topic Priority based connections in Modeling

Priority based connections

KeesW — Wed, 24 May 2023 06:59:13 GMT

I attach a priority based connection in AC17. Priority numbers are shown. the wall with insulation is a composite construction. It is clear that there nearly nothing right with this drawing. Why? It is driving me mad and I am not able to complete this project with AC17.

My next version uses a legacy version of the same drawing and it is not much better.

Priority based connection - legacy format

KeesW — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 06:18:55 GMT

Here is the previous drawing in legacy format.

Re: Priority based connections

gpowless — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 10:37:11 GMT

What is the value of the stud projected below the timber and the value of the floor empty space?

Re: Priority based connections

KeesW — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 23:25:37 GMT

There is no protruding stud. The composite comprises an outer and inner skin separated by insulation. Studs occur every 450 mm and would distort the thermal properties of the composite wall. Therefore I use insulation as the separator so that it will calculate correctly.

I've got no value for the empty floor space between the joists - should I have?

Re: Priority based connections

Steve Jepson — Sun, 15 Jun 2014 16:51:53 GMT

I don't know much about Priority Based Connections but from what I do know so far, I don't think I would ever want to use it.

Buildings are made of modular manufactured parts. I try to create a virtual building modeled with virtual parts that match real world products.

The model views show me if things are in the correct place and if they fit together. If they are automatically adjusting to connect, you can't see if it fits or not.

If my walls are 9'-1 1/8" from bottom plate to top of dbl plate because I am using 104 5/8" studs and 54" wide drywall, I don't what those wall heights automatically adjusting to fit the floor joists or sub floor. I want to move the floor and ceiling components to fit the wall. That sort of thing.

I am not modeling free-from mud huts with random sticks and want everything to automatically connect.

What I would rather have than automatic priority based connections is manually adjustable skins.

Re: Priority based connections

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 01:31:59 GMT

"manually adjustable skins".
I like that idea.
Kind of like mastering photography; (analog or digital)
turn the auto settings OFF!

Re: Priority based connections

Steve Jepson — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 13:02:00 GMT

lec1212 wrote:
"manually adjustable skins".
I like that idea.
Kind of like mastering photography; (analog or digital)
turn the auto settings OFF!

Sadly, I have very little hope for Manually Adjusted Composite Skins.

The reason is that this seems like something the ArchiCAD programmers would have implemented a long time ago if they were going to do it. As it is now they seem to have chosen to try and do with settings what might otherwise have been done by manually adjusting the skins when needed.
Now they are committed to all kinds of compensations/workarounds like Priority Based Connections, Intersect Priorities, Junction Order, Layer Intersect Numbers, etc... all of these settings are getting to be too much bother if you ask me. Why they don't want to eliminate some of that by making the Composite Skins manually adjustable I don't know. I think we should be able to simply click on as skin and a similar skin in another Composite and connect them with the Intersect Tool. I would like them adjustable in 3D and 2D as well.

I would also like to have a toggle for connecting and disconnecting Composite Skins. We should be able to go to any Composite intersection and tweak the skin connections with out all the complicated and often frustrating settings and configurations. It should be a very simple thing to
select a Skin and have it connect or disconnect with a similar skin like it was and independent wall or slab.

There would be no more problems with clean ups and such if we could do this seemingly very simple thing.

Personally, I like modeling but I hate fussing with the settings which seems like there are more and more of with each new release.

Re: Priority based connections

Link — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 15:09:02 GMT

KeesW wrote:
I attach a priority based connection in AC17. Priority numbers are shown. the wall with insulation is a composite construction. It is clear that there nearly nothing right with this drawing. Why? It is driving me mad and I am not able to complete this project with AC17.

My next version uses a legacy version of the same drawing and it is not much better.

I agree that this should all clean up automatically using PBC, but you can still achieve what you want quite easily by using solid element operations with the joists and stem wall on the composite wall.

Unfortunately PBC doesn't work as we'd always expect or hope in section.

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Priority based connections

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 20:48:34 GMT

One of the reasons I think manually adjustable composite skins would be difficult to achieve, what do you do for a wall with a raking top, for instance?

Re: Priority based connections

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 10:12:33 GMT

With the Shell Tool you can define a boundary and any number of holes for it. These are part of the definition of the Shell.
I would love to see this implemented in other element types as well, especially Walls. You could select the side of a Wall, draw its side contour and ArchiCAD would take that as a boundary. You can to that now with creating that boundary using another element then doing a SEO with them. However, you will have to manage the SEO operator, making sure it is moved whenever the Wall is moved. With the Shell Tool the Boundary polygon and the hole polygons are part of the Shell's geometry definition.

And then the next step would be the ability to do this for every skin of a Composite Structure separately, so we could individually shape any skin of any composite wall, Slab, Roof, Shell to the geometry of our liking. It would also report correct quantities in Interactive Schedule, would export correctly as IFC etc. It would be very very nice indeed.

And actually, thinking about it, I think it could be implemented for Complex Profiled elements as well, the basic operation would be the same, maybe selecting skins in a Complex Profile would be a bit harder because a skin can be anywhere within the geometry of the Complex Profile, it is not like Composites which are all parallel skins, but it could be doable.

Re: Priority based connections

Csaba Kezer — Thu, 26 Jun 2014 13:21:05 GMT

Hey guys,

Thanks for all of you on your input regarding this question.

It is indeed a question standing for a long time whether if there is a way which would suit equally fine every type of house modelling method. I am afraid there is no such 'one solution'.
As buildings we design differ from country to country by the used materials and solutions we will always have constructions that ArchiCAD can suit better than others.

In the past years we were thinking over what should we develop to give you an effective tool to create building junctions correctly, automatically and almost instantly.
That is why - as a first step - we have developed Building Materials and the Priority Based Connections.

We do understand that even though this gives a good solution in many cases it needs some fine tuning to give you opportunity to easily fix those tricky junctions that just doesn't want to clear up no matter how you tweak the settings in the BM dialog.

That is why we plan to complete the PBC project with additional options to be able to handle Building Materials more flexible especially in Complex profiles and Composite structures. Even though right now I can't tell you more about when and how we plan to implement this, I believe this is something thats worth waiting for.

Best regards,
Csaba

Re: Priority based connections

Link — Thu, 26 Jun 2014 13:27:41 GMT

Glad you said it Csaba!

Cheers,
Link.