Elliptical walls

[wile e coyote genius]

While I have no problems creating elliptical lines for reference I can't find a way to create an elliptical wall. There doesn't seem to be a tool to do that. Is there a tool for doing this? Any and all help appreciated.

Regards

[DGSketcher]

Walls don't do ellipses, but they do arcs. The closest you will get is to draw your reference ellipse, select the wall tool and then Magic Wand the reference. The result will be an approximate ellipse made up of arcs.  

[Steve Jepson]

Draw ellipse - Select Wall - hold down the Space Bar ( magic wand) - click on the Ellipse. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_DghcEjWSY

The number of wall segments you get is determined by your magic wand settings.

[wile e coyote genius]

Thank you to DGSketcher and Steve Jepson. your solution worked perfectly. Another lesson learned by me. Again, thanks for the help.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Just be aware that when you create this "elliptical" Wall, it will create multiple Curved Wall elements. If you place a Door, Window or Opening into this "elliptical" Wall, it will place them into one of the Wall elements and if the Door, Window or Opening overlaps into another Wall segment, a hole must be cut from that one as well. In the case of an Opening element, you can just add the Wall to the elements cut by the Opening. In the case of Doors/Window, you have to place an additional empty Door/Window hole into the second Wall element because Archicad Door/Windows cut their holes out of only the Wall element they are placed into by default, and they cannot be associated to more than one Wall (unlike the Opening element, which can cut multiple elements).

[wile e coyote genius]

Hello Laszlo:

As you indicated the "windows/doors elements will only cut one wall element as I have found out trying to place windows and doors. You indicated that the "openings" element can cut multiple elements why wouldn't windows and doors be capable of doing the same thing? As for the elliptical wall, when I create an elliptical reference line it is drawn as a single element so why can't the wall element create the wall as a single element as opposed to many arc segments? Thanks for the assisstance.

[Hmooslechner]

Bricklayers dont like ellipses - they like to get near the form of ellipses with the basket-arc construction-methodes to get very simple arcs for constructing nearly the same. Circular arced walls are much simpler to operate than little arced wallparts to simulate an  elliptical wall. You get much bigger arced-wallparts with the benefit of much easier implemention of openings. like this: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogen_(Architektur)#/media/Datei:Korbbogen_aus_fünf_Mittelpunkten_a.jp...

This construction of corse is shown in an opening, but it would work also in groundlevel for placing walls

[wile e coyote genius]

I agree, bricklayers (which some of my pals are) don't like elliptical shapes and for that matter curved shapes period as bricks don't come in curved varieties. In my case I am using poured concrete walls to which curved forms are normal and are usually custom. Going back to bricks, the only reason bricks aren't curved is due to the method of how bricks are typically manufactured. Unfortunately each curve dimension would require its own tooling which is not financially feasible. When someone changes the manufacturing method to allow for making curve bricks of any radii on the same tooling bricks will stay straight. Anyways, thanks for the info, it is appreciated.

[Laszlo Nagy]

The Opening tool is relatively new (introduced in AC24) so I think this functionality of being able to cut multiple elements could be designed and implemented for it. Door/Windows are very old element types and this new capability (cutting multiple elements) was not implemented for them as well so this became an inconsistency between tools.

Walls do not have an "elliptic" Geometry Method. However, the Arc/Circle tool lets you draw an Ellipse, which you can then SPACE-click to create the Wall geometry. But since Walls can not be elliptic, the best Archicad can do is approximate the ellipse with curved Wall segments.

As far as I am concerned, the best would be for all tools to be capable of creating elliptic or even spline segments just as 2D linear element types can. Hopefully there will be a time when this will be possible to do.