Campbell wrote:
Hi,
We at Cadimage in Auckland New Zealand are releasing a Wall Framing Addon for ArchiCAD 9 in late January that provides complete 3d interactive wall framing along with complete elevations views with complete cut lists (which are also interactive eg change a stud position in elevation view and the floor plan and 3d model update) for production....
Campbell,
This is great news!...look forward to seeing it. Please consider the following:
1.) All load bearing walls should somehow automatically place studs in relation to a "user defined" common start point. This is important if you are trying to do "in-line" framing. At a minimum, the user should be given the option to use a start point.
2.) After the framing is placed, it would be nice to be able to move/adjust all studs simultaneously in a wall. Currently you have to adjust them all individually.
3.) Please make all opening conditions independantly adjustable. Example: sometimes header conditions need to be different sizes/types on openings within the same wall.
4.) Please consider making the framing accesory capable of automatically sensing a defined core for the stud space in a composite wall and placing the framing within that core space. Please also consider making the framing capable of automatically sensing a wall or a core thickness and sizing the stud accordingly.
5.) I, personally, model all stud framed walls to the actual plate heights...some people, however, will include the depth of the floor framing within the wall height. Realizing this, you should give the users the ability to specifiy the plate height for the wall framing in cases where modeled walls are a different height than the actual plate height.
6.) Please consider giving the users an interface to define company specific "default" rules for various conditions:extra trimmers at wide opng's, ladder connectors at wall intersections, etc,etc,etc
7.) It would be nice if the accesory could read the name of a user defined wall composite and set all parameters for that type of wall automatically. example: If I have a wall composite "2x4 int wall" the accesory might already know to set the stud size to 2x4 and the spacing at 24" O.C. - If I have a wall composite "2x6 ext wall" the accesory might already know to set the stud size to 2x6 and the spacing at 16" O.C.
8.) For companies that are panelizing, it would be nice if the accessory could automatically break long walls down into prespecified maximum panel widths. (one wall after applying the accesory would have multiple panels) Currently the user has to manually split a wall if it needs to be more than one panel.
9.) How about giving the user good control over the panel numbering and automatically creating a schedule of all the panel cut sheets. Ideally the cut sheet views would have default basic dimensions.
What do you think?...is this doable?
Thanks,
Dan K
