels - experience level is low, confusion level is high. My undomesticated opinions:

#1 seems most useful for designs with loads of Stories having nearly same footprint, eg towers. And for projects where the Story/Level heights might change many times during design work.

Setting up a blank template file with Stories/Levels plus Wall and Slab styles, time consuming on the first one, could be a time saver on successive projects. eg Wes Anderson's Katrina project (in progress)

But with attention to classing, layers and skilled manipulation of Walls, Wall Styles, etc, the same height adjustments can be done without too much trouble.

#2 can also be accomplished or at least mimicked with template files.

-B

[zoomer]

Stories are very important for me.

Draw first floor Layer,

copy everything to second floor layer,

just edit the last 20% that are different.

If you use Architectural Elements, f.e. walls set to story height,

this will still work if you have different story heights.

And you can change Story Height at any point later.

And if you use additional height levels for f.e. Windows, set to start

and end height you can change all of your different Window Types

in one go.

Unfortunately per Story only, as these custom levels are not linked.

So stories are kind of the Symbols for Space.

Edited December 20, 2014 by zoomer

[CipesDesign]

AFAIK you can do the same thing using good old Design Layers... Just gotta know how to set things up.

[zoomer]

For the walls and stairs yes.

But now you can have multiple levels per design layer.

[Guest Wes Gardner]

@ Benson

Stories were introduced for two reasons - to enhance change management of all "level aware" or "story aware" objects and to automate the export of your model via IFC when/if required.

As others have expressed, stories are NOT necessary in building an information model.

Some general rules for levels:

Conceptually think of levels as horizontal planes in space that let you choose where the tops and bottoms of wall components and certain other elements will “snap”, we call this binding. Levels reside within a container. The container is a story.

What may be interesting to note is that you CAN have multiple levels of the same name (but with different elevations.) What you CAN’T have is a level with the same name in any given story, even if it has a different elevation. The solution is to create a level with a slightly different name such as Ceiling-Low or Bulkheading.

Wes

Edited December 22, 2014 by Wes Gardner

[Benson Shaw]

@ Wes - Thanks for that bit of history, and further notes. "Why" can be as important and interesting as "How".

@ Dieter - Thanks for notes re component binding. I stumbled into what I now call the lock down mode - All wall components bound to levels. I think this lock down could be useful in some design work, but requires extreme attention. Everyone working with the file has to be aware of the binding scheme and how to manage it. It's not the best choice in many projects. I'm still working through it.

@ Peter - I'm of like mind. No particular need for Stories & Levels in most of my work. Just learning more about it is my current goal. Future projects requiring design team interaction via ifc may push me into the realm of needing to skillfully use these features.

Related - I'm wish listing for easier Story/Level management.

-B

[Patrick Fritsch]

Wes, I would love if the wall/slab components had a more "direct modeling" capability for each component and not just the overall as it is currently with the reshape tool. It would aid greatly in the fine tuning as opposed having to pop open a dialog box and then try and remember by how much each component needs to be adjusted... Imagine using the clipcube to slice through to where you want to adjust and we would have the ability to adjust components as needed...isn't that what Parasolid is promoting?

[Guest Wes Gardner]

Patrick,

I hear ya, man! I am always in favor of the more direct approach rather than having to completely stop the ole train of thought and go to dialog boxes. The use of wall peaks offers some of this when building a stepped footing and the editing of the curtain wall is another example of where tool development could go. I will certainly push for this.

Oh, before I forget...from me and mine to you and yours, have a great, safe, holiday!

Wes