Materials, composites+intersection priorities

[Anonymous]

Is it me or has GS made a bit of an error in assigning intersection priorities to materials when in fact they should be assigned to each construction element and the skins of composite structures?

Does any one know why its better for materials to carry the IP parameter or why GS chose not to assign to wall, slab, roof etc elements?

Seems to me this would be far more logical, am I wrong?

-Your custom made composite structures could have IP values assigned to each skin.

-When you create a construction element that isn't a composite structure or from your favourites list, you either assign an IP value, or a default one is assigned.

-there could be a dedicated parameter transfer tool to inject IP values across construction elements that share the same IP value, to save time.

Am I the only one that really likes the IP idea but feels its some how not implemented correctly, is this the reason why?

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thought experiment:

Imagine if you created a project from scratch, assigning IP values to construction elements until your IPs are correct.
Thats it, they are set.
You can now change materials,fills, finishes, insulation, etc test out different materials across the project without disturbing your carefully worked out IPs.

Isn't this far more logical in terms of work flow?

[Matt Balaam]

strawbale wrote:
Thanks for your response Matt, it helps me understand why people prefer BM to carry the IP parameter.

In response to your point about needing to insert a new skin between IP 14 and 15, would this still be the case if skins and construction elements had a range of 900? It seems that you are comparing the old IP system with a very limited IP range with the new BM system that has a much larger therefore flexible range.

You are right, the fact we now have 1000 IP values does greatly reduce this possibility although it could still occur in some instances. The argument still holds true however that making a change to the IPs can be applied much easier under the new system. There are still a lot of cases where you would want to apply a change to every profile.

strawbale wrote:
As for your second point, I dont know how everyone else works and maybe Im doing it wrong but I have a BM library that has multiple instances of the exact same BM but duplicated with a different IP strength depending on where in the structure the BM is to be placed. I very often need to create a new "version" of a BM to put it in a different part of the structure and still work correctly for the IP. In which case I need to remember what all the other IP strengths are so as not to mess up IP collisions in the rest of the model. This doesn't seem very logical to me.

We do have a few duplicated BMs, mostly for brickwork, however these are only to control which skin takes precedence in a multi-skinned wall.

With the new system you no longer need to 'remember' what the other IP settings are because they are right there in the BM editor window. Often duplicated profiles will also have almost the same name so they will appear next to each other in the list making it even easier to compare.

You can also order the BMs by IP by clicking the header at the top of the list. This lets you very quickly and easily see which BMs take precedence over each other across the whole project.

strawbale wrote:
There is the potential to create a proper method of correctly establishing structural relationships between building elements using a project map in the Navigator menu, something far more sophisticated and intuitive than a simple numerical IP value.

I would think this would involve a lot of manual work creating all of the relationships etc. and could easily become quite tedious and limiting. Once set up, the new IP system means that everything just works and all IPs can be compared and adjusted in a single dialogue box.

[Barry Kelly]

Matt wrote:
We do have a few duplicated BMs, mostly for brickwork, however these are only to control which skin takes precedence in a multi-skinned wall.

Ditto.
Plus a few different ones for concrete so you can control whether they merge in section or not.

Matt wrote:
You can also order the BMs by IP by clicking the header at the top of the list. This lets you very quickly and easily see which BMs take precedence over each other across the whole project.

You can also just drag the BM around in the list (when sorting by priority) and the strength will automatically adjust itself to the average of the other material priorities around it.

Barry.

[Matt Balaam]

Barry wrote:
You can also just drag the BM around in the list (when sorting by priority) and the strength will automatically adjust itself to the average of the other material priorities around it.

Nice tip! Didn't know that one.