tip on creating custom cills

[Haneef Tayob]

Hello
Here's a quick way to create custom cills, without having much GDL knowledge.

1. Create your custom cill profile using the slab, wall or any 3d tool. If your wall is 230mm thick, your profile has to occupy the full wall + any cill overlaps. Try to have the correct material settings.

2. View the cill in elevation from the top & save it as as a gdl object.

3. Place the newly created object on your plan. The plan view should be an elevational view of the cill.

4. Save this elevational view as a WINDOW.

5. You can now insert the cill as a WINDOW OBJECT and place it below any of your other windows. A hole to suit the cill will automatically be cut.

I know it's not as elegant as a cill which is automatically attached to a window, but it works. Another drawback is that you have to create a unique cill for each wall thickness you intend using. With some gdl substition, I've managed to parametrically set internal wall material, internal cill material, external cill material, etc.

If people are really interested and require it, I'll try to post some images of the steps I've done as well as results.

regards
Haneef

[Anonymous]

Making a sills and lintels is also an excellent way to get into writing GDL. It can be a simple block statement to start and get more elaborate as one's proficiency improves. This way you can have one part that is parametric and suitable for any walls, windows, and doors (in the case of lintels).

I actually prefer to use separate parts for the window (and door) surrounds in masonry walls as these will generally be consistent throughout (and often unique to) the project while the door and window units will often vary widely and may come from different libraries (whatever gets the job done).

Wow! This just gave me a great idea for the wish list. See you there. Look for "New Door & Window Features"

[Aussie John]

You can use the "call" statment to have the window include your new sill!!

[Anonymous]

Aussie wrote:
You can use the "call" statment to have the window include your new sill!!

But I have no interest in revising all the different windows from various sources that I end up using with my various clients. I prefer to have standard sills and lintels that I can add to any window without having to make custom parts.

[TomWaltz]

that only works if the sill does not have parameters, or if you have some method of filling them out in the window setup.

[tsturm]

I can see plus and minus to each method.

Separate objects mean less time spent adding features to existing library of doors and windows.

what is the readability of stacked openings in the plan view? what happens if a window is moved to a new spot. How are sill and lintels moved when an opening is moved?

Can you group wall openings to move at same time? So a window with a separate sill and lintel opening can be moved as if it were a single object.

What would be the negative issues if you reversed the process of calling a door or window from a lintel object. then you do not have to change all your doors and windows but the lintel and sill move with the door or window.

[Anonymous]

tsturm wrote:
I can see plus and minus to each method.

Separate objects mean less time spent adding features to existing library of doors and windows.

what is the readability of stacked openings in the plan view? what happens if a window is moved to a new spot. How are sill and lintels moved when an opening is moved?

The separate elements need to be managed separately. This is the main problem with the technique. The problems with stacked units are different from those with coincident ones and involve different work-arounds.

Can you group wall openings to move at same time? So a window with a separate sill and lintel opening can be moved as if it were a single object.

Since doors and windows have no separate existence from the walls they are placed in, it is not possible to group them. They belong to whatever group(s) the wall belongs to. It is possible to move them together using the marquee; select all window and/or doors inside a marquee and drag them together.

What would be the negative issues if you reversed the process of calling a door or window from a lintel object. then you do not have to change all your doors and windows but the lintel and sill move with the door or window.

You still have the problem of writing serious GDL code in order set up and pass the necessary parameters to the called window. It sounds nightmarish to me.

[Aussie John]

unless you wish to acept the default parameters you need to add any of the remote parameters to the window/door you are calling from. This is tricky if the objects have differing parameters.

On the other hand if you only need to call up the A,B & zzxyz parameters it is relatively easy, since every object uses these.

[Anonymous]

Aussie wrote:
On the other hand if you only need to call up the A,B & zzxyz parameters it is relatively easy, since every object uses these.

Minor but important point; it's ZZYZX for the standard 3D height parameter.