Wall Sweeps

[michaelf]

I'm having several problems with wall sweeps.

Problem #1: Adding wall sweeps in the form of hardi trim to an existing exterior wall group. When I go to finish off the group, I get a message that it can't keep the wall and the floor joined. I'm totally stumped as to why this is happening. The sweep is no where close to the floor that it wants to unjoin. I have selected to unjoin the elements, but it tells me it needs to ungroup the elements in order to do this. The floor is a group, since it is repeated for four floors. I have been able to add other elements to this skin group as well without any problem, and have been starting to get this message when attaching those sweeps.

Problem #2: Wall sweep (hardi trim again) being cut by a window. When I go to add this trim sweep around the window and align it to the window's edge, it extends itself the whole height of the wall, and cuts itself through the window, when I go to change the length of the sweep, I get an error saying the sweep is overlapping itself.

Problem #3: When I get the issues in Problem #1 above to actually work the way I want them to, and mirror these groups, I get undesired results with the length of some sweeps. Basically I have two different legths of the same sweep across two instances of the same group.

Problem #4: More adding sweeps to a group. When adding a trim sweep and finishing off the group I get an message saying "Could not create Wall Sweep. All the segments are of zero length." at the mirrored conditions.

I guess I'm doing these thing completely wrong or dont understand the capabilities/ limits of these things, or else I wouldn't be getting all these errors. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[cliff collins]

Are the sweeps "hosted" by the floors and/or walls, or "in-place" sweeps?
This may make a critical difference, esp. when using Groups, mirroring, etc.
Perhaps make them "in-place" sweeps, and make a separate Group of them,
so they are not trying to "attach" to the walls/floors in your other Groups?


Cheers.....

[michaelf]

Are the sweeps "hosted" by the floors and/or walls, or "in-place" sweeps?
This may make a critical difference, esp. when using Groups, mirroring, etc.
Perhaps make them "in-place" sweeps, and make a separate Group of them,
so they are not trying to "attach" to the walls/floors in your other Groups?


Cheers.....
They are hosted to the exterior Wall(s)--Brought in by the"Host Sweep" command. Where do you do "in place" sweeps. I can't find it.

[cliff collins]

Modeling/Create/Generic Model.....

name your sweep

choose "extrusion", etc.

These are "in-place families" which are not hosted by the walls.

Another method is to add the sweeps in the "edit structure" mode of the wall
itself, in Section View, under "sweeps".

Cheers......

[michaelf]

Modeling/Create/Generic Model.....

name your sweep

choose "extrusion", etc.

These are "in-place families" which are not hosted by the walls.

Another method is to add the sweeps in the "edit structure" mode of the wall
itself, in Section View, under "sweeps".

Cheers......
Got it to work....Thanks....

[michaelf]

Problem with that though, is every time I copy my trim piece (In place sweep) it creates a new family for each instance.....that doesn't seem right, rathter I don't need to be creating a new family for each instance of the trim piece.

[Calvn_Swing]

Yeah, in-place families are only good for one-offs. Instead, either make the sweeps part of the wall structure (won't work for vertical sweeps) or make a new family (not in place) using the generic wall hosted template and use that to make your sweep family.

[cliff collins]

True--each in-place family is an individual instance--this can bog down the model,
and should be limited in practice.

Try placing the sweeps in the host wall itself--under Wall Properties,
Edit Structure, go to Section View--and add Sweeps.

Load your Profile, specify offsets, etc.

See if that works better.

Cheers.....

[michaelf]

Yeah, in-place families are only good for one-offs. Instead, either make the sweeps part of the wall structure (won't work for vertical sweeps) or make a new family (not in place) using the generic wall hosted template and use that to make your sweep family.
Will that still create a new family for every instance that that generic model is part of a group?

[Calvn_Swing]

If you put it in the wall type you are making possibly one new wall type per sweep condition.

If you make a wall hosted generic model family it isn't any different than a door family. One family and you can have as many instances of it as you want (well, until your computer runs out of memory and crashes...)