Window/Door Associations in Complex Profiles

[Anonymous]

Issue: I drew a complete wall section as a complex profile, starting at the finish floor and up to the flashing of the parapet. The parapet has a 1.5' overhang from the finish surface of the wall. The complex profile wall looks great, and has made it very easy to cut sections anywhere in the building. However, the windows and doors that I had inserted into the wall, are associating to the overhanging element at the top of the parapet. The windows/doors are now pulled off of the wall 1.5', and I can't seem to find a parameter to fix this.

[vistasp]

Welcome to the forum, Trent.

The opening reference lines have to be set in the CP. More about that here:

http://www.archicadwiki.com/CompositeWallsWithVaryingSkinHeights

[Anonymous]

Very helpful. Problem solved. Thanks for the link.

[vistasp]

You're most welcome.

It is a good idea to put your OS and ArchiCAD version into your signature (part of your forum profile). It helps others help you better.

[David Shorter]

I'd like to add a couple of comments to this and the WIKI article.
When building a Complex Profile it is important that you always work from the origin (reference line) to the left. This will ensure that the wall 'draws' with the same relationship to the reference line as a Composite Wall.
There is also a bug which causes the Opening reference lines to be ignored by doors and windows if they encroach into a thickened base of the wall such as a skirting

[Karl Ottenstein]

David wrote:
There is also a bug which causes the Opening reference lines to be ignored by doors and windows if they encroach into a thickened base of the wall such as a skirting

I agree and also think this is a bug ... but Graphisoft does not; the situation has existed (and been complained about) since complex profiles were introduced and they seem to have no intention of fixing it.

It turns out that it is not just a thickened base that causes the problem (bug!) shown in your screenshot, David...

A door or window "reads" the thickness of the CP wall based on the D/W 'anchor'. If the anchor is at the base and the base is thickened with trim/whatever as you show ... then the reference line is ignored. Setting the D/W anchor instead to the 'head' often fixes this issue... assuming that the wall at that height has no mass "outside" of the reference line.

If, as was the case in another thread related to this issue, there is a trim piece around the entire room designed to tie the top of door and top of window trim together in a horizontal band ... the thickness of that trim piece would prevent the 'head' anchor from reading the correct thickness. So, in the case of having a base and a head extrusion, there is no happy result.

(A ridiculous workaround for the latter situation is to slightly raise the base trim ... by such a small amount that it will never be seen in any drawing or view ... and then the base anchor can 'find' the wall surface that the opening reference line is on.)

I've tried to convince Graphisoft that the reference line should be where the wall is cut under all circumstances ... and further, that the wall thickness MJST be determined by the thickness between two parallel reference lines. I have seen no forward movement on this.

The un-usability of this wall-thickness and anchor issue was seen most clearly by a client doing log home modeling. He put his reference lines where he would cut into the logs for a small reveal and achieve a fixed window/door jamb depth. But, depending on where a window was placed, the sill or head anchor read the joint between two logs and the window was inset deep into the wall on one side ... and flush on the other ... or was on the outermost surface of the wall on both sides... neither of which was as desired. (No workaround at all achieved the desired result... other than to create a duplicate fake wall and to place empty openings in the log wall... definitely NOT BIM.)

Cheers,
Karl