Topic outline

  • WALL STYLES

    Collapse all Expand all
    • Styled objects save you time because you can pre-set and save their parameters. With wall styles, you can pre-set your typical wall assemblies with all the appropriate graphics and data—ready to use.

      This course will look at the key settings of the Edit Wall Style dialog for a basic wall style. While this dialog shares the same parameters as the Wall Preferences dialog, there is a crucial distinction to be made.


      WALL PREFERENCES
      Editing the Wall Preferences dialog will have no impact on existing walls. The Wall Preferences dialog affects future walls drawn with the Wall tool, but it does not save those settings—that is, not unless the Save Preferences as Wall Style button at the upper right of the dialog is clicked, which will prompt you to assign a name to your new wall style.

      EDIT WALL STYLE
      When creating a wall with the Wall tool, you can select a wall style from the dropdown at the mode bar (located at the upper left of the drawing window). However, you edit wall styles through the Edit Wall Style dialog. Remember: Editing a style affects all walls assigned to that style, whether already in the file or yet to be created. Using wall styles is highly recommended for efficient workflows.

      Note: This feature's more advanced settings are covered elsewhere or within the relevant certification course. For more extensive information on this feature, remember you can also access Vectorworks Help.

  • DEFINITION

    • The Wall Style Definition tab

    • KEY FEATURES

      At the top of the dialog, you will see a Top/Plan diagram of your wall style, showing any components you may have added and a small arrow indicating the direction. This arrow can be seen in the drawing on an individually selected wall. This arrow indicating direction is important because, when looking in the direction of the arrow, Vectorworks considers the left side of the arrow and, thus, the left side of the wall to be the outside of the wall. This left-side-is-outside orientation is critical for a wall's interactions with inserts like doors and windows.
    • ⓘ If you have accidentally drawn a wall in the wrong direction, select the wall and click Reverse Sides in the Object Info palette.
    • Overall Thickness: If your wall has components, then this field will be automatically calculated (providing the product of the wall component thicknesses) and greyed. If your wall does not have components, then you enter a specific value for the wall's overall thickness in this field. (For unstyled walls, you can adjust this value per wall via the Object Info palette; however, the overall thickness will change relative to the wall's centerline.)

      Edit Wall Attributes

      Wall Attributes: The parameters of this dialog allow you to set fill and pen attributes for the wall object. Click the Make all Attributes by Class button to defer to the slab object's class settings.

      Attributes Below Cut Plane: This dropdown is used to select an alternative class that determines the wall's attributes when the wall's height is below the host design layer's cut plane. For this feature to be active, the host design layer's Enable Cut Plane at Layer Elevation checkbox must be checked; see the Edit Design Layers dialog.

      Components: You can add, edit, duplicate, delete, and sort your components here. You can also edit the components' settings directly by clicking into the rows' cells or by highlighting one or more rows and clicking the Edit button at the bottom of the dialog. (Note: Walls do not require a component to function.)

      Wall Closures at Inserts: This button at the bottom right of the dialog opens the Wall Closures at Inserts dialog, where you can create and edit wall closure names and their effects: Profile Shapes, Profile Offsets, and Wrappings.
    • ⓘ If you have wall components, be sure to designate which one is the Core component: Click in the component's row beneath the Core column. The Core component is typically the primary structural component of the wall assembly.

    • ADDING COMPONENTS

      Click New to add components to your wall.

      Wall Component Settings

      Definition: Set the component's defining features. A new component needs a Name and Thickness at minimum. If a Material is selected, the component can automatically derive its Fill, Texture, and Lambda value from that Material.

      Fill, Texture, Left Pen, and Right Pen: The graphic appearance of the component can be
      • set by Style (set Material to None, click Remove by Class Settings, and edit the fields manually),
      • set by Class (select a Class from the Definition dropdown, set Material to None, and click Make all Attributes By Class), or
      • set by Material (select a Material in the Definition field; Left Pen and Right Pen must be set by Class or manually by Style).
      Note: When a Material is assigned to a component, the Material's attributes override the Fill and Texture. However, you can still change to a different Texture while keeping the Material active.

      Component Top and Component Bottom: A component's top and bottom bounds can be set as "Relative to wall" or "Relative to story." When stories exist with active level types, a specific level type can be selected from the dropdown. Offset values for component top and bottom bounds may also be manually entered. 

      Always auto join in Capped Join mode: This will cap (draw a dividing line at) the components orthogonally relative to the wall's length at the join rather than chamfer diagonally (without a dividing line), as seen below.

      A wall corner with Always auto join in Capped Join mode checked and another without for comparison

      Master Snap Points: These checkboxes allow you to activate a snapping priority for the left and/or right side of the component. This is usually done for structural components to make dimensioning easier.

  • INSERTION OPTIONS

    • The Insertion option tab of the Edit Wall Style dialogue

    • KEY FEATURES

      Height: The parameters within this field set the height of the wall object. The difference between the top and bottom bounds determines the wall's height value. The wall's top and bottom bounds may have different references, and here, there are three options to consider.

      Layer Elevation: Select this option to enter the wall object's default height manually.

      Layer Wall Height: Select this option to have the wall determine its height based on the value assigned to the host design layers' Layer Wall Height setting.

      Level Type: For story-bound walls, select a specific Level Type to have the wall reference that level type for its top or bottom bounds. Typically, when this method is chosen, the Top Bound reference will be a level type designated as [Story Above] in the dropdown list.
    • ⓘ You can change a styled wall's height by instance—that is, for one specific instance of the wall style—via the Object Info palette without affecting the other instances of the wall style.
    • ⓘ The top and bottom bounds of individual components will override (take precedence over) the top and bottom bounds for the wall as a whole. Therefore, it may be beneficial to set the wall's overall top and bottom bounds to the highest and lowest bounds used by its components.
    • Caps: With this dropdown, you can choose whether a line appears to "cap" the Start, End, or Both (Start and End) points of the wall. (Note: Wall Caps can be set to "Use wall line attributes" or "Use component line attributes." This setting, however, is located within the Wall Attributes dialog, which is accessed by clicking the Edit Wall Attributes button when the Definition tab is active.)

      examples of a wall with caps, without caps and with caps but using the component line attributes

      Class: This dropdown is where the wall style's default class is chosen. The class selected here is often called the "container class" because its sole task is to control the visibility of the wall object (and not its graphic attributes). Furthermore, the display of the wall object's fill and pen attributes may vary depending on the detail level and other viewport settings.

      Control Offset: In this field, you can enter an offset value to assist with drawing walls when using the Wall Tool's Custom Control Line Mode.

      Energos: The parameters within this field are only needed if you plan to run an Energos evaluation of your design. It requires Vectorworks Architect or Design Suite. 

  • TEXTURES

    • The textures tab of the Edit Wall Style Dialogue
    • As a rule of thumb, click Use component textures when you have component textures; click Use object textures when you don't.

      The Part dropdown and Texture swatch immediately below work together. When Use object textures is selected, you can assign textures to individual sides of the wall, or to the wall object overall (see the Part dropdown).

      Textures can be applied from the object's Class settings when clicking the Texture swatch and then clicking By Class at the top of the popover. But you may still wish to apply an override here, especially as each side of the wall can have a different texture. (Some existing styles may already have an override applied.)

  • DATA

    • The Edit Wall Style dialogues Data tab
    • Mark: Values entered in this field can be searched and reported in Data Tags, Reports (Worksheets), and Graphic Legends. A unique and abbreviated identifier is typically entered here, especially as an alternative to the Slab Style Name, which can become quite long.

      Whether you enter values for the other fields depends on your workflow. Add data if it is useful to you. Otherwise, leave it be and save yourself some time—you can always add it later!
    • ⓘ For BIM and more advanced workflows, additional data can be added to walls and other objects via the Data Manager, though all your building shell tools already have IFC mappings.