Join walls stacked vertically?

[ron.sanpedro]

If I draw a wall in plan, then draw a second identical wall with identical alignment off the end, Revit magically joins the two into one wall. But two identical walls stacked vertically? Can I join them? It seems not, tho' if that is true it seems like a good wishlist item.

My specific scenario is this. A project was started (in SD) and the exterior walls where done on a floor by floor basis, with doors and windows added. Now we have decided to do a brick facade, and we would like to join all the walls to make the brick hatch easier to deal with, to manage the wall in Revit the way it will be built, etc. But there are a bunch of doors and windows that we really don't want to redo. So, is there a way to join those walls vertically so that the hosting is maintained? This would be a lot faster than the alternative.

But if not, the approach I am finding useful is this, which is pretty cool. I put all the doors and windows and such on each floor that was going to "loose" a wall in a group. In this case there are groups for the second and third floors. Then in section I pulled the first floor wall up to the top of the third floor walls, ignoring all the warnings. Then I went and deleted all the single floor walls. Because the doors and windows where grouped, when the single level wall went away, the group automatically excluded the doors and windows, but then I could just Restore All Excluded and Ungroup. Sweeeeet!

Anyway, hoping for a better answer, but finding cool new ways to do things is also nice.

Best,
Gordon

[cdatechguy]

I found you can join the walls as long as they are the same wall type. If they have different names they wont join, which I think they should join as long as the outside material is the same. (ArchiCAD does this)
So I find myself having to doctor up my elevations and 3D views with the invisible lines linework tool.
What would be really nice is if there was a depth view on elevations where after a certain distance on elevations anything past a certain line would fade some... (Okay, another ArchiCAD feature....probably already on the wish list though)

[ron.sanpedro]

I found you can join the walls as long as they are the same wall type. If they have different names they wont join, which I think they should join as long as the outside material is the same. (ArchiCAD does this)
So I find myself having to doctor up my elevations and 3D views with the invisible lines linework tool.
What would be really nice is if there was a depth view on elevations where after a certain distance on elevations anything past a certain line would fade some... (Okay, another ArchiCAD feature....probably already on the wish list though)

What are you using to Join them? I can Join Geometry, but that is just a graphic join for a particular view, not the creation of a single entity, which is what I am after.

Best,
Gordon

[sbrown]

Select all your windows and doors, Ctl+X them, then delete your walls, extend the wall you want up the full height, then edit>paste align>same place, the windows and doors back into place.

[dbaldacchino]

I was about to suggest that but Scott beat me to it :) It's nice to know that you can do it that alternate way with groups though. As to join geometry, it's not on a per view basis; when you J.G. you're affecting the model in all views.

[comhasse]

I found you can join the walls as long as they are the same wall type. If they have different names they wont join, which I think they should join as long as the outside material is the same. Join Geometry does create a continuous face when two stacked walls have the same exterior layer material - no need to use the linework tool. It even works if the material is just painted onto one or both walls. (In the latter case though, it has been my experience that you have to paint first, then join geometry for this to work)

This is also true for joining geometry of walls and slabs. E.g. if you have a concrete slab extending to the outside of a single layer stucco wall, you can quickly paint the edge face of the slab with the stucco material, then join slab and walls to get a continuous exterior stucco face. Your problem may have been that it can be hard to pick the right elements with the join geometry tool when you're in an elevation view. Usually this is easier in 3d.

[ron.sanpedro]

Select all your windows and doors, Ctl+X them, then delete your walls, extend the wall you want up the full height, then edit>paste align>same place, the windows and doors back into place.

The part that I found difficult was making sure I had every single door and window on all floors selected at once. By making a separate group for each floor I could easily add doors and windows to the group, and visually verify things. I could even delete and undelete each wall, to see just what was wall hosted and needed to be in the group. Once I had all the floors in groups, I could proceed.
Then again, perhaps you have a trick for selecting all the doors and windows and other wall hosted items?

Thanks!
Gordon