Wall sweep (stone cap partially on foundation wall) problem

[christo4robin]

I want a sweep (stone cap) to sit on top of a concrete wall. It seems that if the sweep is outside the "boundary" of the wall, that the sweep will then fail.

Anyone have any workarounds for this?

[christo4robin]

More info - the screen shot reflects what I actually want. When I OK out of the dialogues, I get the error message and no sweep displays.

[gregcashen]

Try not putting it all the way up on top of the wall, but maybe like 1/8" down so it is not outside the limits of the wall. Or make a profile that has a mortar joint that actually sits in the wall, so it is still hosted by the wall. I would like to see Revit have the ability to have these sweeps be "outside" the wall as well.

[cphubb]

We had a similar situation with a rowlock cap. I solved the following way.


1. In the profile family move the profile the correct distance away from the origin point.
2. Use the profile on the wall and make sure the offset distances are within the wall boundry.

This worked for us very well after a little fine tuning.

I'll post a screen shot when I locate the project.

Chris

[tamas]

In case you were wondering, here is how horizontal wall sweeps (and reveals) are created in Revit:

1. We take the height parameter and intersect the desired side face of the hosting wall with a horizontal plane at that height. (The param is called "Distance" in case of embedded sweeps and "Offset From Level" for standalone ones.) The result is one or more curves that will be used to sweep the profile along. (If there is a non-zero offset from wall, we offset the curves sideways by that much.)

2. Then naturally we use the origin of the profile sketch to go along the curves and create a swept volume with proper mitering for joined sweeps. (In fact, this is the same step as if you made a solid sweep in-place or in a family.)

3. We then take the swept shape and subtract it from the wall. (This is what makes the reveal, or if the cornice is offset inward, it cuts the host.)

The error you see is coming from the first step that tried to intersect the sideface of the wall with the horizontal plane and found nothing.

So given this current algorithm, you can achieve what you want by sketching the profile so that the origin is below it.

Sometimes it is not very easy as there may be no clear indication where that origin is for an existing profile. For new profile sketches, the origin is at the intersection of the two default ref planes. (See attached image.)

I hope this helped a bit.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Tamas,
Thanks for the tip. Behaviours such as this can be frustrating when we users don't understand the nuts and bolts of how/why certain functions behave the way they do in software.
Although I know it's not practical to document all these things it's nice to know that the people 'responsible' keep in touch and monitor this forum to let us in on the secrets. Information such as this might also help us broaden our thinking on future issues that crop up.
Thanks again.

[bclarch]

I have requested in the past that Revit provide more information on the characteristics and behaviors of the various family types. Either embedded in the family or as a "read me" file. Tamas' post is an excellent example of what I was talking about in this thread (http://www.zoogdesign.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=411&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=family&sid=fe2a1eb6e655a520ebda4fbf55529edf). If you agree please add your support and / or email support directly.

[Werddd]

I realize this is an old thread, but...

I'm using this trick to make a brick soldier course in a wall sweep inside the type properties of the wall family. I was able to get the wall sweep to work, but the material texture starts at the family origin, which in this case is 1 1/2" below the bottom of the soldier course. In the material editor, I found a way to raise the texture image 1 1/2", but it doesn't seem to work when I go back to the "realistic image", the texture is still off. I can select the lines of the soldier course and physically move them up. This works, but I'm puzzled why moving the texture in the material editor doesn't work. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Werddd]

Ok. I solved the problem, but don't quite understand why it works this way. Vertical and Horizontal directions are reversed in the image I was working with. I was able to get the image to shift vertically by adjusting the horizontal dimension. This must have something to do with the way the image was originally rotated or something. Anyway - lesson is to mess around with the buttons and eventually you get it to work.