There are designs that use tie downs at regularly spaced studs for hurricane resistant construction.
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Version 2.6.6 - 12.30.2021
- Enabled the option(s) to remove top and bottom plates from all wall types: Rectangular, Gable, Shed and Hip.
For most conventional construction this feature is probably not extremely useful, however there have been a number of requests to enable this option for people that are post framing structures. The wall plugin was never really intended to handle that type of construction but with this option enabled and the recent rain screen (horizontal) feature perhaps the plugin will also find some utility with alternative framing systems.
Studs are 5.5 x 5.5, @ 48" o/c, horizontal rainscreen with a 1.5" cladding gap (thickness), top and bottom plates set to zero:
Some other wall details:
- Wall corner treatment set to none
- End studs set to 5.5" width
- cladding is metal material
- gypsum is turned off
- wall height is 10 feet
- king studs for door opening set to 5.5"
- horz. rainscreen width set to 3.5" and spacing set to 48", but 24" is probably more realistic.
- Also forgot to disable the interior door casing, probably not needed in this application.
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Tutorial 25 - Rainscreens (13:09 min.)
:o Didn’t see that coming!!! Awesome Work!
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Tutorial 26 - Shearwalls (30:12 min.)
View model here:
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Yeah, that looks a little goofy. I will look into this, probably add another parameter so that one can specify the exact width of the shutter rather than having it dependent on the window width.
Along with that fix I need to update the window preset code to switch it to a hash data system similar to the new Wall Preset system. Technically I need to do this with all of the various presets (door, garage door etc…) There is always more to do, but the upside is that the updates actually do improve the product unlike so many other physical things that I buy that seem to go the other direction.
P.S.
Actually make that two parameters. Like you mentioned a height parameter would also be useful as well. By default it will use the window height but can also be customized to any other value.
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It’s all that “value” engineering. 
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That shutter needs some bracing, it’s good practice to do so in any event, only the narrowest of shutters should we consider leaving the bracing out.
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I don’t really like shutters personaly.
The width of the window controls the width of the shutter. As Nathaniel has stated, this shutter looks pretty goofy, and I’d never want to put that on someones house, but with the current setup of the wall plugin, I can’t do otherwise.
At first I thought you were joking.
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I will probably spend most of today updating the window preset code. Once that is complete I will address the additional parameters for shutters.
I’ve also got the issue where a window might have a shared header:
I still have not figured out how I want to address this particular framing situation. Is this two windows with a shared header or one window with two openings (two window frames). I think the latter makes more sense and is probably easier to deal with programatically.
If we go with the latter description then what do we call this configuration? Double framed window?
It is really two windows that are set into a single framed opening, or is it?
Another commonly framed configuration is three windows all with a shared header.
In western Washington I would often see this configuration but with a 6x6 trimmer between the two windows.
The variations of window and door openings never cease to amaze me, always something more to do… but it does keep the old gears working. 
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Version 2.6.7 - 01.04.2022
- Converted the window preset system to a Hash data structure.
- Added two additional parameters for configuring window shutters: width and height.
!!! WARNING !!!
This update will require deleting and recreating any window presets. This update will not affect any other preset types (ie. walls, doors, garage doors, etc…)
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mdkBIM Tutorial 2: GARAGE2826-2
View model here:
P.S.
Not to be tooting my own horn but my son, after looking at this model, asked me how long it would take me to draw this garage manually at the same level of detail if I did not have the plugins. To be perfectly honest I really don’t have a good idea but but my best guess would be at least two days (8 hours per day) depending on how experienced I am with using SketchUp. Of course getting all of the material textures and electrical elements put together would probably entail even more hours of searching about on the warehouse and creating some new components, but it is hard to say for certain.
What would be your estimate for modeling this garage with the same level of detail without the plugins?
It’s that time of year again where I look back and analyze what has been accomplished with the plugins over the past year and then try to formulate a plan moving forward. It has been a very busy year, especially for the Wall plugin. The number of updates or versions released for each plugin in 2021 was:
Wall Plugin: 118
Truss Plugin: 29
Foundation Plugin: 19
Electrical Plugin: 7
Looking back through my records only 2018 was a busier year for the Wall plugin, but overall 2021 has probably been my most productive year yet. Not sure if I can keep up this pace forever but I will continue to try.
In my mind the Wall plugin still has a few items that need attention and some of those are actually quite large items (ie. wall sandwich presets) however compared with the other plugins it is quite far along. I think this year I need to spend some more time on the other three plugins and bring them more inline with the capabilities of the Wall plugin, especially the Truss plugin.
With the Foundation plugin I would like to enable window and door bucks as well as window well hardware in the next few weeks. I am also wanting to add the window and door module from the Wall plugin to the Foundation plugin so that these openings in stemwall/foundation walls can be populated with hardware.
The Truss plugin has so many areas of needed improvement that it will require a completely separate discussion to lay out all of the roadmap but needless to say the complex roof module still awaits as does a completed dormer module.
With the electrical plugin there are not any really large items that need to be addressed unless I move forward with adding in more regional outlets and switches (ie. Australia, Europe etc…) However there are some nagging little issues with the placement of ceiling and floor lights and outlets that does need to be addressed.
Now on to the new stuff:
1.) Floor Plugin: This new plugin is long overdue and is mostly there but does need to be finished and released into the wild. This will be a big priority over the next few months. I am actually very excited to get this one out and start moving its further development along.
2.) Engineering Plugin: Not as high priority as everything else listed thus far but by far the coolest project if I can pull it off. Adding a full calculation package to the shearwall module is very exciting and tempting right now, even though higher priorities exist. I will do my best to only work on this plugin as time allows.
3.) Additional Help: So at the beginning of 2020 I was seriously considering bringing on additional programming help but Covid kind of made me rethink and ultimately put those plans on hold. Then, 2021 was possibly going to be a better year as the vaccines became available and somehow we ended the pandemic but later in the year Delta and Omicron changed the script on us again. For now I will keep fighting the battle alone but when and if this pandemic finally comes to an end I will probably be bringing on at least one other programmer to help with the coding (possibly two). Realistically there is only so much one man can do and my ideas tend to outstrip the number of keystrokes I can muster, so additional help is warranted and desperately needed.
From a business standpoint, 2021 was better for us than 2020 which was better than 2019 etc… The trajectory has been upward from day one, I am still surprised at that. I honestly thought after 2020 we would hit some sort of saturation or cap on growth but I guess I was wrong. Eventually that will happen (not sure when), there are only so many design professionals who choose SketchUp as their weapon of choice, but I do hope to convince more people that SketchUp is the preferred choice when it comes to architectural modeling.
As always I can’t help but thank all of the many users of the plugins and their valuable feedback. Yes, I’ve put in the hours and many late nights and continue to do so, but without you the customers none of this would be even remotely possible. What started out as a curiosity and then a hobby ultimately became my bread and butter.
Thank-you SketchUp for your awesome API and product and thank-you SketchUp Community.
I am looking forward to having a productive and great year in 2022 and if the stars happen to align we might be seeing some of you at Basecamp this year in Vancouver B.C. Canada.
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Thanks for all your hard work, Nathan!
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Version 2.6.8 - 01.15.2022
- Fixed bug with exterior trim when doors and garage doors are vertically offset.
P.S.
As I’ve dug into this particular issue/bug a little more I’ve determined that my logic for vertically offset doors is slightly flawed or at least inadequate. With that in mind I’m reworking a large chunk of the door module and garage module to clean up this section of code and make it much more robust and readable.
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Version 2.6.8b - 01.18.2022
- Fixed a bug with exterior wainscoting when doors and garage doors are vertically offset negative or positive values.
!!! Critical Bug Fix !!!
This addresses the issues with door and garage doors that have been vertically offset within the wall. This bug fix addresses all wall types: rectangular, shed, gable and hip.
P.S.
Well it took a few days to fix that issue but the reason is because I changed up the underlying method with which I am transferring data around to the different modules. The code change is more robust and makes more sense that the previous logic, and is also more manageable. In all I had to edit about 12 files so it quickly became a two day project instead of a couple of hours, as I had initially projected.
Some of these under the hood updates are not very flashy but they are important because the organization of the code allows for quicker future updates and also typically condenses code into more efficient blocks or modules with increased performance.
Sadly I am unable to test every possible permutation that the plugins can get themselves into so I often rely on feedback to pull out some of these more elusive bugs or (holes in the logic). Thank-you everyone for your contributions in this regard. The plugins have evolved and continue to evolve because of you.
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Version 2.6.8c - 01.20.2022
- Fixed a minor bug with custom labels for doors, windows and garage doors.
This issue primarily involves using double and single quotes (and vertical bars) within labels. At some point I will figure out how to allow for this but for now I’ve simply restricted their usage since they manage to mangle up the javascript within the menus.
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