The 'stool' object of the sill settings is designed for a 100 year old traditional wooden window that sits flush with the inside face of wall. These days walls are thicker and windows tend to sit somewhere in the middle of the wall. And no matter what external sill is specified we nearly always have a sill board internally. Under the 'Timber' configuration the outside edge of the 'stool' is eternally aligned with the inside of face of wall and the inside edge of the sill, making the incorrect assumption that the timber sill should always span the entire thickness of the wall. The 'Masonry' configuration doesn't have a 'stool' setting. And the 'Brick' configuration will allow you to make such wonders as this:
What we need is a 'sill board' (or 'window board' or 'internal sill'), that abuts the inside face of the window frame/jamb/subsill.
The internal finish wall component needs to be able to extend up and abut the underside of of the board.
The sill board should be treated as a separate element to the external sill, that we can turn off and on (sometimes they're not needed for windows that go to the floor)
The sill board needs a control for its vertical position relative to the window frame and two controls for depth: one as an absolute figure and the other based on how much it overhangs the inside face of wall.
Here's an example window sill detail with a sill board:
2. Materials should be decoupled from profile shapes and we should have far more control over profile shapes
I'm not convinced that the sill configurations should be based on material: "Timber, Masonry, Brick".
External sills will typically be wood, aluminium, stone, slate, brick, PVC-U. Internal sills are typically timber or MDF, but can be other materials such as stone, ceramic, marble, Corian, or PVC-U.
It makes more sense to me to have one set of configuration settings and then a bunch of profiles to choose from. Profiles should probably be a Resource that we can create and edit ourselves. Perhaps different categories of profiles with different configuration settings.
If you really want to group the settings into types then it would be better to describe them by their production process rather than their material: extruded, cast, cut, pressed, etc.
We need additional types, for instance: extruded PVC-U sub sills, extrudedaluminium sub sills and pressed aluminium sill flashing.
Pressed aluminium sill flashings tend to have a drip edge that extends down below the structural opening of the window, which is not possible with the current sill settings. Not necessarily important for 3D modelling, but how it interfaces with the window frame can be quite varied; they can go under the window frame, or clip into the bottom edge/face of the window frame, or get screwed into the face of window frame, or get screwed into a hidden packer/sub-sill.
We also need a cast/stone option with stooling options at the ends. This is one of the few sills that isn't the same shape for its entire length. Stooled Sills (see below) are not a continuous profile shape, they have "stooling" at the ends for brickwork to sit on. Slip Sills are continuous all the way along and are typically used when the building is rendered instead.
Here's an example of pressed aluminium sill flashing, with the drip edge extending below the opening, and screw-fixed onto the bottom edge of the window frame. It's also a full-height window example with no sill board:
Here's an example of a timber window with a pressed aluminium sill flashing screw fixed into an additional element, a hidden timber sub-sill (or packer). So this window sill has three elements: pressed aluminium external sill, internal sill board and the timber sub-sill packer element:
Here's what a Stooled Sill looks like:
And a Slip Sill in comparison:
3. Sill depth control
As above in regard to the internal sill board, we should be able to control the depth of a sill (external sill) as follows:
1. By specifying the back edge of the external sill as an offset from the inside face of window frame/jamb
2. And by controlling the outside edge of the sill by either specifying the actual depth of the sill or by specifying how much it overhangs the outside face of wall (i.e. the outside edge of the sill relative to outside face of wall)
If we're using standard sized sub sills (such as extruded aluminium or PVC-U) we might typically want to specify the depth of the sub sill. But for, say, pressed aluminium sill flashings we might want to specify the overhang. So both options would be good.
4. The window sill currently obscures wrapped wall components (VB-188272)
5. Make window sill a separate tool/object
In the real world sills are mostly separate objects to the windows, and installed separately. Except for some types of sub-sill arrangements. The sill object is probably better off as a separate tool, but that can be linked to a window in some fashion, so that if the window width changes, so does the sill.
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Question
Christiaan
This is part of my Window and Door Tool Maturity request:
https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/64381-window-and-door-tool-maturity/
1. We need a sill board
The 'stool' object of the sill settings is designed for a 100 year old traditional wooden window that sits flush with the inside face of wall. These days walls are thicker and windows tend to sit somewhere in the middle of the wall. And no matter what external sill is specified we nearly always have a sill board internally. Under the 'Timber' configuration the outside edge of the 'stool' is eternally aligned with the inside of face of wall and the inside edge of the sill, making the incorrect assumption that the timber sill should always span the entire thickness of the wall. The 'Masonry' configuration doesn't have a 'stool' setting. And the 'Brick' configuration will allow you to make such wonders as this:
Here's an example window sill detail with a sill board:
2. Materials should be decoupled from profile shapes and we should have far more control over profile shapes
I'm not convinced that the sill configurations should be based on material: "Timber, Masonry, Brick".
Here's an example of pressed aluminium sill flashing, with the drip edge extending below the opening, and screw-fixed onto the bottom edge of the window frame. It's also a full-height window example with no sill board:
Here's an example of a timber window with a pressed aluminium sill flashing screw fixed into an additional element, a hidden timber sub-sill (or packer). So this window sill has three elements: pressed aluminium external sill, internal sill board and the timber sub-sill packer element:
Here's what a Stooled Sill looks like:
And a Slip Sill in comparison:
3. Sill depth control
As above in regard to the internal sill board, we should be able to control the depth of a sill (external sill) as follows:
1. By specifying the back edge of the external sill as an offset from the inside face of window frame/jamb
2. And by controlling the outside edge of the sill by either specifying the actual depth of the sill or by specifying how much it overhangs the outside face of wall (i.e. the outside edge of the sill relative to outside face of wall)
If we're using standard sized sub sills (such as extruded aluminium or PVC-U) we might typically want to specify the depth of the sub sill. But for, say, pressed aluminium sill flashings we might want to specify the overhang. So both options would be good.
4. The window sill currently obscures wrapped wall components (VB-188272)
5. Make window sill a separate tool/object
In the real world sills are mostly separate objects to the windows, and installed separately. Except for some types of sub-sill arrangements. The sill object is probably better off as a separate tool, but that can be linked to a window in some fashion, so that if the window width changes, so does the sill.
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