Making compound walls

[Anonymous]

My first post!

Hello, I am a brand new user and have been stumbling my way through trying to learn AC10. I have a couple of questions if someone doesn't mind me asking...

1. Making walls.

I understand that you can easily select new wall types from the wall settings dialog, but I am interested in knowing how to construct new wall types that show their materials in plan and possibly in 3D? I see there is a selection for compound walls, but I have no idea how to create my own. I have demo-ed Revit and understand the processes of making new wall types and wonder if it is something that I am just completely missing? Must I use the profile tool? Can more than 3 materials be shown in the 3D window (i.e. front, top, sides?)

2. Editing a wall profile.

Again, this was a little more straight-forward in Revit, but I am not comparing here, just want to understand the AC workflow. I see that I must use a wall cutting SEO element (mass, roof...)and hide that layer. Perfect, I understand that...but can you modify the profile in an elevation view? I would like to create a mass perpendicular to the face of the wall, do a simple SEO to reshape the wall to what I would like. Am I not doing this correctly? Is there a way to rotate your working plane perpendicular to the face of the element you want to cut?

Thank you in advance for any advice and help.

-Eric

[Link]

Start by looking at Design>Complex Profiles>Profile Manager. You can the assign these profiles to walls (and beams and columns) using the 'Complex' wall complexity option under the Geometry and Positioning panel of the wall tool.

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

OK, I understand building new wall in section, as opposed to constructing it in plan (ala Revit). That's cool, I can do that, thanks for the pointer.

But, is there an easier solution to cutting walls, modifying their profiles with polylines converted to masses (or??) to act as cutting elements in elevation?

Thanks everyone!

[Link]

Not sure I follow. You can use the Profile Manager to modify profiles of existing walls.

You may have to draw me a picture.

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

If i understand you correctly you simpley want to know how to make a new composite. Go to menu Option/Element Attributes/Composites. You can then create multiple layered walls.

The composite will show in 2d and 3d when cut.

The next level up from this is via profile manager as Link has pointed out.

In your second point, editing a wall profile. There is no way to edit it in elevation as you would in revit. This is actually a great feature of revit (despite in my opinion all its other short comings). You need to create shapes and subtract/add them using solid element operations.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the help! I understand a little better now for making my own wall types.

On the other hand, I am amazed that ArchiCAD has gotten to its 10th release cycle and has no way of easily editing objects in elevation, section and 3d.

I feel like this program has so much over its competition, yet lacks VERY basic commands. I did a little more searching and found that you cannot rotate objects in 3D to make them perpendicular to another object you want to modify as an SEO? Well, at least you can't do it very easily? (i.e. Objective add-on?)

Surely, I am not seeing the easy way to do this...

Thanks again for all the input, though. You guys have really helped.