wall priority help

[Anonymous]

not sure i understand exactly how wall priorities work..what exactly would be the correct priorities for this intersection to be accurate?

[__archiben]

KeesW wrote:
Or default priorities could be automatically determined by the materials used. For example, internal plasterboard lining are always connected. Brick or block walls always connect rather than being interupted by a plasterboard layer. Note I used the word 'default'. The option to alter priorities should probably remain available for masochists, refined intellectuals, or those with lots of time working in a non-commercial environment.

that is indeed the ideal development direction for this type of thing: 'physical' material definitions that automatically take their attributes through to any required level of interaction within the model. until then, i remain a faithful masochist: working my skin definitions based on the hierarchy i outlined earlier . . . and leaving only number 16 available for the commercial-environment-friday-afternoon-issue-manual-over-ride times . . .

philip - i rarely use a plain ol' vanilla wall as a wall anymore. i define composite structures for walls containing even only one skin. there are benefits that include being able to choose walls based on descriptions grounded in reality, and being able to lock fill orientation to the wall orientation rather than to the project origin.

what's needed is a bit of rigour when setting them up and expanding them . . . and you need to always ensure that the priority over-ride toggle in the wall 'floor plan and section' settings are set to always 'enable skin priorities'.

HTH
~/archiben

[Anonymous]

KeesW wrote:
I am sorry to say this but wall priorities are a nightmare...

I am afraid that I have to agree. All the various intersection controls are desirable features, but they should remain in the background while walls generally work as they should and be invoked (resorted to) only in the exceptional cases as needed. Of course I think this is how all software should work - unfortunately very little actually does.

[Anonymous]

~/archiben wrote:
...

... philip - i rarely use a plain ol' vanilla wall as a wall anymore. i define composite structures for walls containing even only one skin. ...


... what's needed is a bit of rigour when setting them up and expanding them . . .
~/archiben

I agree with your approach. Most of my composites are a legacy copied across from previous versions. Unfortunately the way that 10 treats these is not as reliable as it could be. The lesson I think is to re-create the composites with due care in version 10.

"Just because it worked before, don't assume it will work now!"

[KeesW]

I guess I'm having a bad archicad day! I've gone back to an as-existing model. We have sinced worked over it to show changes and these have been saved separately as different views in Navigator. Anyway, the as-existing drawings now show gaps in existing walls where new walls and items have been inserted. New wall layers are, of course, turned off.

Obviously something to do with priorities of new walls - I usually give them a higher priority than existing ones. Can I have a different priority for as-existing walls when they show in Navigator's 'First floor-existing' view, than when they are used in 'First floor-new' views?

Could any really clever Graphisoft boffin please explain why Archicad shoud default to such a crappy and frustrating arrrangement? Could they suggest ANY circumstance where one would want gaps in existing walls when only these are selected and new walls are turned off? If there is some logic, it escapes me. GGGRRRR!

[Anonymous]

Kees

The key is Layer Combinations.

You should have a layer combo assigned to each view (existing and proposed). Edit the wall priorities in each combo so that, for existing plan proposed walls (turned off) have a different priority to existing ones. In the proposed plan combo, existing and proposed walls have the same priority. Don't forget to hit the Update button when changing the layer combo's.

EG:
Existing plan Combo-
Existing walls ON priority 1
Proposed walls OFF priority 2

Proposed plan Combo-
Existing walls ON priority 1
Proposed walls ON priority 1

Make any sense?

[Anonymous]

s2art wrote:
Kees

The key is Layer Combinations.

You should have a layer combo assigned to each view (existing and proposed). Edit the wall priorities in each combo so that, for existing plan proposed walls (turned off) have a different priority to existing ones. In the proposed plan combo, existing and proposed walls have the same priority. Don't forget to hit the Update button when changing the layer combo's.

It's important to make a distinction between layer combination priorities (what ArchiCAD calls layer intersection groups) and composite skin intersection priorities. The latter can be set for a composite individually regardless of which layer it is placed on, by enabling or disabling skin priorities. It can be varied for different occurences of the same composite within a project - but this gets messy and very tedious to edit.

A cleaner way is to duplicate the composite and rename it for example "composite A - exis" and "composite A prop" - make them exactly the same but with different priorities. It would be a good idea to change one of the background colours to identify which is which on viewing the plans.

[KeesW]

Thanks Philip and Stuart

I thought that it had something to do with combinations and priorities and your comments are very helpful. I''ll try it tomorrow. Archicad is sometimes not very intuitive, is it?

[Anonymous]

KeesW wrote:
Thanks Philip and Stuart
Archicad is sometimes not very intuitive, is it?

It used to be! About 4 versions back. Thankfully it still is basically intuitive in the core areas, like the tool box, the layer sets and the layout book arrangement but it has become a VERY complex tool and with that comes a whole lot more learning.

You can't have it both ways I suppose.

[Anonymous]

I would like to know - just to add another problem - how to get hatching to work correctly with walls at different angles? I am doing a plan now where 45 degree brick walls are joining 0 and 90 degree brick walls. When I draw the 45degree walls the brick hatching just becomes parallel lines rather than proper brick hatching. Ive sort of got over the problem by defining a special composite just for the 45 degree walls that show brick hatching at a different angle. But is this the best way to do it - having differnet composites for 45 degree walls seems a waste?

IE: is there anything I can set in Archicad that will automatically rotate the hatching to suit the wall orientation? You would think the composites would be programmed to automatically rotate their hatching to suit their orientation but they dont!

Nats

[Anonymous]

nats wrote:
IE: is there anything I can set in Archicad that will automatically rotate the hatching to suit the wall orientation? You would think the composites would be programmed to automatically rotate their hatching to suit their orientation but they dont!

Nats

You might look at the "orientation" options when you are setting up a component of a composite wall.