high level walls: their treatment for production information

[__archiben]

i was just wondering if anybody could offer advice on how to treat higher level stair landing walls that differ from the main plan walls from a production information point of view:

the stair landings themselves obviously don't warrant their own story, however in the example (attached) the external door is recessed to door height only. it is this that we need to show on all floor plan drawings.

however in producing stair core, (and other mezzanine level), drawings, the wall plan at higher levels is back out on the main external wall line (i.e. no recess). there are many other similar instances in this particular job and not all are recessed doorways; some are overhangs, some are recesses of a different nature, however they all share the same property: the wall line changes vertically within the same story.

the issues are:
1. we need flexibility to draw and adjust landing level walls for production information without them interfering with wall intersections on the main floor plans. the landing level walls themselves also need to be able to clean up to their adjacent walls that may or may not be full-height, main floor plan walls.

2. we don't want to redraw entire plan layouts on another, dedicated "landings, etc" layer. (any duplicated information is dangerous for obvious reasons). >90% of the main walls run through full height anyway. it's only the minority that change.

3. intuitive editing. this is a large, long running job. staff are likely to change, as are the walls themselves! the people coming in need to pick up how to edit this information easily.

i guess what i'm after is advice on the most efficient way of producing and maintaining this type of information.

i hope i've sounded coherent here: it's proving more difficult to figure out than it sounds. has anybody worked with similar issues and found a good way of resolving it?

~/archiben

[Aussie John]

here is what i do
1) select all the walls
2)make a libarary part
3)open the library part and delete the 3d script
4)copy full view and paste into 2d symbol
5) delete 2d script
(note hotspots are created on all intersections of lines)

6)create a new storey for all mezzanine and hight level walls
7) place wall object on storey for the the lower level walling
Model in all high level walls windows and doors

[__archiben]

thanks john

however, i was really looking for a way of keeping the wall information live for the duration, without complex layer management.

i guess that even using layer management doesn't really work anyway because of the wall intersections thing. the only way to ensure clean wall intersections in the right places would still be copying the whole lot onto a new layer and assigning it a different group intersection number... and then of course the information isn't quite live because 90% of the work on the walls with take place on the main floor plan wall layers and the high levels will be forgotten.

also, the use of new stories is not really viable. there are quite a few instances of differing high level walls, but they don't cover enough area to warrant stuffing up the project organisation by inserting lots of new stories. it's big enough as it is!

i was trying to think if there was an easy (read: efficient and intuitive) way to do this whilst keeping the management of it to a minimum. i don't think that there is.

you're right in suggesting the format of the information: if there is going to be duplicates it should be 2D to keep the size down. using an object further reduces the fuss in the project file itself.

it's just that when the main floor plan walls move, it relies on a team mate having the time and the inclination to reproduce the 2D object before the next issue of the landing plans. dimensioning also presents a problem in that using a 2D object most of the associativety gets lost.

patches are another idea, although i really don't want to be going down that route. . . do i?

what am i missing? this ought to be easy, shouldn't it? or am i making too much of a minor problem?

~/archiben

[Anonymous]

however, i was really looking for a way of keeping the wall information live for the duration, without complex layer management.

May I suggest drawing landing slab & walls with dashed lines but al ath correct heights. Seting different layer priorities and putting landing components on their layer should solve the cleanup.

Then treat the landings as a detail elsewhere. This could even be a hotlinked module.

Bruce Haniel

[Erika Epstein]

however, i was really looking for a way of keeping the wall information live for the duration, without complex layer management.

i guess that even using layer management doesn't really work anyway because of the wall intersections thing. the only way to ensure clean wall intersections in the right places would still be copying the whole lot onto a new layer and assigning it a different group intersection number... and then of course the information isn't quite live because 90% of the work on the walls with take place on the main floor plan wall layers and the high levels will be forgotten.

also, the use of new stories is not really viable. there are quite a few instances of differing high level walls, but they don't cover enough area to warrant stuffing up the project organisation by inserting lots of new stories. it's big enough as it is!

i was trying to think if there was an easy (read: efficient and intuitive) way to do this whilst keeping the management of it to a minimum. i don't think that there is.

[__archiben]

HANIEL wrote:
May I suggest drawing landing slab & walls with dashed lines but al ath correct heights. Seting different layer priorities and putting landing components on their layer should solve the cleanup.l

bruce, thanks. my problem was in my perceived idea of how group intersections work. some of the walls that have to be shown at high level are also the same as the walls at low level. i essentially had 3 layers of walls: A full height walls, B low level only walls + C high level only walls. . .

• A & B need to clean up for main floor plan information. C needs to be hidden and not cleaning up with either A or B as the intersections will still show.

• however, A & C also need to clean up to each other for high level/landing information, with B hidden and not intersecting with A or C in this case.

can you see the problem (that i thought i had)? well i hadn't realised that group intersections could be saved with a layer combination. i thought that they were global, and once set fixed across the whole project. i can assign these two different intersection priorities to different layer combinations already set up and it works just fine now!

i also discovered the "Intersections in Layer Combinations" tool at the same time. nesting by default in the 'goodies' folder, and loadable as an add-on, it changes the intersection priorities of all of the shown layers to '1' and hidden layers to '2' automatically - emulating "visibility-based intersections" of older versions. useful, i guess, if you have a whole host of complex layers having to clean up with different combinations of each other at different times . .

~/archiben
(btw - erika . . . thanks )

[Karl Ottenstein]

~/archiben wrote:
can you see the problem (that i thought i had)? well i hadn't realised that group intersections could be saved with a layer combination. i thought that they were global, and once set fixed across the whole project. i can assign these two different intersection priorities to different layer combinations already set up and it works just fine now!

Hi Ben,

I've been reading this thread from the sidelines, not seeing an easy solution to the problem you originally posed. Forgot about intersection priorities being saved with combos ... hadn't needed it before, but it'll stick in my memory now. This will resolve your issues with plan views and probably elevation as well ... but what does the model look like in 3D? If you use the priorities that clean with one of the upper or lower wall, then isn't there a 45 degree bevel gap on the outside of the uncleaned wall?

Karl

[SeaGeoff]

Karl wrote:
... but what does the model look like in 3D? If you use the priorities that clean with one of the upper or lower wall, then isn't there a 45 degree bevel gap on the outside of the uncleaned wall

Yes. Both 3D and sections can be affected by this and it can be a pain to work around.

Paul King addresses this in Wishes-->Walls that can join cleanly in 2 directions simultaneously. Check it out.

[__archiben]

Karl wrote:
This will resolve your issues with plan views and probably elevation as well ... but what does the model look like in 3D? If you use the priorities that clean with one of the upper or lower wall, then isn't there a 45 degree bevel gap on the outside of the uncleaned wall?

karl

remember this post was started from a production information perspective . . . but the same principle can be used for 3D/section information.

we have layer combinations set up based on drawing series numbers, regardless of how many of them hold duplicate information. this way ensures that a person is working on producing the correct drawing. all that is needed therefore is for A, B and C to all clean up to each other in section drawing series combinations, and 3D working combinations . . .

the drawback (as stated in the blurb about the "Intersections in Layer Combinations" add-on) is that switching between these combinations in a model view requires a full rebuild.

~/archiben

[Erika Epstein]

"~/archiben" wrote:
i was just wondering if anybody could offer advice on how to treat higher level stair landing walls that differ from the main plan walls from a production information point of view:

the stair landings themselves obviously don't warrant their own story, however in the example (attached) the external door is recessed to door height only. it is this that we need to show on all floor plan drawings.

Hi,
I apparantly messed up in how I posted my resonse yesterday ...
If I understand you correctly, what about putting these items like landings on a "hide in 2D layer". I often use such a layer for landings and trims which I want to see in 3D views but not in plan or reflected ceiling plan (RCP)?