Use of Sweeps in Family Creation

[adegnan]

OK. Here's my tip of the day; love to hear any confirming/conflicting opinions as necessary.

I think that sweeps are one of the best tools to use in family creation. Especially if you are creating multiple families of similar design, you can create profile families of the different components involved.

For instance, with the Andersen windows you can have several profiles: Window stop, window sash, exterior frame, exterior mull, interior mull, casing. Draw those profiles and then set up your reference planes in the family. Make sure your reference planes flex. Set up reference planes related to wall thickness as well.

For instance you want to make sure that your exterior stuff is related to the exterior of the wall, with a parametric dimension for window inset, and you want this stuff to be a fixed depth but move with the wall thickness.

And you want to make sure that the interior stuff- extension jamb, casing, etc. is related to the inside plane of the wall, and that it will expand and shrink with the wall depth-- think about how you change your window extension jamb thickness, that is the parametric component!

So in other words, the extension jamb should be modeled as an extrusion or as a sketched profile, so that you can lock the interior edge to the wall edge, and so that you can lock the exterior edge to the window exterior frame-- and then the depth of the extension jamb will move with the wall thickness. Everything else that is a fixed component can be done with profiles that you load in.

Now, I think that sweeps are the easiest way to accomplish this. You select the reference plane related to wall thickness as your work plane-- IE, exterior of wall for the exterior window frame. Then you can sketch the sash and the inside window stop, which will move with the window frame, by picking the path of the extruded window frame and using your pre-made profiles.

One reason to do the exterior sash as a separate component from the inside window stop is so that you can use different materials/finishes for the interior & exterior of window. For instance, you may want a white exterior and a oak interior. Or you may have a white painted interior and a forest-green exterior. If you make it out of one component, the inside & outside become the same material.

Incidentally, if you disect the Andersen windows that I'm posting, they are not constructed this way uniformly. That is because I've been modifying the ones that were created a few releases ago, a couple years ago, and modifying them for my use. I'm presenting these tips as I've discovered the problems and solutions during the modification of these windows! Some day I'll probably continue to modify the windows and perfect them. For now I'm only "getting them to work." THe great thing is that with the type catalog in place, I can simply modify the window family and re-load the new model in and it will work with all the parameters that area already set up.

Hope this gives some of you more insight as you work & learn.

[adegnan]

On the other hand, extrusions work great when you have an object that needs to flex in all 3 axes. Such as the window extension jamb that will need to get longer and shorter with the window size and also needs to change in depth with the wall thickness.

So choose your object carefully!

[Wes Macaulay]

Super tip Abe! You've definitely dug into this one. Nicely explained too...

Perhaps we should bring back Abe's "Family Guy" status?

[adegnan]

Furthermore, your sweep profiles CAN be parametric if you want them to-- you can sketch a profile in the model rather than loading a pre-made profile. In the Andersen FWH family that I uploaded, the jamb is actually a sweep with the door stop built in to the sweep. The jamb follows a reference plane that is dimensioned to the jamb depth, the door stop moves with the door, and the inside edge of the jamb stays locked to the inside face of the wall. THis gives you parametric jamb depth and door inset, so that in a brick veneer wall the door will be inset with the installation flange placed at your wall sheathing rather than having the door extend all the way out to the face of the brick.

The more complicated the profile, the better off you are to use a sweep.