Chamfered wall corners

[mockdeep]

Hi, I'm trying to learn Revit in the hopes of implementing it into our firm. One of our major concerns is being able to produce construction documents at the level of detail that we do now with AutoCAD. I have attached part of a plan from one of our projects. It is pretty complex, a bit of a worse case scenario, plan-wise. As you can guess, I'm just full of questions on how to go about drawing something like this. But first off, I would like some advice on chamfering the corners for layered walls. I have seen some posts on putting a void family at the corner, but it looks like that is good only for single layer wall construction, such as concrete alone. How can I set it up so that the various layers all cut an angle at the corner?

[Scott D Davis]

Nothing special needed here. Just draw 3 walls for each corner, one will be your 45 degree chamfer. See attached screen capture

[mockdeep]

I have tried that, but the situation in this project is slightly different. The chamfer distance is six inches from the exterior corner, so there ends up being no chamfering on the interior side of the wall. I tried snapping to two reference planes using the exterior face, but I get errors saying "Can't keep elements joined" and "Can't make wall".

[sbrown]

Thats a tough one. revit doesn't handle finish detailing like this easily. You do have a couple options.

1. Create a new wall type that doesn't include the finish, then one that does. Then draw 2 walls in parallel just at teh corner. I would recommend these go back to a ref. plane where your masonry control joint would be anyway, then switch back to your standard wall type.

2. Create a void family to cut the finish at the angle. this will give you the look in elevation and 3d, but you'll have to detail the corner condition.

[twiceroadsfool]

Hi, I'm trying to learn Revit in the hopes of implementing it into our firm. One of our major concerns is being able to produce construction documents at the level of detail that we do now with AutoCAD. I have attached part of a plan from one of our projects. It is pretty complex, a bit of a worse case scenario, plan-wise. As you can guess, I'm just full of questions on how to go about drawing something like this. But first off, I would like some advice on chamfering the corners for layered walls. I have seen some posts on putting a void family at the corner, but it looks like that is good only for single layer wall construction, such as concrete alone. How can I set it up so that the various layers all cut an angle at the corner?

At the risk of posting in what many will contend is a defensive position about Revit and its capabilities, let me offer my 1 cent worth, and not a penny more. :)

AutoCAD is capable of a great many things, and one could make the argument that what it does, it does quite well. One can also say that Revit does many things, and quite well as well. What they both do well, however, may be very different things from one another.

The condition youve proposed is (as youve found) one of the few that Revit has more difficult articulating. Not that it is difficult to do (in my opinion, since the interior and exterior are not always identical, id make it a separate wall inside and out), but it is difficult if you do not know the particulars of the software and its specific tools.

Many firms looking to implement worry that "the drawings wont look how thy used to," or "as good as they used to," and i think holding tight to what we are used to seeing *may* be setting ourselves up to fail. To reiterate what i heard at AU06, as a Henry Ford quote "If i had asked my clients what they wanted, id have given them a faster horse." Im rephrasing, because i have the worst memory EVER, but hopefully the point gets across.

I would definetely take an entire project that you have completed in the past, and try to complete it again using Revit. That is how i prefer to get someone new in to the depths of the program: With an actual goal to achieve. The trouble with finding one difficult part to create, is it may highlight a specific ease (scheduling) or difficulty of the software (like varying thickness walls...).

Take a project start to finish, realize what it can do, and then realize what it cant. Come back frustrated, and elated, and- having grasped the whole picture- have an educated opinion to go back with.




That said, id still model it as two walls, lol. One for the structure, and one for the finish layes that chamfer. If it doesnt happen all over, id ALSO have a wall type that is the entire assembly. Then you can stop that wall before the corner, and use the two different types to make the corner. Ive done that in a few cases on our current project... Alternating between a stacked wall and a regular one with a Base on it...

Good luck!

[mockdeep]

Thanks, Aaron, I agree with everything you said. And great quote by the way. We're still operating on AutoCAD 2000i, so I'm pushing for both the faster horse and a completely different mode of transportation. I do believe that Revit would change the way we do business, the difficulty is convincing principals who barely know AutoCAD and project managers who are terrified of trying to learn a new technology. My strategy, like yours, is to take one of our existing projects and build it in Revit, showing them that it can achieve more than AutoCAD and in less time. Maybe I chose a rather more complex project, though, than would be appropriate for my first attempt.

I'll give the double wall a try, though, and thanks to all!

[Steve_Stafford]

How representative is this detail of the majority of your projects? If every project is like this then it is a reasonable expectation to compare it. If it t is just one project and the most finicky then maybe it isn't as fair, not to say that you should expect to not be able to do something :wink:

I'm inclined to say that I'd model them as separate walls too. At least just in the complex corners of the building. Most likely a interior wall type and a couple exterior wall types, structure and insulation and then the veneers. The issue will be hosting windows and you may have to use join geometry between exterior wall layers to get them to cut as desired.

Good luck!

[CGM]

...To reiterate what i heard at AU06, as a Henry Ford quote "If i had asked my clients what they wanted, id have given them a faster horse."Hi guys,
While I do agree, Henry Ford also said about his Model T- "you can have any colour you like as long as it's black". (Perhaps the guy wasn't very customer-focused. ;) ) However he had the luxury of having a monopoly on the emerging technology of his day. I feel that's one major difference between us & him; we cannot afford not to listen to our customer-base, otherwise they'll go elsewhere. Perhaps that's more of a worry for me here in eastern Europe, than for you back in the US. Here, drawing offices have difficulty in finding partners due to a wide choice of softwares in use, from people like ; Nemetschek (http://www.nemetschek.com/), Graphisoft (http://www.graphisoft.com/) & Dassualt (http://www.3ds.com/products-solutions/). That's alot of competition in such a small geographic region as ours.

Okay while I'm happy to believe Revit's (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=3781831&siteID=123112) one step ahead of the posse, perhaps we should be thinking about how we're going to stay one step ahead. Let's give the client solutions he hasn't even dreamed of, but let's listen too. (just my 2 cents(€))

[twiceroadsfool]

... Here, drawing offices have difficulty in finding partners due to a wide choice of softwares in use, from people like ; Nemetschek (http://www.nemetschek.com/), Graphisoft (http://www.graphisoft.com/) & Dassualt (http://www.3ds.com/products-solutions/). That's alot of competition in such a small geographic region as ours.

Okay while I'm happy to believe Revit's (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=3781831&siteID=123112) one step ahead of the posse, perhaps we should be thinking about how we're going to stay one step ahead. Let's give the client solutions he hasn't even dreamed of, but let's listen too. (just my 2 cents(€))

I couldnt agree more. What i was saying though, is that there are many cases of firms evaluating Revit where they do not see the forest for the trees. If my first defense mechanism is to display dismay, because the Revision Schedule doesnt have triangles and doesnt put the date under the initials the way im used to (faster horse) , i completely miss the fact that it automatically lists them in the title block, and coordinates the dates absed on one global settings dialogue (model T... albeit Black). My only suggestion was, dont dismiss the potential of the car over the appearance of the black model T. :)

Steve, i agree about the hosted objects... Thats why i would only do it at the corners as well. Especially since i just now noticed that at the corner the core layer is chamfered too. I would set it up as two walls and do a Join Geometry to rectify the core layer being cut/chipped/shaved'whatever, lol.

[carlosb.101393]

One time I came across the same situation in a corridor, this is the best I did with the same wall type and editing wall joints command.

[mockdeep]

I'm running into the same situation. It gets the job done, but the wall doesn't join right on both sides of the chamfer.