topic Re: curved fill in Modeling

curved fill

Tom Krowka — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 20:46:40 GMT

I have a circular driveway that is going to have a brick border. Imagine the border 8 inches wide, with bricks side by side around the inner and outer diameter of the circular driveay.

Is there any way to align the fill (bricks) so they will be side by side? The joints would be on the radius line to the center of the circular driveway.

Thanks.

Re: curved fill

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:32:31 GMT

hi there,

there is a way to do this, and if you are likely to reuse the fill (i.e. for same radius borders) may be worth doing...

basically, draw a line to represent a required brick joint and multiply (using rotate function) to full circles worth of lines;
select all lines drawn and cut, create new symbol fill and paste.

you should then be able to draw fill to location required with link to fill origin at centre of border arc point;

but, if it's a one off, you could save yourself the extra steps by just drawing the lines on the appropriate layer and grouping them together.

hope this helps...

Re: curved fill

__archiben — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 04:03:55 GMT

...or you could actually make yourself up a symbol line type of one row of bricks in straight line and then use that linetype with the circle/arc tool.

sometimes it works well . . . depends if you're after rough cobbles or precision bricks.

HTH
~/archiben

Re: curved fill

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 06:22:55 GMT

good one!!!! i hadn't considered that...much more flexible.

although if you need to take off quantities for paving areas then a fill may be better (although i believe in AC9 slabs have integral fills in 2d view...can anyone confirm? which would have the added benefit of vectorial fills in 3d/section window).

Re: curved fill

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 14:07:28 GMT

I have done this procedure many times (all of our sidewalks are brick pavers with a header course border as you describe), using the line type method. For my quantity measurement, I used a fill or slab to get the area.

I have found the line type to be successful. I some cases, I just use the multiply/rotate command to delineate the bricks and their joints. Unless you are zooming in to the extreme, using a single line to delineate both brick and joint works very well.

Rip Weaver, ASLA
Town Landscape Architect
The Town of Mt Laurel

Mac OSX 500mHz cube
Archicad 8.1/9

Re: curved fill

Tom Krowka — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 15:59:09 GMT

I think after all your input (which I appreciate) I'm going to make a brick out of a slab and multiply it in an arc. I don't know how that work out if I had to do a take off on it.......not part of my scope of work.

I really don't want to ask how to do that. I have not done it yet on any project so I'd have to do some research on my own first.

Thanks

Re: curved fill

Djordje — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 09:40:14 GMT

Tom wrote:
I think after all your input (which I appreciate) I'm going to make a brick out of a slab and multiply it in an arc. I don't know how that work out if I had to do a take off on it.......not part of my scope of work.

However tempting this may be ... Don't.

This will add millions of unnecessary polygons to the model.

The joint will look equally blurred in any usual scale, and you will see that it is a wedge joint or a non-rectangular brick only in the detail.

Use the Symbol line method, even better and more flaxible than the custom fill on the slab. Instead of the slab, I would use wall tool for snaking kerbs. Just as editable as the slab, even more so in some cases.

Re: curved fill

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 10:10:51 GMT

Tom wrote:
I have a circular driveway that is going to have a brick border. Imagine the border 8 inches wide, with bricks side by side around the inner and outer diameter of the circular driveay.

Is there any way to align the fill (bricks) so they will be side by side? The joints would be on the radius line to the center of the circular driveway.

One of my favorite tricks to do complex patterns in drawings without file size bloating is this (axon of a pattern attached):

1. Draw the pattern using arcs, lines, fills or whatever with 2D tools.
2. Save as a DXF
3. Open the DXF as a library part and save
4. Place the object in the drawing where needed

In any view with contours on (wire frame, hidden line, shaded with contours) the lines will show. By the way, you can use this to add dimensions to 3D views (save just the dimensions as a DXF)

Re: curved fill

Tom Krowka — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 13:27:44 GMT

Djordie & others:

If I follow the process you suggest it would be as follows:

1. Draw the brick curbing as a polywall, with a solid brick-like color.

2. Create a new symbol line that is bricks in a row.

3. Draw the new symbol line over the center of the polywall.

Is that right?

Thanks

Re: curved fill

Tom Krowka — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 15:43:28 GMT

Ok Now I'm having a problem creating the symbol line type. I've tried creating the "brick" from which the symbol line would be derived in 1:100 scale, as directed in the help menu. However, when drawing the symbol line, the size of the brick is nowhere near 4" x 8". Plus, the vertical 8 inch lines are extended past the 4 inch horizontal lines. Any help on that issue?

Also, will this symbol line, assuming I ever get it drawn, show up on 3d?

Thanks,

Re: curved fill

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 19:11:25 GMT

Tom wrote:
Ok Now I'm having a problem creating the symbol line type. I've tried creating the "brick" from which the symbol line would be derived in 1:100 scale, as directed in the help menu. However, when drawing the symbol line, the size of the brick is nowhere near 4" x 8". Plus, the vertical 8 inch lines are extended past the 4 inch horizontal lines. Any help on that issue?

1. Set the scale to 1:100
2. Draw a rectangle with x=8", y=4"

By the way, if you put the lower left hand corner of the rectangle at the drawing origin the brick pattern will appear at the top of the drawn reference when drawing from left to right; if you place the middle of the left side of the brick at the origin the drawn reference will be at the center of the brick.

3. Select and copy
4. Paste the rectangle into the Line Type Dialogue Box (Options/Line Types; New/Symbol)

5. Setting the scale to 1:100 means that for the brick to be 8" long, you set the "dash" to 0.08 (the height will take care of itself), set the gap to "0", check the "Scale with Plan" box.

(see below)

Tom wrote:
Also, will this symbol line, assuming I ever get it drawn, show up on 3d?

No.. it will not show up in 3D... You can create a GDL object that will but you will have to do it with scripting (i.e., you will not be able to draw the rectangle and drag it to the 3D script window)

Which brings me back to the reason for the simple solution to your problem which I described in the post above. It's easy to do and it creates an object which shows up in both 2D and 3D.

Try it... you'll like it

Re: curved fill

Tom Krowka — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 19:28:30 GMT

Woodster:

You've convinced me. I need it for both 3d and 2d. I would never have figured out that symbol line. I learned two things today. Thanks.

Re: curved fill

Tom Krowka — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 20:53:29 GMT

Using the symbol line, I drew all the borders. I isolated the line, marquee, assumed it would show up in the 3d window to save it to a .dxf. However, they are lines, so they don't show up in the 3d window. How do I save the pattern to to .dxf?

Today, Archicad has kicked my butt.

Re: curved fill

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 21:30:01 GMT

Tom wrote:
Using the symbol line, I drew all the borders. I isolated the line, marquee, assumed it would show up in the 3d window to save it to a .dxf. However, they are lines, so they don't show up in the 3d window. How do I save the pattern to to .dxf?

Today, Archicad has kicked my butt.

Sorry, Tom. Custom line types can not be understood by DXF or DWG. In the example I did in my first response, I drew four circles, one of the radial lines, then used the "Multiply" command to rotate (use 8" increments) the lines breaking up the arcs.

The circles and arcs need to be on a layer all by themselves so you can hide everything else when you save it as a DXF.

I know this means that you already have the pattern in 2D but this is how you get it to appear in 3D as well. You can delete the lines when you place the object.

Re: curved fill

Tom Krowka — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:12:21 GMT

Actually, I was able to create the DXF with the symbol line. I am able to place it as well (in the 2d plan window) after creating a .gsm object. Unfortunately, I used the same color pen as the brick...duh...so I can't tell if it shows up in the 3d. I guess I have to create it again with a contrasting line color to see if it works in 3D.

I'm not going to do it tonite, gotta go trick or treating!

Re: curved fill

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 14:06:29 GMT

Tom wrote:
Actually, I was able to create the DXF with the symbol line. I am able to place it as well (in the 2d plan window) after creating a .gsm object. Unfortunately, I used the same color pen as the brick...duh...so I can't tell if it shows up in the 3d. I guess I have to create it again with a contrasting line color to see if it works in 3D.

Yes, Tom, it will show up in the 2D symbol window. If you get it to show in the 3D window as anything other than a single line, please let me know how. You will be the first person I know ever to have accomplished that

Re: curved fill

Tom Krowka — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 14:49:19 GMT

Unfortunately, you are right. The dxf w/ symbol line only shows up as a single line. I tried exploding the symbol line before saving as a .dxf, but I guess that does not work on the symbol linetype either.

so there really is no way to use the very handy symbol line in 3d. I just hate to use typical lines to make this 2d/3d thing work out. It seems like two steps backward for one step forward.

But thanks for the help anyway. I did make AC progress.