What do you use Complex Profiles for??

[Anonymous]

Good day,

I'm just getting into using complex profiles and I'm starting to develop a good list of favorites for our office. As of now, I only have some complex profiles for foundation walls with a footing and sill plate.

I am wondering, what do you use complex profiles for? I would think that you wouldn't use them for floors (as you can use the slab tool pretty nicely) or other parts of the building that can be easily modeled with other parts of the program, though I may be completely wrong on this.

Reply away...

[Erika Epstein]

Peter wrote:

Erika wrote:
Not that this might be a better or worse scenario, but you could apply steel profiles to the parts of a CW system.

To be honest, I think this would be even more awkward and fiddly to set up than just using the standard tools. It needs to be much more specialised than this to be useful.

I wonder if anyone has made a wish for a steelwork system tool? I would be happy to flesh out what I think is required in a separate thread.

I was suggesting an option, not necessarily endorsing it. CW can be useful for many elements. For example steel parts for railing.

Like you, I prefer to use the steel library parts and for the same reasons. Library parts may not stretch, but they are easily Shortened as well as lengthened and can be collectively edited with the help of Find & Select.

[Arcadia]

GeNOS wrote:
my sound kinda simple, but the one i use it for in EVERY job is fascia and gutter.. this is by far a must if your doing residential stuff.

This must be extremely fiddly. Invest in the cadimage accessory tools and you can put roof cladding, battens, flashings, gutter, fascia, eave and soffit linings and downpipes on your whole building in about 5 minutes (or even less if its a simple roof and you have your fave's set up properly).

[Rick Thompson]

Arcadia wrote:
This must be extremely fiddly.

Actually not in my experience. I find the Profile tool extremely useful for gutters and fascia. No objects to deal with, and it is very simple to list with a property object, compared to objects. I would say a matter of seconds to place on a roof. I do use objects for rake trim, and that is fiddly, but the options are limited there, but for gutters and fascia, its very quick and easy. If you save it as a favorite, even easier, (however I tend to copy/paste from a template pln I leave running at all times on another monitor). I find a wall is much easier to place than stretching an object to fit, especially at corners.

[Dwight]

To Rick:

Because of your experience with this level of detail, have you ever considered the implications of using the complex profile as a tilted beam to do the rake trim instead of an object?

[Rick Thompson]

No I haven't, simply due to force of habit and trying to keep all my files as consistent as possible (due to the nature of what I do). I will look into it though, good suggestion. The object actually works very well, and I can place it quickly, despite it requiring several adjustments between plan and elevation. I suspect the Profile want be quicker, but if I can quantify it more easily, that would be great. Being on an angle, I have to actually place a "fake" wall the right horizontal length to extract the quantity.

I have found my "force of habit" over the years to cause me to resist incorporating new features for a while, because when I do, I usually end up trying to make the older files consistent, and that take a lot of time:) The vast majority of time I am evolving or modifing an older pln, so it comes in with those older methods. Updating to a new version seems to be a continuous process for me.