1.) Ledge Depth or Projection
2.) Ledge Height
3.) Wainscot Thickness
4.) Wainscot Air Gap
Notice that the ledge extends beyond the air gap to the sheathing or framing (if sheathing disabled).
Also note that wainscoting and ledge are able to bisect curved windows or doors as shown.
This additional feature is fairly complex so I am sure there may be some situations that I have not yet encountered and may be some cause for geometrical errors, only further testing will tell.
P.S. Rowblock brick ledges are typically inclined (I’m assuming to shed water and snow) but as I shown in the image above I am currently only allowing for a rectangular ledge. The reason for this is that when I trim out the openings an arched window intersecting a inclined ledge is going to get very interesting for the push-pull method. The workaround for this is obviously to go to a more sophisticated boolean subtraction but then this would limit the plugin to only the PRO audience and I am not fully committed to that strategy yet.
Being able to create these types of framing drawings via the MeDeek plugin has been an absolute godsend - not only are they a great way of specifying required timber members but I’ve also been using V-Ray on some completed timber framed buildings; makes for an excellent visual aid in showing progression of a project. Couldn’t live without this and/or the truss plugin!
There are still a few more parameters and features that I feel needed to be added to this new feature class. I am also willing to take suggestions on how to make this more useful. Please give it a go and let me know what you think.
The wainscoting has also been added into the wall preset system.
Which brings me to a new idea I just had as I was applying presets to a few walls this morning. The wall preset feature is quite handy but rather tedious to use if one wants to apply a specific preset to a number of walls (granted the wall grouping feature would come in handy here but that is still in development).
What would be really handy is to have a “paintbrush” tool, where one could select any given wall panel and then all of its settings could then be transferred to any other wall panel with a single click of the mouse. Essentially treating the initially selected wall as a “preset” and then applying that preset to any walls selected. This would greatly speed up any changes one might need to make to a bunch of walls. I also think it would useful to have the tool differentiate between exterior and interior wall types. In other words if you initially select an exterior wall (ext-int) to copy those settings could not be applied to an interior wall (int-int).
That feature is already available, you can store all of your pre-built window and door components in the plugins “library” sub-folder and then utilize those instead. However it would be nice to have a full fledged window/door plugin integrated with the plugin as well.
Choosing LH or RH places the door hardware on the indicated side of the double door. I should probably add an additional option “LRH” that places the hardware on both doors.
The image shows all as in-swing doors but they can also be drawn as out-swing as well.
I have not shown an astragal for any of the double doors but if someone would like that option added please indicate and also send me details on how you would like it modeled.
I suppose there may also be the situation where you have a half or full glass on one side and a solid door on the other but I’ve never seen such an installation and probably not worth considering at this point.
Here’s a weird discovery: It seems that pop-down menus in dialog boxes don’t work when I click on them with my Wacom pen. At first I just thought they were unimplemented features. I can position the cursor with the pen and click with my laptop’s built in track pad. That works, but Wacom click’s with the pen don’t. Al the rest of normal drawing in the SU window is OK with the pen.
Edit: I spoke too soon. Returning to the program, they work as expected, so maybe I’m seeing some intermittent problem? I’d swear it wasn’t working a moment ago.
I’ve seen it come and go. Probably something between the Wacom driver and the API I can only guess, though I can’t say I’ve seen it with other HTML dialogs. Now that I’m aware of it, I’ll keep watching for it.
I must say in the grand scheme of things (I’ve been using Wacom tablets for about 25 years now), it feels like the last few iterations of MacOS have made things harder for Wacom, but that’s more an impression than real knowledge. Right now, the pressure sensing plugin for PowerCADD seems broken and doesn’t work for me despite fact the guy who developed it says it isn’t broken for him.
Since I’ve got the beam icons already active on the beams/columns toolbar I’ve decided to try and put together the beam module. The HTML edit menu (draw tool menu is very similar):
Initially I will start with wood beams only: Sawn Lumber, Timber, Glulam, SCL (LVL, PSL, LSL)
Similar to the truss plugin the beams created within the wall plugin will be able to be analyzed directly with the beam calculator on my website via the engineering tools (engineering icon). This chunk of code is already fairly well tested and is simply a matter of recycling some of it from the Truss Plugin.
Later on I would also like to add steel beams (W, C, L, and HSS) but this will be based on user demand.
I would also like to bring the engineering calcs directly within the plugin so that the user can run the numbers even if they are offline, something for the long term todo list.
This is an awesome plugin! You’re amazing. What about adding alternative wall constructions like earthbag walls, curtain walls, and stuff to your long term goals?
Thank-you for your vote of confidence. Some days I’m a little overwhelmed at the monumental task I’ve undertaken with this thing, so a few encouraging words gives me some hope.
I just got off the phone with one of my architect friends and a very close confidant. He gave me quite a bit of things to chew on especially with respect to gable walls and all of the possible variants. I’m not out of the woods yet, there is much to do, and much complexity to iron out into well distilled code.
I still have my hands full just with the conventional construction. However, at some point I might be able to handle more exotic wall types (cold formed steel, CMU, SIPS, haybales, earthbag etc…)
Question, will it be possible to have on the inner side of the ( Ext<>Int ) wall a way to add f.e 18mm OSB and 1 layer of Plasterboard ( gypsum )
and
f.e 2 layers of gypsum ( In some elements the fire protection rules demands a certain time of fire protection)?
Dont know why, but if I want to add a door into a wall I do get the dialog that the maximum height is 2400mm. But the wall has the default value’s. I can’t add the door or window. So what do I wrong?
Trying to find a decent wood grain to use for timber beams, any suggestions or images anyone is willing to share? I’ve got a decent end grain image, just looking for the side grain.
