Correct way of joining walls of differing levels (is there one?)

[line-weight]

See the attached image.

This is a hypothetical building where there are two storeys (walls on lower storey are coloured green, on upper storey they are coloured blue). The transparent squares indicate floor levels (yellow) and roof levels (red).

The upper storey has a step in level though.

So you can see we end up with walls joining in L, T or X formation, but the walls that need to join each other are at various different levels.

Every time I come up against this kind of situation it gives me a headache, when I try and join the walls so that they look right both in top/plan mode and in 3d.

For the upper level:

- I can't use the "T" wall join tool because A and C are separate wall segments (because they sit at different levels).

- I can use the "L" wall join tool to join walls A and B, which gets rid of the bevelled corner visible in the left-hand 3d view, but then odd things happen in plan view at the junction of the 3 walls.

For the lower level:

- I can't use the "T" tool for same reasons as above.

- I can't use the "L" tool because if I join any two walls like this, things go wrong with the junctions with the other two.

- I can't use the "X" tool at all ("The parts do not completely intersect")

Is there a correct way of doing this, so that all the joins work in plan view, as well as in 3d views?

[CipesDesign]

This always takes an enormous amount of fiddling. It's not a particularly odd thing in real buildings, but in VW's it isn't east to do. My usual solution is to make the 3d model work for renderings and elevations; but add annotations in the 2d plans to cover (mask) little offending lines, etc. that will occur. In my experience, one way or the other, these types of assemblies will require some annotation "cover ups", either in the 3d or the 2d views, and it's much easier to get the attributes correct in 2d than in 3d.

[line-weight]

Not a particularly odd thing at all in real buildings! This kind of situation arises, in some form, on the vast majority of buildings I work on.

[Jim Smith]

I've grappled with this on several Split-Level home renos having made the mistake of attempting to use one project as a test of Storys and have used Peter's technique.

[line-weight]

I've been wondering if the easiest workaround is to place a rectangular column in the zone where the various walls intersect. Then the walls simply butt up to this and I give up on trying to join them because that doesn't work properly and I'd have to patch it over in 2D anyway. It would make stuff sort-of work in 3D at least, and maybe be a bit more robust for edits and so on.

I wonder if it would work to have an object that performed this function, one that walls could join to. The complication would be in to how to deal with walls with multiple component layers.

Does anyone know how this situation is dealt with in other software? It seems like a pretty basic thing to have unresolved.

Edited July 7, 2016 by col37400

[Markvl]

In our office we have a few plans that have split level spaces in them and this is still something I haven't completely settled. There always seems to be something a little different that requires a different approach. Lots of fiddling though as Peter mentioned and hoping that it doesn't come undone for some reason. Techniques and solutions that are out of the box. No solutions in the box.

In the example you've given I think your idea of a central extruded box may be the way to go with 2D objects to aid in showing it all flow together in the top/down view.