Tips for openings in CMU walls?

[PinkPantser]

What do you find is the best way to do openings in CMU walls?
-Wall Profile Edit
-Wall Opening Object
-Separate walls with a spanning wall across the top of the opening

Thanks,

[Scott Womack]

What do you find is the best way to do openings in CMU walls?
-Wall Profile Edit
-Wall Opening Object
-Separate walls with a spanning wall across the top of the opening


-Wall Opening Object - This is the best way, since the wall remains continuous, and if the CMU is existing, and you place the opening object in new construction, you get the appropriate pieces of Demo wall.

[twiceroadsfool]

All three methods work, and im sure people have different reasons for preffering them. Heres how i personally break it down:

1. Wall Profile Edit: I dont use this method for wall openings much. Ill use it for editing the shape of an overall wall, putting an arched top on something, etc. I find the edited profiles have a tendency to shift slightly when wall joins are affected, although im sure you could lock them (sketch lines) to reference planes and call it a day. Regardless, i dont do it this way.

2. Wall Opening- Ill use this method in a lot of places, where it is an actual "opening" in a wall, per se (not to be confused with method three, explained below). I generally still have reference planes that i align it to, but i like this method better than the profile because i can adjust the heights without having to flick between different views. They give you a slight headache if theyre AT the end of the wall, but ive found disallowing the wall jon and aligning carefully works fine. BTW, if its a cased opening, i obviously used a cased opening Door Family. Im assuming were NOT discussing that...

3. Seperate walls- I'll *sometimes* let this fly, in a couple of rare circumstances: I get a model someone else started, where they were ONLY thinking in plan, so they just drew two seperated walls, to make the opening. If i get a model like this and they need the header for a 3d image, its "sometimes" faster to go this way, but i dont like it. Its more garbage to chase around later.

More often, when ill use THIS method, is for facades. If there are Piers holding up a heavier facade above, ill make the "legs" of the piers one set of walls, and the upper portions a different set, instead of having really long walls with edited profiles that make up the piers. Ive found (on the whole) they *behave* better this way.

Just my two cents though, im sure there are TONS of different thoughts on this.

[tomnewsom]

I find the Wall Opening object to be a pain in the neck that doesn't like to sit still and buggers about with wall joins. So I use a Gemeric Model family called Rectangular Opening that has instance Width, Height parameters and dashed overhead lines built in (in a new subcategory for visibility control). They behave much more nicely.

You could make a custom one that included a parametric lintel as well, if you like.

[Mike Sealander]

Tom's method sounds really effective. I hadn't thought of that one. Generally, I choose Edit Profile, but previous posts about their idiosyncratic behavior near wall joins are correct. I, too, dislike the OOTB wall openings.

[cliff collins]

We have even made window and door families without frames that are nothing but the opening cut. These are useful for "carving" out holes in walls for decorative reasons.
Duplicate them or make instances and you have lots of sizes at your disposal, and they are easily positioned, moved, copied, etc.

We also have a special window family like above, but it does not cut all the way thru the wall
Used for "sculpture niches" where the opening doesn't go all the way thru the wall.

Of course, these "fake" windows and doors are also populated into schedules and the database---which is a bit of a problem. So Tom's generic model family could work--as long
as it can cut host walls, etc.

cheers.......

[tomnewsom]

See attached for my opening/recess families. Metric. 'Arc Recess' is segment of a circle in plan, fully parametric (with some rather nifty trigonometry in the family!)