Two story walls

[Tom Krowka]

I have some two story interior walls. How can I get the walls to show up on the second floor plan. I guess I could draw a one story wall, put in slab the same width as the wall, then draw the second story wall on top of the slab.
That seems very tedious. Isn't there somewhere I can select which floors to show the walls, like some of the other tools?

[Djordje]

Brad wrote:
With all due respect to Djordje, the simple option to have walls visible on stories where they are not located (as we have with other objects) is long, long overdue.

Oh, of course! This is definitely needed. I am tired of copying the parapet walls one storey up and exploding them.

My point was - if a structure is at a certain level, that is represented by a plan, it should be on that storey in ArchiCAD. Just like you would build it.

And no, I am not a fan of lobbying ...

[Anonymous]

Paul wrote:
Dunno if I missed your point but my understanding is that you want your walls and slab edge to appear the same colour and texture in 3d (as if its all been plastered over). If you make your walls and slab edge the same material, opengl does that for you in 3d.

Paul,
You are right about the walls and slab edges--well kind of. When I look at my multistory building in an 3D OpenGL render there are lines between the floors and the walls. Those lines do not show up in a PhotoRender.

The scenario of skinning the outside of the building is an old work around that we don't do any more now that we have machines that can quickly produce a 3D PhotoRender. Please allow me to retract the 3D part of my rant. I am loving working in 3D OpenGL and produce a PhotoRender anytime I need to show the building to other people.

Where we are still having a a problem is with 2d Exterior Elevations. We build the walls and floors as described above. When we pull the 2D Exterior Elevations we go to each view and place fills on the exterior walls and roofs. We then cut holes in the fills for doors and windows and bring the fills to the front. It is a pretty laborious process. It's not as time consuming as when I did this with a pencil but it's not as evolved as I'd like it to be.

I'd like to hear how other users tackle rendering materials on 2D Exterior Elevations.

Plus we would really, really like to be able to cut horizontal sections (plan views) at a height that we can set.

Thanks,
John

[Tom Krowka]

What I wanted was a way to balloon frame a wall two stories and show it on two floors. After reading all the posts, I had a continuous vertical wall 20' tall which showed up on the first floor, then a zero height wall that did not show up in elevations or 3D. I put the zero height wall on a layer that is on in the plan views, but off in the 3d and elevation views so I don't get any nasty lines showing up anywhere.

The problem I found with putting in a slab between the two levels of framing (if it was not ballon framed) was that, in this particular situation, the wall material, (the slab) is a different material on either side of the wall. Therefore, I would have to put in two slabs, each one with a different face to each room, half the width of the framed wall. That's just getting way to time consuming.

I'm with the wish list crowd on this one.

Thanks for all the comments.

[Anonymous]

Djordje wrote:

Tom wrote:
Thanks. I can see where it should be a wish list item for sure. If I draw zero height walls in the middle of a tall wall, won't it screw something up?

Will I see a line in the interior wall when viewed in section or an interior camera?

Tom, how would you build it?

The rule is VERY simple - what is to be shown on a plan, belongs to that storey. End of discussion. I had this same discussion with myself long ago, and decided to have the builder's approach to the problem. Saved me many a workaround, including zero thickness walls and so on.

Double and triple height walls should NOT be one wall. They in reality are not. They are also incorporating a tie beam at the level of the first floor (second to the US audience) as double height brick wall is rather unstable structrue. And so on.

IMHO, as always.

Stop drawing, start building.

If the above sounds condescending, I apologize - no offence meant.

Verry verry true!