What are "structural" and "nonstructural"? (Section viewport merging)

[line-weight]

In the advanced properties for section viewports I can choose, under "attributes" tab then under "merged cross sections", "create structural and nonstructural groups".

 

This sounds potentially useful, as sometimes I want a generally merged section plane, but perhaps picking out significant structural elements that are buried in floor or wall buildups.

 

But how do I define what's structural and nonstructural? Can I assign certain classes to be one or the other?

[zoomer]

I would expect "Structural" uses the "Core" Components only ?

[rDesign]

Searching for "non structural" turned up a few previous posts about this topic. The best answer was from Biplab in this thread.

 

Quote

Walls, roofs, floors etc are tagged internally in VectorWorks as "structural" elements. Since you are not using conventional building objects - it's a bit difficult. You may write a script which does the folowing on the selected object:

SetObjectVariableBoolean(handle,702,TRUE);

702 is the structural property that you can assign to the object. Once assigned, this will be picked up by the section viewport mechanism.

 

[line-weight]

Thanks. Looks like that's what I'd have to do if I were to try and take advantage of this. I'm not really familiar with how to set up a script but I guess I can find out.

[heikolistische]

sCrit = "((INSYMBOL & INOBJECT & INVIEWPORT & (VSEL=TRUE)))"

def  setStructuralElement(obj):
    vs.SetObjectVariableBoolean(obj, 702, True)

vs.ForEachObject(setStructuralElement, sCrit)

 

This one sets 702 True for the selected Objectsx

[line-weight]

This has been discussed across a number of threads in the intervening 7 years...

 

And it must be since 2016 that this tick-box has been added to many objects' OIP:

 

 

Which I assume does the same as the script above?

[heikolistische]

Wow. I just tested this, and turns out that ObjectVariable Boolean 702 is indeed associated with this particular thickbox.

Good to finally know the purpose of this thickbox🙂