Curtain Wall by temper #4

I had to think about this solution, when we had to follow the visions of a bunch of designers hour-by-hour. This was critical, because I was sitting on the Structural Engineers side and we had to create Formwork and Rebar Drawings with a tight deadline. 

The main idea is, to Create a Mass, whitch could be a real mass, or just Surfaces. All faces of the Mass can be divided to smaller ones. In Conceptual state you can add Curtains System easily to them. 

Or you can use a Pattern for the division, whitch works exactly the same as we saw at Curtain Walls. 

Patterns

Properties

The post before this gets sense here! On a Division Pattern you can use Pattern Based Curtain Panels, not only layout ideas. The offspring is a distorted construction divided to flat triangular faces!

Triangulate a Distorted Face

Before going on with the Curtain Wall story, we have to stop for additional informations. The following technic will be useful for Adaptive Components too.
As nearly everything in Revit, this is a Workplain related story. All Point's and Line's Offset value works perpendicular to it's Host. The solution is easy againt, just try to think like Revit does ;)

Find the difference

When the Adaptive Components were implemented, they gave me many nigths of Googleing in hell of hell to recognize the possibilities. I would like to save your time by showing how to work with them.

1. We should not spend too much time on the one on the lefthand side. [On the image you can see "Használhatatlan" marked, it means Useless in Hungarian.] I just opened a template (Metric Curtain Panel Pattern Based.rft), and changed the Pattern to Triangle (flat) on the Properties Palette, after that just made a Form from the original Reference Lines.
   By this method the triangle based prisms open on convex faces and intersecting on concaves...
2. On the righthand side you can find a trick, to create a countinuous external face for the (Curtain) Wall. We just have to define the offseted corners.  
1. Open the template named above
2. use Reference Point Tool (as marked on image with 1-2.)
3. Set the Workplace on horizontal planes of the original point before placing a new (as marked 3-5.)
   
4. Repeat this to the rest two corners
5. Select the three new Point (you are going to pick the last placed ones by clicking on them)
6. Add an Offset on the Properties Palette (maybe you can assign a parameter if you want to)
7. Draw Reference Lines with 3D Snap (you can find this on the Options Bar)
8. Create a Form from the upper and the original Reference Line chain

We are ready to use the Panel on next week.

For Revit gourmands a small comment:
The Offset is true perpendicular to the corners, and it is NOT the real thickness of the truncated pyramid shaped panel. There are solutions to corrigate this, I may show some of them in later posts.

Curtain Wall by temper #3

Just one step forward, from the Wall based Curtain systems, when it is bent in more than one direction. The secret is to Create an In-Place Mass and use it's Face for CW creation. I do not prefer this method, although it is easy to visualize concept, but it is tricky, to roll it to Construction documentation and Fabrication.

So the step without detailed explanation:

1. Create az In-Place Mass: Massing & Site Ribbon / Conceptual Mass Tab / In-Place Mass - maybe I will write about it later
2. Place a Curtain System on it: Massing & Site Ribbon / Model by Face Tab / Curtain System (on the Ribbon do not forget to click Create System button after Face selection)
3. You can add or remove Grids as we saw before
4. Changing Panels was a previous topic also
5. You can add Mullions at the Type Properties of the Curtain Wall or one-by-one with the Mullion command from the Home/Architecture Ribbon

Do not wait for a miracle. You can offset the Grid from adjusted line, but can not rotate from main direction of the Mass face jused as source geometry. You can do tricks, with creating Masses using custom Reference Planes or Faces, but this could be too difficult for a Revit-newbe...

Curtain Wall by temper #2

Freeform in Plan View, but still made of Wall case

The current trick is that you can divide Grid Lines of the Curtain Wall by segments. So you can free up your Segments form the original Grid system. For this, jut pick the Gridline (NOT the Mullion, but the dashed line), for this you may nedd to hit Tab button sometimes.
TIP: If you have many Gridline to modify, just hide Curtain Wall Mullions in the Visibility/Graphics window, or by right-clicking on them and select Hide in View > By Category option from the popup menu. 

If you succeded with the selection, you have to see this as the last element on the Ribbon menu

Now move your cursor over the Gridline and simly click. If you pick a segment dividing panel, it is going to disappear, if there were no division there it is going to disappear. 

For adding new Gridline, use the Curtain Grid command from the Architecture/Home tab of Ribbon, and please see adding options

After creating your Grid system, just replace Panels, like we did in the previous post at point 4-5.

I often use this technic, in case of rhythmically changing wall thichnesses

In case of using differend Wall Types, use their Offset instance parameter, to justify them. 

Instead of Panels and Wall Types, you can also use Openings, just load them from any Revit Library and select from the Properties Palette.