topic Re: Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking in Installation & update

Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

david nicholson-cole — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:59:40 GMT

In the building regs in the UK, there are a series of step changes in the regulations between now and 2016 requiring more and more insulation. This is trailing behind Germany, Austria, Switzerland where the insulation standards have been higher for longer, and the PassivHaus standard is the target for the future. I would venture to say that cavity filling is now preferable and more common than the designs in ArchiCAD's standard composites for cavity walls which seem to be a thin layer of insulation with a cavity.
I know that its easy enough to make new composites, and that pro users will build Templates with their choice of Fills... but shouldnt some of the new standards be included in the standard Archicad as it starts up?

For example, I want to build in loadbearing wall, the same as in my house, 112 brick, 100 cavity filling insulation, and 100 block (plastered). I am happy to spend a few mins building this, but i hope its standard in AC 13.

Re: Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:24:49 GMT

I am sure if enough information is provided the guys at GS are interested in hearing what new requirements are emerging and how these should be reflected in standard ArchiCAD templates/libraries and attribute sets.

If anyone has any such similar thing I think this is a good thread to collect them. So guys, go ahead and post them if you have any.

Re: Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

KenMcN — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:27:21 GMT

Any chance the 'insulation' fill could be changed to look more like the standard 'wavy' pattern, rather than the hexagonal 'styrofoam' or the linear 'insulation' (which looks like brick to me)?
Would make the walls much more legible, especially when details are taken from plans or sections. There is a library object that does this, not sure how difficult it would be to make this into a fill.

Sorry if this isn't quite the sort of information you were looking for…

Perhaps more relevant is a wish for timber stud walls, with (the correct) insulation between the studs (either partial or full fill). The skin should be capable of being used for either a stand alone timber stud internal wall or as part of a composite external wall (with brick etc. cladding). Varying thickness and number of layers of plasterboard to one or both sides would also be helpful.

Oh, and the number of skins needs to increase, as timber composite walls can have lots of layers and the limit of 8 is insufficient for some we are using just now.

Cheers
Kenny

Re: Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

Laura Yanoviak — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:00:08 GMT

KenMcN wrote:
Any chance the 'insulation' fill could be changed to look more like the standard 'wavy' pattern, rather than the hexagonal 'styrofoam' or the linear 'insulation' (which looks like brick to me)?
Would make the walls much more legible, especially when details are taken from plans or sections.

It would be helpful if symbol line types could be used within composites as wished for here.

KenMcN wrote:
Oh, and the number of skins needs to increase, as timber composite walls can have lots of layers and the limit of 8 is insufficient for some we are using just now,

I agree with this as well.

Re: Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:09:51 GMT

If we're straying into wish lists for walls then one we have is that you can create a wall based upon brick/block dims. AND have it visible and accurate when you drop a section through the wall.

Sorry if this is OT.

Adri

Re: Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

Laura Yanoviak — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:31:12 GMT

adri wrote:
If we're straying into wish lists for walls then one we have is that you can create a wall based upon brick/block dims. AND have it visible and accurate when you drop a section through the wall.

Just to clarify -- are you wishing that masonry coursing be delineated within Composites?

Re: Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:45:41 GMT

adri wrote:
If we're straying into wish lists for walls then one we have is that you can create a wall based upon brick/block dims. AND have it visible and accurate when you drop a section through the wall.

Does a complex profile not work for you in this situation?

Start a wall using a composite to get the various skins with the correct pens and fills on plan, and then capture it as a profile. Add the coursing lines where necessary by splitting the fills and adding mortar in-between and Bobs your uncle!

Re: Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

Laura Yanoviak — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:42:20 GMT

Peter wrote:
Does a complex profile not work for you in this situation?

Start a wall using a composite to get the various skins with the correct pens and fills on plan, and then capture it as a profile. Add the coursing lines where necessary by splitting the fills and adding mortar in-between and Bobs your uncle!

I imagine this could quite a "load" for AC to handle (i.e. the number of polygons required to model).

On another note, it would be nice to be able to control the 2D symbol (or plan view) of complex profiles.

Re: Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:30:10 GMT

Laura wrote:
I imagine this could quite a "load" for AC to handle (i.e. the number of polygons required to model).

On another note, it would be nice to be able to control the 2D symbol (or plan view) of complex profiles.

(Sorry for taking this off topic. Please move if necessary.)

If you model it with the mortar joints flush with the surface of the brick using the same material, it doesn't actually add any extra polygons to the model! Of course you can add the correct shaped recess to the larger scale details in 2d as necessary, but you wont see this at 1:50!

I also agree with the need for extra control for the 2d symbol. I'd in fact like to be able to specify a specific cut height to use as the symbolic cut of a complex profile. This would give you the extra flexibility you get with a normal wall set to symbolic cut when dealing with walls of differing levels.

Re: Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

Laura Yanoviak — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:47:00 GMT

Peter wrote:
If you model it with the mortar joints flush with the surface of the brick using the same material, it doesn't actually add any extra polygons to the model! Of course you can add the correct shaped recess to the larger scale details in 2d as necessary, but you wont see this at 1:50!

When Complex Profiles was a new feature, I remember having problems with profiles containing numerous nodes -- when editing the profile, nodes were often "left over" from where fills once met, creating a number of extra nodes on what would be a planer surface -- I assumed that "extra nodes" meant "extra polygons", which is why it was causing problems (model slow-down, walls not joining correctly) -- I eliminated any extra nodes, and eliminated the problems.

Have you had any problems modeling brick walls in this manner?

Re: Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:44:08 GMT

I haven't encountered any problems yet!

Any extra points on a surface seem to be ignored (in terms of poly count) if they are perfectly in-line (planar) and the edges between assigned the same material, but I agree it is best practice and more reliable to reduce unused nodes if possible.

I also believe you can be too clever sometimes and try to do too much with one profile. I much prefer to split it down to its component parts. I find it just easier to manage and you get much more reliable joining. Visibility on plan is also easier to control.

Re: Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

Link — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:13:37 GMT

Laura wrote:
When Complex Profiles was a new feature, I remember having problems with profiles containing numerous nodes -- when editing the profile, nodes were often "left over" from where fills once met, creating a number of extra nodes on what would be a planer surface -- I assumed that "extra nodes" meant "extra polygons", which is why it was causing problems (model slow-down, walls not joining correctly) -- I eliminated any extra nodes, and eliminated the problems.

Have you had any problems modeling brick walls in this manner?

This is similar to what Karl reported here.

Maybe the problem has been solved?

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

Laura Yanoviak — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:44:48 GMT

Link wrote:
This is similar to what Karl reported here.

Ah -- interesting -- thanks, Link. I remember the extra nodes causing problems, but this was when AC10 was new and I was working on a building with complex geometries (all sorts of abstract angles joining in different ways), I haven't had problems with Complex Profiles since.

Re: Add Wall fills to reflect Green thinking

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:11:17 GMT

If we're straying into wish lists for walls then one we have is that you can create a wall based upon brick/block dims. AND have it visible and accurate when you drop a section through the wall.

if i'm understanding this comment correctly, this is possible by creating a new fill with the appropriate course dimension and assigning it to the composite wall leaf or cut section fill HOWEVER it will appear in both sections and plan (where you have it set to one of the options that shows a cut fill). this could be relatively easily rectified (i would think) by differentiating plan cut fill and section/3d cut fill in the wall settings dialogue box.

being able to lock wall height dimensions to multiples of the unit coursing you are using would be useful, i guess, but it would need to be easily toggled on/off on the fly (much like the orthoganal direction lock).