CW Panel Scripts

[Anonymous]

I have a client who wants me to make curtain wall panels to match their custom doors and windows. So far I have resaved one of the doors as the CW Panel subtype and aside from the expected uninitialized variable errors it doesn't look too problematic. BUT...

I went to open the GS part just to have a look at how theirs works and ALL the scripts are empty. This is sort of a doubleU-tee-eff* moment for me. It seems like they are going out of their way to make it difficult to add value to their program (I'm sure it's not intentional but that really makes no difference to the effect).

Am I missing something? Does anybody know how to get a look at the scripts? Is there some documentation on making CW panels?

I'm sure I can figure it out, but I would really prefer not to reinvent the wheel here.

* They're censoring acronyms now.

[Frank Beister]

Someone asked for this a few weeks before in the German forum. The more or less offical answer was, that he has to start from the scratch:

Object>New>Subtype:GS Curtain Wall Panel

[Anonymous]

I was afraid of that. Charming the support we get for our efforts.

Thanks for the info. Saves me searching further.

I guess an upside is that once I'm done I'll be one of the few ArchiCAD curtain wall custom panel experts in the world. Of course that and 3 bucks will get me a cappuccino at Starbucks.

[owen]

I briefly looked into creating custom profiles and panels for the CW Tool but the total lack of documentation and complexity of objects put it on the backburner, then downstream usage in Navisworks totally killed the idea of using the CW Tool.

The CW Tool is lacking 2 key features required to make it useful for us:

1. Ability to easily create parametric extrusion profiles to be used as CW framing elements. This just needs to be a documented way (parameter names, etc) of creating a 2D polygon which the CW Tool then extrudes as members and handles all the intersections, etc internally. I understand this is not how it works currently - users are expected to script all 3D operations as part of each custom member!

2. CW Tool systems are not actually unitized curtain wall systems but more stick systems - the resulting facade does not have selectable panels rather a whole series of unconnected members and infill panels. This is a big problem for us at the moment as the contractor requires individual unitized panels be selectable. For this reason we have dropped the CW tool on a project that is most suited (45 storey office tower) and created custom objects for the curtain wall. These are then schedulable and appear as distinct elements in Navisworks for each facade panel (rather than an unconnected series of mullions, transoms and infill panels).

cheers,

owen

[Thomas Holm]

owen wrote:
I briefly looked into creating custom profiles and panels for the CW Tool but the total lack of documentation and complexity of objects put it on the backburner...

You might already have seen the link collection I did here.
If not, I especially recommend this.

[Anonymous]

Thomas wrote:

owen wrote:
I briefly looked into creating custom profiles and panels for the CW Tool but the total lack of documentation and complexity of objects put it on the backburner...

You might already have seen the link collection I did here.
If not, I especially recommend this.

Thanks very much Thomas. A wealth of useful info.

[owen]

Thanks for the links Thomas .. great find. Graphisoft should be providing this level of tutorial to their users, not leaving it up to others.

My problems with the tool still stand however - the methods above are not as parametric as I would like (e.g ability to add complexity to the extrusion at smaller scales for detailing, stretching parts of the profile rather than the whole, etc). I have a similar problem with Complex Profiles (don't get me wrong they are a great addition, but many problems)

Has anyone had any experience with using the CW Tool on 4D/5D BIM projects? How has the Curtain Wall system been handled for scheduling, sequencing etc given it is exploded into all its components?