Degenrated complex profiles

[Tim Ball]

I use complex profiles a great deal, mostly with excellent success, but every now and then I hit upon a problem with degeneration. However when I check the profile there is nothing obviously wrong.

What I do notice is that when the profile is saved, AC adds a lot of additional nodes that seem unnecessary. Some of these are in locations where fills intersect so I can maybe see why those might be there, but many are along otherwise straight looking edges of fills with no intersections.

Anyone else had similar problems and hopefully solutions?

[David Shorter]

Hi Tim
A couple of things which may or may not affect your issue.

1 You have built the wall inside out, I mean the origin should be on the outside face of the wall with the various skins working inwards towards the left.
2 I can't see if you have defined the Horizontal and Vertical stretch lines (although I guess is not appropriate with this detail)
3 I cannot see if you have defined the Opening Reference.

You can only make profiles larger not smaller and if they are top/bottom linked changes in story height may cause a problem.

Just a couple of thoughts
Hope the helps

[Tim Ball]

Thanks David

Your point about the logic of building the profile from the same direction each time is well taken. I need to tidy up my act!

The opening references are fine, placed on the outside line of the weatherboarding and the plaster line. You can't adjust a profile like this but I use that feature on some others.

I have since identified one of the the faults, but it relates to an area of fill where there were 2 nodes on top of each other and you can't see that because its beyond the limits of the zoom!

It would be good to have a checking sequence as the profile is saved to warn of any defects. It can also be hard to get the regen to show up as a fault every time. AC only seems to warn you once, then ignores until there is some major change later before warning you again.

[David Shorter]

Hi Tim
Just one last thing, its important to start with the outside at the origin and build skins inwards to the left. If its built that way switching from a complex to a composite or simple wall will maintain the relationship of wall to reference line.
Unfortunately the default INT template has a few walls built to wrong way around. (last time I looked)
I too love the complex profile

[Erwin Edel]

I've had problems with these type of complex profiles before.

Most commons causes:
- holes in the profile; solution: fill them with 'air' building material fills
- unnecessary nodes on fills (what should be one straight segment is made up of several segments); solution: get rid of them, check the fills that touch eachother for this

It is very important to draft neatly and precise for these kind of profiles. Fills not touching or segments at a 89.99 degree angle can cause problems.

I've had colleagues who would just copy and paste product detail DWG drawings and take it from there. These files are typically riddled with faulty linework and unprecise measurements. Definitely not something you want to extrude along long walls in your model.

Even if the profile does not give warnings, if there are any of these problems, you can be setting yourself up for long rebuild times in floor plan view, though this might be fixed since we last had these problems (around ArchiCAD 14).