Tip: Fill timber sections with an 'x'

[jamespage11]

Hi.

Has anyone else worked out a quick and easy way to do this?

(see picture)

The convention, in South Africa at least (not too sure about the rest of the world), for showing new timber in section is with a cross from corner to corner, but I have to touch up "by hand" all my purlins, rafters, wall plates, etc, etc, etc in section and it can be a bit tedious. I thought I might be able to create a new fill that could stretch to fill the cut surface rather than tile, but that doesn't seem to be possible.

Any suggestions?

[Link]

All is not lost! If you fill the inside of the 'X' with an empty fill, it should nullify the polygon count issue.

Perhaps Karl forgot that, as he was the one that alluded to it when we first tried it years ago!

Cheers,
Link.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Link wrote:
All is not lost! If you fill the inside of the 'X' with an empty fill, it should nullify the polygon count issue.

True, that magic-wanding a will will get rid of the polygon count issue most of the time. (Not all of the time, as it seems that some times magic wanding a curved area results in a curved fill that does not precisely align with the original - depends on magic wand settings/etc.)

But, there are other reasons to do it the way I illustrated earlier in this thread with four triangles using 2 different fills - the hotspots / lines are in the 'right' location if you need to dimension any enlarged wall sections/etc.

Like everything else in modeling - I just think it is best to do things precisely to avoid any possible issues later. Creating linework in section via minuscule gaps, even if zoomed in and filled with another fill, is just asking for problems down the road, I think. 😉

Cheers,
Karl

[BradJAllen19]

I've been using the method of different fills in a complex profile to create the 'X' in section as suggested above and actually used the the technique by ContraBim of creating a chamfered corner so multi-ply studs and beams are defined in 3D more clearly.  Up until now this has worked well for me.  The problem is that we are in the process of implementing Vertex BD which is a 3rd party software for creating detailed framing drawings and outputting to CNC machines for cutting and assembly (similar to ArchiFrame but way more intuitive in my opinion.)

We are exporting an IFC model and then converting the walls, floors roofs and beams into Vertex objects which works smoothly for the most part.  The exception is with my beams or columns that were placed in AC.  If I convert one of these complex profiles into a Vertex profile the IFC model splits each fill into (4) separate triangle shaped profiles.  I get around it by only converting one of the profiles but it is quite annoying because I have to make sure I choose the same triangle for each one or they end up at different reference levels.

For columns you can just use a rectangle and turn on the crosshairs set to an 'X' but there is no way I can see to do the same for beams.  This would be very useful for visualization purposes before exporting for the framing model to be produced. 

It's probably a lot more complicated to incorporate a simple 'X' when beams are shown in section in AC than I realize and maybe that's why it's not done yet but I feel like there would be enough people with this want to make it worth while for Graphisoft to try and add it in an updated version.  And maybe a tick box in the column/beam floorplan & section settings to prevent fills from merging if they are in say two beams that are adjacent to each other as in a multi-ply wood beam or column.  Or maybe that would be in the fill settings when creating the complex profile.