Hi,
just seeing if anyone has made a brick veneer wall assembly in Profile 3 builder. (Bricks on a external wall sitting on damp course)
I have attached some snap shots of my results. I would like to be able to get a accurate brick count by using the bricks as components. Its kind of working ok but just interested if there is a better result in there somewhere
Brick Veneer extrusion.pdf (126.4 KB)
Brickwall assembly.pdf (35.7 KB)
I have done this for detailing but you will quickly stall SU on full sized buildings… wouldn’t you just estimate bricks using material bricks/m2… you would have to estimate wastage anyway…?
also begs the question how do you handle the mortar between the brick courses and perpends…?
I agree with @gsharp if you start getting into that kind of granular modeling your headed for performance problems. Also just imagine how many unique components your going to wind up with once you start cutting and trimming in details.
Take a look at Estimator for SU by John Brock. I think this is a much better way to approach the problem. I think you can apply this to a lot of things. I’m obsessed with detail but it’s highly unlikely you can anticipate exactly how the trades will execute things in the field. That’s why most architects and engineers specify standards and provide a few key details and leave the granular stuff to the tradesmen.
If you want to get crazy with the detail look at Vali Architects Instant cladding. Don’t get me wrong I have Profile Builder 3 and love it! But I’m just not sure it’s the best tool fro this.
Do what a bricklayer does, work out the area and divide by the area of a brick. Add a bit for the mortar if you want to be that accurate, but the standard brickie will charge by the meter or yard.
I just upgraded to the PB3 BIM Bundle with Estimator Pro. In his EP intro video, Dale illustrates exactly this example: estimating bricks (and mortar) for a brick wall.
As others have noted — other than for a detail vignette — use a brick material instead of modeling indivdual bricks.
Thanks for the responses, yes I use Johns Estimator plug in, its great. I was just playing around with the idea of doing it this way to see if it would be easy to get a brick count in components.
I had very positive responses from a brickie when I supplied detailed CMU layout in a fireplace model (with stone cladding) required some careful planning for CMU and structural elements (steel). File size was not an issue for this type of model.
I don’t have the experience, but others may know if the advantages of supplying this level of granular detail to tradesman would reduce the overall construction time / errors vs increased design time.
Other considerations - we have to wait for computer hardware/software to catchup and construction workers with limited knowledge may become more common?
1 picture is worth a thousand words… a 3d model is worth significantly more 
everyone benefits from the explicit model [ you, contractor, client, authorities, etc] and much more efficient
trouble is no one wants to pay you for these often intangible benefits 
I was doing 3d documentation of retail fit outs back in 1986 using Datacad…
the lack of site issues resulting from poor understanding of the drawings really surprised me…
and was a major factor in the process running smoothly…plans were conventional …
but all elevations and sections were 2 point perspectives with construction notes
and numerous 3d standard details
everyone understood what they were getting or building at first glance…
rarely got a phone call during the fit out.
Trying to model every brick seems overkill to me and as mentioned above the tradesman will probably change it up in the field even after all of your careful modeling and planning.
What I’ve shown below is some brick facade (wainscoting) modeled in my wall plugin (Medeek Wall) as solids. The rowlock brick ledges are different solids than the half wall beneath so technically you could separate these two quantities for estimating purposes.
You can grab the volumes of the solids and from that you can probably (with reasonable accuracy) determine the amount of brick and mortar you will need.
However I could see doing this for a custom built fireplace or some other brick feature that you want to exactly define. However, brick facades are not something that needs to be modeled that exact in my experience.
Its kind of like laying out every separate shingle on a roof and telling a roofer to follow your model exactly. I guarantee his actual roofing job and your model will not match at the end of the day.
