Modelling Giant Block EFIS

[Gerald Hoffman]

I am just wondering if anyone has an idea on the easiest way to model the giant block exterior EFIS finish on the right side of the attached image. They blocks are about 36" long x 16" deep and have a chamfered recess of about 1/2" inch or so. The EFIS foam is 1 1/2" deep. I have the CadImage Wall Accessories but it will not do the vertical cuts in an offset pattern.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

[Anonymous]

Did you try the panel cutter in the accessories tool, I not too sure if it can do offsets.

[Karl Ottenstein]

I just use TrussMaker (part of AC) for these kinds of things. In elevation, draw linework at the center of where you want the cuts, select the linework, then generate a lattice with TrussMaker. With the lattice on a 'hidden cutting object' layer, push it into the wall and use a solid element subtract to make the cut.

Won't be chamfered though. You'll never know other than in an enlarged wall section. You'd have to use a combination of complex profiled wall (horizontal cuts) and stacked complex profiled column (SEOp subtract) to obtain an arbitrary shape to the cut.

You're going to end up with many more polygons, depending on the total surface area, so make sure that you want a true 3D result.

Cheers,
Karl

[Anonymous]

There are only two ways I can think of to do this.
The first way is not truly modeling but making
a duplicate of the "Brick-Common Bond" fill pattern,
changing the dimensions to 36"x16", assigning this
fill to a duplicate of the material "Brick-Common Bond",
changing the surface color, changing the pen color of
the hatch pattern and assigning this material to your walls.

The second way is truly modeling and involves making
an object that is one foam block of the dimension you want
with a switch show a full block or half block. Array the blocks
on the surface of your walls. I tried this method starting
with a custom profiled wall 1 1/2" thick by 16" high with
1/2" chamfers at the bottom and top edges. In the plan
I drew a piece of this wall 36" long and saved it as an object.
I opened this object and cut two vertical edge chamfers
using the Cutpolya GDL cutting command.

I don't know if you know GDL but you are welcome to this
object in any case. It took very little time to make.
Peter Devlin

[Anonymous]

I just read Karl's reply and if you don't need chamfers
then TrussMaker is the way to go as it does not require
arraying individual objects.
Peter Devlin

[Gerald Hoffman]

Thank you all for your replies. I don't often ask questions and when I do I am always amazed how many people take the valuable time to answer them. I will try the truss maker idea. I am a concerned about the amount of polygons as the blocks will be the bottom 2 storeys of a fairly good size building. I can probably do without the chamfers in this case as the views will be from 100 feet away or so.

Peter, unfortunately I don't yet know any GDL, one of those things I never seem to have time to do, but if you could send me that part I will try that as well.

Danj I am pretty sure the panel cutter doesn't work to do the offset cuts but I will check again since you brought it up. I know it didn't in the AC 10 version but they may have added it. I did ask them about it a couple of years back.

Again thanks for all the input.

Cheers,

[Karl Ottenstein]

Gerald wrote:
I can probably do without the chamfers in this case as the views will be from 100 feet away or so.

I'd say so! At 100', you'd barely notice a 1/2" mortar reveal. Since you say 'views', I now read this as 'rendering'? If rendering, then Peter's solution of a custom material with a bump map is the way to go. You can use the LightWorks brick shader as opposed to a bitmap image in that case.

For the lines to show up in elevations, you just need a custom fill assigned to the material for that wall - not the polygons.

The solution I suggested with TM is to see real sun shadows and 3D reveals where part of the surface is very close to the camera, or you have enlarged sections or 3D Documents cut through the wall.... Of course, the cut lines will show up in elevation - and the shadows in renderings - too, but at a polygon cost. For the wall you described, it really shouldn't be that bad...when you consider that one of the 3D people in the library has over 6,000 polygons and your wall will still have less than that I should think. 😉

Let us know how your experiments work out.

Cheers,
Karl

[Anonymous]

If you go the custom material route, start with a duplicate of
"Brick-Running Bond" not "Brick-Common Bond" because
this fill pattern shows tie bricks every third course.
Peter Devlin

[Karl Ottenstein]

Attached is a screenshot of an example algorithmic LightWorks shader. The advantage of these shaders is that you can customize the colors, sizing, bump (no displacement yet in the screenshot shown) and much more to achieve a result that is generally cleaner than any texture (image) based shader in the ArchiCAD materials library. They tend to be so uniform that they look computer generated though - the big image based textures (such as Dosch) are superior there. But, in your stucco illustration, such subtleties would probably not be noticeable.

No photoshopping required to get the size and colors right - as you can see, everything is a parameter.

These LW shaders do NOT export. So, if one planned on using Artlantis, then instead of doing this, the block shader should be defined and applied there.

I'm sure Dwight's book talks about how to access and customize the LW shaders...

Cheers,
Karl

PS An 'Oops' in the screenshot - I was customizing the built-in 'B Running Bond' material instead of creating a new one. Imagine that I'm hitting the Cancel buton about now... 😉

[Anonymous]

The Lightworks shaders do produce good results in renderings, and you don't get pattern repeats in your textures (not necessarily relevant in this case).

You can then use a suitably sized fill for elevations, and you can render the Lightworks-shaded material and use the resulting image in the Material> Internal Engine> Texture setting, to get similar results in Open GL 3D window.

Good luck trying to get all the Origins to coincide though.