Modeling
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"Surface" tool or ability to rotate slab from horizontal?

boatingcow
Booster
Hi there, every now and again I would like to place an object which is basically a slab, but in a plane other than horizontal (for example, a damp-proof membrane which follows both slab, wall and roof contours). I'd like to be able to list these objects and be able to group them together (as in the membrane example above) and derive surface areas or volumes as necessary.

I know I could use a morph, terrain or other object, but ideally I'd create the object just like a slab, so I would create the surface perimeter outline, then define its thickness. But it would be rotatable so it could exist in any plane - not just horizontal. I'd prefer not to use combinations of slabs, walls and roofs as they aren't listed together in schedules. Also wall and roof geometry creation methods are different - for example a wall at close to 0° has almost infinite width on the plan and always has the base and top of the wall parallel to horizontal. Similarly a roof at almost 90° has almost infinite height. So, a 'surface' tool (like a slab, but in any plane) would be very useful.

In addition, I wonder if there is a similar way to accomplish 'lines' (such as beads of intumescent mastic) so that the linear metre/volume can appear on the schedule?

The advantage of the 'surface' and 'linear' tool would be that schedules report the quantities in the amounts you'd expect for a particular building material (SMM7, NRM2). For example, we can already schedule brick walls in m2, and concrete slabs in m3. It would be great if I could get that damp-proof membrane which isn't necessarily part of a composite wall or slab, and get its quantities as thickness and m2.

Am I missing an existing tool/object? Does anyone have any work-arounds?

Thanks!
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11 REPLIES 11
Laszlo Nagy
Community Admin
Community Admin
I would consider creating a Profile for the portion of the membrane that is close to the edges, from its vertical part to its part where it turns from 45 angle to horizontal. I would use this profile with a Wall and run it along the edges. I would fill the remaining polygon in the middle with a Slab.
I would probably place these "Walls" into a separate layer with its own unique Layer Intersection Group Number so it does not accidentally joins other Walls.
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Anonymous
Not applicable
Could you use an extruded Shell perhaps? A shell has a uniform thickness over its surface and can have as many nodes in its cross section as necessary.

You will need to use several shells combined to form all the edges, but you should be able to extract accurate surface areas & volumes from them in the schedules.

Hope that helps.