topic Re: Two story walls in Modeling

Two story walls

Tom Krowka — Thu, 25 May 2023 16:05:13 GMT

I have some two story interior walls. How can I get the walls to show up on the second floor plan. I guess I could draw a one story wall, put in slab the same width as the wall, then draw the second story wall on top of the slab.
That seems very tedious. Isn't there somewhere I can select which floors to show the walls, like some of the other tools?

Re: Two story walls

Eduardo Rolon — Sat, 01 May 2004 22:05:56 GMT

Actually the way to do it is as you have described. The ideal way for it to work is part of the wish list

Re: Two story walls

Richard Morrison — Sat, 01 May 2004 23:09:54 GMT

You can also draw zero height walls on the second story. Or you can draw second floor walls that are on a layer that can be hidden in elevation and 3D views. Or you can create a patch from the first floor walls.

Re: Two story walls

Tom Krowka — Sun, 02 May 2004 14:23:30 GMT

Thanks. I can see where it should be a wish list item for sure. If I draw zero height walls in the middle of a tall wall, won't it screw something up?

Will I see a line in the interior wall when viewed in section or an interior camera?

Re: Two story walls

Djordje — Sun, 02 May 2004 18:10:04 GMT

Tom wrote:
Thanks. I can see where it should be a wish list item for sure. If I draw zero height walls in the middle of a tall wall, won't it screw something up?

Will I see a line in the interior wall when viewed in section or an interior camera?

Tom, how would you build it?

The rule is VERY simple - what is to be shown on a plan, belongs to that storey. End of discussion. I had this same discussion with myself long ago, and decided to have the builder's approach to the problem. Saved me many a workaround, including zero thickness walls and so on.

Double and triple height walls should NOT be one wall. They in reality are not. They are also incorporating a tie beam at the level of the first floor (second to the US audience) as double height brick wall is rather unstable structrue. And so on.

IMHO, as always.

Stop drawing, start building.

If the above sounds condescending, I apologize - no offence meant.

Re: Two story walls

SeaGeoff — Sun, 02 May 2004 18:39:37 GMT

Djordje wrote:
Double and triple height walls should NOT be one wall.

If this is to remain the case then some other features must be added to smooth the workflow. First, windows and doors must be able to insert properly across a wall joint, whether horizontal or vertical. Next, we need some way to link connected walls, again both horizontally and vertically, and across stories so one little adjustment doesn't become an hour's worth of realignments.

Seems to me in many cases one big wall displayed across stories would be a lot simpler. More intelligent composite joining, especially in section and between different element types, which is sorely needed anyway, would properly display the intersections.

The think-like-a-builder approach is generally good advise but can easily lead to an overly complicated model. I mean if I took that one step further I would abandon composites all together and model each component of a building separately so I could perfectly replicate the staggering of materials at corners and joints. Two steps down the road and I realize that wood frame walls are not monolithic extruded rectangles, so I'd need to stick frame the whole building. I'm sure if I did that then I wouldn't be complaining about how intersecting walls join in plan since I'd be in complete control. Of course window casings would have to be separate from the sash and jamb since they're applied over the sheathing...

Re: Two story walls

Anonymous — Mon, 03 May 2004 09:30:13 GMT

Geoff wrote:
Djordje wrote:
Double and triple height walls should NOT be one wall.
If this is to remain the case then some other features must be added to smooth the workflow. First, windows and doors must be able to insert properly across a wall joint, whether horizontal or vertical. Next, we need some way to link connected walls, again both horizontally and vertically, and across stories so one little adjustment doesn't become an hour's worth of realignments.

...

May I also suggest a wall that goes floorlevel to floor level (ie: forget the floor inbetween?

Another simple option if you have windows crossing the floor level is to make a single height wall then copy to the next storey and 'explode' it. Keep 'auto group' on to make reselection easier for later amendments.

Re: Two story walls

Anonymous — Mon, 03 May 2004 21:09:56 GMT

With all due respect to Djordje, the simple option to have walls visible on stories where they are not located (as we have with other objects) is long, long overdue.

I too, build my model like a builder, as Djordje recommends, but why limit our options needlessly? Can we not imagine a scenario (such as ballon framing a wall) where the option would come in handy?

This has been on the wishlist forever, and I wonder if GS doesn't act on it because some influential forum members (or moderators) tell them offline that it really isn't important?

No offense meant, but perhaps instead of insisting that we get over it, GS could simply make it an option.

Thanks,

Brad O'Donnell

Re: Two story walls

Anonymous — Tue, 04 May 2004 04:50:56 GMT

The ability to create a two or multi story wall is big on our office's wish list. Where it comes into play for us is in the exterior elevations and exterior model views. We build as a builder does: build a slab, build a wall, build the next floor and then the next wall. The problem is that after we have built all of this framing we have to put on our plasterer's hat an put fills all over the exterior of the building to cover up all of the lines created between the various floors and walls. This solution works for the exterior elevations but not the model. If we need a real precise model with no lines between floors we skin the building with a thin wall representing the siding and poke empty openings in the skin.
In the case of a building with many doors and windows all of this becomes a real task and very time consuming. Changing the location or size of the doors and windows requires us to go back to the exterior fills or wall skin and match the siding to the new fenestrations. I think that there should be a easier way to make the model dynamically responsive and represent the look that we want.

A side note to all of this is a wish for the ability to set the height (or heights) where the plan view is projected.

We think the program rocks, we just want more...

Thanks,
John

Re: Two story walls

Anonymous — Tue, 04 May 2004 13:25:37 GMT

Dunno if I missed your point but my understanding is that you want your walls and slab edge to appear the same colour and texture in 3d (as if its all been plastered over). If you make your walls and slab edge the same material, opengl does that for you in 3d.

Re: Two story walls

Djordje — Tue, 04 May 2004 18:09:37 GMT

Brad wrote:
With all due respect to Djordje, the simple option to have walls visible on stories where they are not located (as we have with other objects) is long, long overdue.

Oh, of course! This is definitely needed. I am tired of copying the parapet walls one storey up and exploding them.

My point was - if a structure is at a certain level, that is represented by a plan, it should be on that storey in ArchiCAD. Just like you would build it.

And no, I am not a fan of lobbying ...

Re: Two story walls

Anonymous — Tue, 04 May 2004 19:44:56 GMT

Paul wrote:
Dunno if I missed your point but my understanding is that you want your walls and slab edge to appear the same colour and texture in 3d (as if its all been plastered over). If you make your walls and slab edge the same material, opengl does that for you in 3d.

Paul,
You are right about the walls and slab edges--well kind of. When I look at my multistory building in an 3D OpenGL render there are lines between the floors and the walls. Those lines do not show up in a PhotoRender.

The scenario of skinning the outside of the building is an old work around that we don't do any more now that we have machines that can quickly produce a 3D PhotoRender. Please allow me to retract the 3D part of my rant. I am loving working in 3D OpenGL and produce a PhotoRender anytime I need to show the building to other people.

Where we are still having a a problem is with 2d Exterior Elevations. We build the walls and floors as described above. When we pull the 2D Exterior Elevations we go to each view and place fills on the exterior walls and roofs. We then cut holes in the fills for doors and windows and bring the fills to the front. It is a pretty laborious process. It's not as time consuming as when I did this with a pencil but it's not as evolved as I'd like it to be.

I'd like to hear how other users tackle rendering materials on 2D Exterior Elevations.

Plus we would really, really like to be able to cut horizontal sections (plan views) at a height that we can set.

Thanks,
John

Re: Two story walls

Tom Krowka — Tue, 04 May 2004 20:14:16 GMT

What I wanted was a way to balloon frame a wall two stories and show it on two floors. After reading all the posts, I had a continuous vertical wall 20' tall which showed up on the first floor, then a zero height wall that did not show up in elevations or 3D. I put the zero height wall on a layer that is on in the plan views, but off in the 3d and elevation views so I don't get any nasty lines showing up anywhere.

The problem I found with putting in a slab between the two levels of framing (if it was not ballon framed) was that, in this particular situation, the wall material, (the slab) is a different material on either side of the wall. Therefore, I would have to put in two slabs, each one with a different face to each room, half the width of the framed wall. That's just getting way to time consuming.

I'm with the wish list crowd on this one.

Thanks for all the comments.

Re: Two story walls

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Jul 2004 16:25:51 GMT

Djordje wrote:
Tom wrote:
Thanks. I can see where it should be a wish list item for sure. If I draw zero height walls in the middle of a tall wall, won't it screw something up?

Will I see a line in the interior wall when viewed in section or an interior camera?
Tom, how would you build it?

The rule is VERY simple - what is to be shown on a plan, belongs to that storey. End of discussion. I had this same discussion with myself long ago, and decided to have the builder's approach to the problem. Saved me many a workaround, including zero thickness walls and so on.

Double and triple height walls should NOT be one wall. They in reality are not. They are also incorporating a tie beam at the level of the first floor (second to the US audience) as double height brick wall is rather unstable structrue. And so on.

IMHO, as always.

Stop drawing, start building.

If the above sounds condescending, I apologize - no offence meant.

Verry verry true!