topic Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill? in Modeling

Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Anonymous — Tue, 24 May 2005 17:19:02 GMT

Hi,
What is the DISTINCTION and the USEAGE of:

1. Empty Fill vs. Air Space Fill?

2. Solid Fill vs. Marker Fill?

Thanks,
Joseph

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Anonymous — Tue, 24 May 2005 22:04:58 GMT

We try to purge all of the fills, linetypes, materials, that we don't use frequently. Air space and Marker Fill are two such purged fills. Why scroll through fills all day if you only use a handful regularly?

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Anonymous — Tue, 24 May 2005 22:29:28 GMT

DHURD wrote:
We try to purge all of the fills, linetypes, materials, that we don't use frequently. Air space and Marker Fill are two such purged fills. Why scroll through fills all day if you only use a handful regularly?

But there must be a use or a reason for them if GS provided them?
Thanks,
Joseph

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Anonymous — Tue, 24 May 2005 23:39:48 GMT

On thing that I know is that if the Fill pattern is the same for two touching objects they will not have Line in a Section view. If a Beam with a Empty Fill is placed on a Wall with Empty Fill. the Cross-section shows the intersection as merged. This is why I think many have made a copy of the Empty Fill (Empty Fill1) So that objects can have a different Fill and clean-up in sections.

Maybe this is why the default installation has a few more fill options... ?

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Anonymous — Tue, 24 May 2005 23:51:45 GMT

Jay wrote:
On thing that I know is that if the Fill pattern is the same for two touching objects they will not have Line in a Section view. If a Beam with a Empty Fill is placed on a Wall with Empty Fill. the Cross-section shows the intersection as merged. This is why I think many have made a copy of the Empty Fill (Empty Fill1) So that objects can have a different Fill and clean-up in sections.

Maybe this is why the default installation has a few more fill options... ?

Are you telling me Air Space is same as Empty Fill?
Thanks,
Joseph

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

James Murray — Wed, 25 May 2005 03:20:51 GMT

Fill cleanup in section, and material cleanup for surfaces, is controlled by name of fill or material. If the names match, they clean up. The fills/materials may be identical in composition, but if the names are different you get a line. So Air Space and Empty Fill are identically clear, but they don't clean up.

I use Air Space for windows and (composites made of) Empty Fill for walls, so the wall and window don't run together.

In Attribute Manager, the Delete button is greyed out for markerfill, Solid Fill, and Air Space; apparently there's something special about them. For this reason I don't delete them, even though you can in the Fills dialog.

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Anonymous — Thu, 26 May 2005 18:54:04 GMT

James wrote:
Fill cleanup in section, and material cleanup for surfaces, is controlled by name of fill or material. If the names match, they clean up. The fills/materials may be identical in composition, but if the names are different you get a line. So Air Space and Empty Fill are identically clear, but they don't clean up.

I use Air Space for windows and (composites made of) Empty Fill for walls, so the wall and window don't run together.

In Attribute Manager, the Delete button is greyed out for markerfill, Solid Fill, and Air Space; apparently there's something special about them. For this reason I don't delete them, even though you can in the Fills dialog.

And what about Solid Fill vs. Marker Fill?
Thanks,
Joseph

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Anonymous — Thu, 26 May 2005 21:27:52 GMT

Joseph wrote:
And what about Solid Fill vs. Marker Fill?

Solid Fill & Marker Fill are also identical fills of different names. I have always assumed (but not confirmed) that Marker Fill is a default used in some GS symbol type library parts.

Solid Fill (along with Empty Fill) has been around since inkjet plotters became common (v5.0?) and it was no longer necessary to use strictly vector fills. These two are so often used as defaults, that I always retain them in my projects.

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Karl Ottenstein — Thu, 26 May 2005 22:59:04 GMT

The plot is actually thicker. I don't pretend to fully understand why the pre-defined fills are what they are.

But. Air Space is a special fill. Someone at GS has pointed out that if you use Air Space as the fill for a material, then no fill icon appears in the material pop-up palettes. Empty Fill, on the other hand, shows up as a white square.

A little thing.

Marker Fill and others are used by various library parts in their defaults. If you delete some of the predefined fills, and or clean up your template in a way that causes them to be renumbered, then all kinds of library parts will display either the wrong fill, or a "MISSING?" in the fill parameter.

A number of us have had a wish in to GS to produce a document that lists all fills used by all library parts/modules/templates along with the index numbers used in those objects so that we have a crystal clear picture of what havoc we might create before deleting/renumbering any of them. I'm hopeful that we might see that document some time by the end of the year.

Karl

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 19:02:06 GMT

Old topic, I know, but where can I get to the fills and really delete them. I have deleted them from Attributes Manager, from fills dialogue, they still come back when I re-open the file. Its Frame Fill 1, Frame Fill 2, Trim Fill, Leaf Fill. I'm assuming they are from window builder or some such thing but I want to clean them out and assign standard fills them. Any help?

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Link — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 20:56:11 GMT

These particular fills are probably being made by Window/Door Builder every time you use that add on.

One way to prevent these fills would be to stop using it!

There may also be a setting where you can change these fills within the add on, to fills that you would rather use. I don't know for sure, as I don't have it.

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Laszlo Nagy — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 09:05:29 GMT

Old topic, I know, but where can I get to the fills and really delete them. I have deleted them from Attributes Manager, from fills dialogue, they still come back when I re-open the file. Its Frame Fill 1, Frame Fill 2, Trim Fill, Leaf Fill. I'm assuming they are from window builder or some such thing but I want to clean them out and assign standard fills them. Any help?

If they are recreated they might come from Master_GDLxxxxx.gdl files found in one of your Libraries. You would have to edit these out of those files, then you would have to modify the library parts in those libraries to reference fills other than those defined in these Master_GDLxxxxx.gdl files, and save them so new instances will use those defaults. This will probably not affect already placed instances of these library parts.

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:09:38 GMT

Karl wrote:
A number of us have had a wish in to GS to produce a document that lists all fills used by all library parts/modules/templates along with the index numbers used in those objects so that we have a crystal clear picture of what havoc we might create before deleting/renumbering any of them. I'm hopeful that we might see that document some time by the end of the year.

Karl

It's now Dec 2007, two years later.

Has GS provided this tool that Karl mentions back in 2005?
I'd like the ability to delete redundant Fills without creating havoc.

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:49:48 GMT

I don't think I'm the only one thinking that I don't want my fills to clean up automatically. In most cases I want to see the separation between objects in sections. eg. (footings...basement walls) It would be nice to have a fill that included a parameter that the user could define whether it should clean up to itself or not. I like the complex profile in AC11 but I have to separate like fills by a small fraction of an inch to get them to separate in sections. I don't know if this warrants a trip to the wish list or not but it's something I'd like to see.

Doug

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Karl Ottenstein — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:36:14 GMT

4thorns wrote:
I like the complex profile in AC11 but I have to separate like fills by a small fraction of an inch to get them to separate in sections.

Avoid doing it that way if possible. The resulting object will have many more polygons, as you've created a true air gap, resulting in new surfaces. It really is better to create duplicate fills to obtain the linework in section, and yet keep your complex (profiled) elements' polygon count low

Cheers,
Karl

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:51:14 GMT

Forgive my ignorance Karl, I'm still new to complex profiles and I've never duplicated a fill before. are you saying that a duplicate fill, renamed, will not "clean up" to it's original counterpart, leaving the separation lines? If this is the case then it makes things a little easier.

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Link — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 23:04:17 GMT

4thorns wrote:
Forgive my ignorance Karl, I'm still new to complex profiles and I've never duplicated a fill before. are you saying that a duplicate fill, renamed, will not "clean up" to it's original counterpart, leaving the separation lines? If this is the case then it makes things a little easier.

It's essentially the same as what we explained to you here!

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 23:58:35 GMT

Yes I remember that post Link. I just thought that Karl was telling me something to the contrary.

Karl wrote
It really is better to create duplicate fills to obtain the linework in section

If I'm missing something....Sorry

Doug

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Karl Ottenstein — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:25:38 GMT

4thorns wrote:
I've never duplicated a fill before. are you saying that a duplicate fill, renamed, will not "clean up" to it's original counterpart, leaving the separation lines? If this is the case then it makes things a little easier.

Yes, Link gave a perfect screenshot in that other thread of how to get a wall plate to show up with linework in section, and yet not generate any additional polygons. Because 'empty fill' and 'air space' look the same, but have different names, you get lines showing where they touch.

ArchiCAD is not smart enough to realize that any fills have the same content, only that they have the same name (or index number).

So, if you want a line to show between a stem wall and a footing that are modeled in a profile, and you want the structural concrete fill to be used for both, you have to duplicate the fill.

The attached screenshot shows that when you click 'new' in the fill types dialog (Options > Element Attributes > ...), the default thing is to duplicate the currently selected fill. That's all that's involved. It is a very important thing to know, since often you'll want to duplicate a fill and change its spacing (scale) for other purposes...

The same thing (create identical duplicate) has to be done if, for example, you have a stucco fill on the exterior walls (via material) and actually want a line to appear between one color of stucco and another. The fill name must differ, otherwise in elevation, the fills will just clean up without a line. It's been this way as long as I've used ArchiCAD (version 6.5), no doubt much longer.

Cheers,
Karl

Re: Empty Fill vs. Air Space vs. and Solid vs. Marker Fill?

Rod Jurich — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:27:36 GMT

4thorns wrote:
/......If I'm missing something....Sorry

Doug, not missing anything. This is what I've done
when I want just an empty fill and not a vectorial hatch.
All Empty Fills renamed to reflect the element in question.