Priority based connections

[KeesW]

I attach a priority based connection in AC17. Priority numbers are shown. the wall with insulation is a composite construction. It is clear that there nearly nothing right with this drawing. Why? It is driving me mad and I am not able to complete this project with AC17.

My next version uses a legacy version of the same drawing and it is not much better.

[KeesW]

Here is the previous drawing in legacy format.

[gpowless]

What is the value of the stud projected below the timber and the value of the floor empty space?

[KeesW]

There is no protruding stud. The composite comprises an outer and inner skin separated by insulation. Studs occur every 450 mm and would distort the thermal properties of the composite wall. Therefore I use insulation as the separator so that it will calculate correctly.

I've got no value for the empty floor space between the joists - should I have?

[Steve Jepson]

I don't know much about Priority Based Connections but from what I do know so far, I don't think I would ever want to use it.

Buildings are made of modular manufactured parts. I try to create a virtual building modeled with virtual parts that match real world products.

The model views show me if things are in the correct place and if they fit together. If they are automatically adjusting to connect, you can't see if it fits or not.

If my walls are 9'-1 1/8" from bottom plate to top of dbl plate because I am using 104 5/8" studs and 54" wide drywall, I don't what those wall heights automatically adjusting to fit the floor joists or sub floor. I want to move the floor and ceiling components to fit the wall. That sort of thing.

I am not modeling free-from mud huts with random sticks and want everything to automatically connect.

What I would rather have than automatic priority based connections is manually adjustable skins.

[Anonymous]

"manually adjustable skins".
I like that idea.
Kind of like mastering photography; (analog or digital)
turn the auto settings OFF!

[Steve Jepson]

lec1212 wrote:
"manually adjustable skins".
I like that idea.
Kind of like mastering photography; (analog or digital)
turn the auto settings OFF!

Sadly, I have very little hope for Manually Adjusted Composite Skins.

The reason is that this seems like something the ArchiCAD programmers would have implemented a long time ago if they were going to do it. As it is now they seem to have chosen to try and do with settings what might otherwise have been done by manually adjusting the skins when needed.
Now they are committed to all kinds of compensations/workarounds like Priority Based Connections, Intersect Priorities, Junction Order, Layer Intersect Numbers, etc... all of these settings are getting to be too much bother if you ask me. Why they don't want to eliminate some of that by making the Composite Skins manually adjustable I don't know. I think we should be able to simply click on as skin and a similar skin in another Composite and connect them with the Intersect Tool. I would like them adjustable in 3D and 2D as well.

I would also like to have a toggle for connecting and disconnecting Composite Skins. We should be able to go to any Composite intersection and tweak the skin connections with out all the complicated and often frustrating settings and configurations. It should be a very simple thing to
select a Skin and have it connect or disconnect with a similar skin like it was and independent wall or slab.

There would be no more problems with clean ups and such if we could do this seemingly very simple thing.

Personally, I like modeling but I hate fussing with the settings which seems like there are more and more of with each new release.

[Link]

KeesW wrote:
I attach a priority based connection in AC17. Priority numbers are shown. the wall with insulation is a composite construction. It is clear that there nearly nothing right with this drawing. Why? It is driving me mad and I am not able to complete this project with AC17.

My next version uses a legacy version of the same drawing and it is not much better.

I agree that this should all clean up automatically using PBC, but you can still achieve what you want quite easily by using solid element operations with the joists and stem wall on the composite wall.

Unfortunately PBC doesn't work as we'd always expect or hope in section.

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

One of the reasons I think manually adjustable composite skins would be difficult to achieve, what do you do for a wall with a raking top, for instance?

[Laszlo Nagy]

With the Shell Tool you can define a boundary and any number of holes for it. These are part of the definition of the Shell.
I would love to see this implemented in other element types as well, especially Walls. You could select the side of a Wall, draw its side contour and ArchiCAD would take that as a boundary. You can to that now with creating that boundary using another element then doing a SEO with them. However, you will have to manage the SEO operator, making sure it is moved whenever the Wall is moved. With the Shell Tool the Boundary polygon and the hole polygons are part of the Shell's geometry definition.

And then the next step would be the ability to do this for every skin of a Composite Structure separately, so we could individually shape any skin of any composite wall, Slab, Roof, Shell to the geometry of our liking. It would also report correct quantities in Interactive Schedule, would export correctly as IFC etc. It would be very very nice indeed.

And actually, thinking about it, I think it could be implemented for Complex Profiled elements as well, the basic operation would be the same, maybe selecting skins in a Complex Profile would be a bit harder because a skin can be anywhere within the geometry of the Complex Profile, it is not like Composites which are all parallel skins, but it could be doable.