WALLS - GENERAL TIPS

1. Embed a wall into curtain panel

You can change a curtain wall panel to any wall type by un-pinning it and modifying the type. Next you can then embed another curtain wall into the new wall panel infill by adding a curtain wall and using the Cut Geometry tool between the wall infill and curtain wall. You can repeat this process as many times as needed.

2. Disallow join

When you right-click over any wall end you activate the Disallow Join option. This will prevent the wall end from joining with other walls.

3. Unlock wall layers

When editing the structure of a wall, you can click Modify and un-lock a region of a wall layer. Afterwards the wall will display an additional grip to dynamically adjust the wall layer as needed.

This dimension can also be manually entered in the Instance Properties of the wall under Base Extension Distance or Top Extension Distance depending where the layer was unlocked.

4. Schedule a curtain wall infill as wall or curtain panel

To specify how the infills of your curtain wall will be scheduled, highlight the panel and open Element Properties to locate Categorize As. You can specify panel or wall.

5. Wall sweep other than horizontal or vertical

Using the standard Wall Sweep tool you have options for Horizontal and Vertical. If you need to create more custom shapes you can use the Component > Model in Place to create custom wall sweeps. Simply set the work plane as the face of the wall and start modeling the sweep as needed.

6. Break up a stacked wall

If you need to maintain the geometry of a stacked wall but convert it to standard walls, you can utilize the Break Up tool. Simply highlight the stacked wall > right-click > Break Up.

7. Access room bounding for stacked wall

For stacked walls you cannot directly access the Room Bounding parameter, unless you TAB select the wall. Additional information is available in the Technical Solution below:

Modifying Room Bounding parameter for stacked walls

8. Join geometry tool on parallel walls

Hosted objects such as a window or door in one wall will cut openings in a second parallel wall when the Join Geometry tool is used between the two wall objects.

Note non-touching walls need to be closer than 152mm for this to work.

9. Embed a wall within another wall

A wall can be 'embedded' within another wall by drawing the new wall within the host wall in plan.

Then use Cut tool to cut a hole in the host wall.

The embedded wall can have its profile edited and the hole will still match the embedded wall.

And the wall can be a Curtain Panel Wall.

10. Wall function

When placing a wall, if you change the Element Properties > Type Properties >Function the wall insertion defaults will change. For example when first changing toSoffit, the default wall will change to 300mm high. Changing it back to Interior will resume the last entered Interior wall function height.

11. Wall Wrapping at Windows & Doors

In wall properties can can control whether layers wrap at inserts or not (typically doors or windows), and which layers will wrap.

But where they actually wrap to is controlled inside Door and Window families.

Door and Window families have a Reference Plane named "Closure" which controls where layers wrap to.

By manipulating where this reference plane is will control how walls wrap.

Normally the window itself is control to some extent by this reference plane,

but you can also lock this reference plane to an internal wall layer:

• 1. open the window or door family.

  2. in the family edit the wall so it has external & internal layers.

  3. make sure they are visible by changing view to Fine.

  4. lock Reference Plane called "Closure" to the layer line you want.

Note the the window itself may be locked to the "Closure" Reference Plane so you may need to deal with that.

You could also make the distance between the "Closure" Reference Plane and layer line a parametric dimension to give you more control.