article on 3 methods of intersecting walls and slabs

[Anonymous]

I'm looking for an article the explained three methods of intersecting exterior walls and slabs (floors). At least one of the 3 methods gave details on how the intersection can be done so the section renders properly. I'd like to start using that method.
Can anyone point me to that article or give me some tips on how to model my walls and slabs so they render properly in the section view?
Thank you,
John

[Djordje]

Achille wrote:
Also I don't know how to express this... but I think it goes against the philosophy of Archicad. I mean that AC has a lot of parametres in its tools like doors, windows and stairs that allow for the computation of floor finishing that in my opinion indicates that the "correct" way is to use composite s

I said "construction wise". When the composite parts start appearing in calculations, and quantities can be extracted without Property objects, then yes.

As long as your model serves for the documentation and visualization only, and does not leave your office or is detailed out beyond the necessary, all is well with composites.

[Anonymous]

It is more work, but not much more. For recent projects it took me perhaps 10 to 20 minutes to model floors and ceilings, including the floor space inside the door. It does not require SEOs, which is always great for speed and mainly for exporting to other softwares.

On an early stage of design I do a single slab for all the floors and another for the ceilings, and only get into detail once the design is fairly stabilized. Still, you can easily manage design changes if you use smart layer combinations and the marquee tool, even if a wall or a door changes it's place. For instance, for ceilings I use the zones as references and not the walls.

I agree this is not the ideal workflow. Zones should be able to produce these and other finishes automatically (I know of the Interior Wizard Add-on, it is not quite what I mean). But I find the ROI quite high, when compared with other methods.

As for quantities, my experience is that Zones are the best way of extracting them for construction purposes, because they update automatically, take into account doors and windows, and are localized by compartment (a great way to control execution on site). So the method I described is not indispensable for quantity extraction, but for drawings, namely sections.

[Achille Pavlidis]

I tottaly agree. Zones are much more efficient for quantity take-offs, and the use of multiple slabs for the floor finishes is extra work.

So for what reason -other than visualization- is it best to use this method?

[Anonymous]

Not visualisation, drawing documentation. As far as I know, for buildings with concrete slabs, it is the best way to produce automatic section in detailed scales.

Using only compositions can get messy. For instance if you have 5 types of floor finishes, 5 different structural slab heights, and 5 different ceilings, you get 125 different combinations, i.e., 125 compositions. And a single project can have much more types of floor finishes, or even a LOT of different heights for ceilings.

On the other hand, having inner brick walls that are build on top of the structural slab means that you would have to use complex walls (with risen finishes) SEOing into the floor slabs. That is a complex profile/SEO situation, which will get you into a whole new slew of problems (zones, wall finishes, export into IFC, slowing the model down).

But if there is another way of cleaning sections up, hey, I will be happy to give it a try

[Achille Pavlidis]

But this kind of detail only shows in scales smaller than 1/50. For sections I use composites that are modeled with different slab thiknesses and a generic fill for the floor finish, that doesn't go into detail for the material as it is not required for the 1/50 scale.

Then on 1/20, 1/10 detail I draw the exact floor detailing.

[Anonymous]

For the 1:50 scale, and even 1:100, floor finishes thickness is relevant in sections. For instance, there is a big difference between a wooden floor and a linoleum, or a ceramic and a stone.

This could be something that is a localized problem, but in Portugal it is common to go into great detail even in those scales. Nowadays the drawings are also delivered in digital format, that allow zooming, so even for people with tired eyesight (like me) it is easy to read that kind of detail from a drawing.

Attached is a simple example of a 1:50 section.