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If These Walls Could Talk
by: Ed Goldberg
URL: http://localhost/gotoPointA.jsp?dest=2_8gold

In last month's column we discussed some of the tools for creating, modifying, and automatically cleaning up walls that you'll find in Autodesk® Architectural Desktop 3 and 3.3. In this month's column, we're doing more of the same, looking at some new tools—Wall Justification, for example—that will further simplify the essential work that you do with walls in all your projects.

Once again, we will use the four-view drawing template we created last month. If you do not have that template, you can download it from here (90 KB).

Starting a new drawing with the Wall_tutorial template
1. Select the New icon from the standard toolbar to bring up the Create New Drawing dialog box.

2. In this dialog box, select the Use a Template icon and select the Wall_tutorial template from the drop-down list.

3. Change to the Work_3D layout tab.

Placing the toolbars
1. Right-click in any empty space near the top toolbars to bring up the Toolbar Selection menu.

2. Select the ARCARCHX option to open the Autodesk Architectural Desktop Toolbar Selector. (see Figure 1.)

Note: Selecting the ACAD option opens up the standard AutoCAD® Toolbar Selector. You can also bring up these selectors by selecting the View drop-down menu from the top toolbar, and selecting the Toolbars option from that menu.


Figure 1: Right-click in an empty space near the top toolbars to activate the toolbar selections.
(click image to enlarge)

3. At the Architectural Desktop Toolbar Selector, check the Walls and Wall Tools toolbars. When the toolbars appear, place them in a convenient place on your screen.

Note: Holding down the Ctrl key on the keyboard while moving the toolbars prevents automatic "docking" so that you can place the toolbars anywhere on the screen.

4. Repeat this process with the ACAD option and place the View and Shade toolbars.

Converting lines to walls and Wall Justification
1. Select the Line icon from the Draw toolbar, and draw two consecutive lines, 5' long and 10' long respectively in the Top View viewport, which is the upper-left viewport in the Wall_tutorial template.

2. Select the Convert to Walls icon and then select the 10' line. When asked "Erase layout geometry?" enter Y at the Command line and press the Enter to bring up the Wall Properties dialog box.

3. In this dialog box, select the CMU-8 Rigid-1.5 Air-2 Brick-4 Furring wall, and press the OK button to finish the command. You should now have a wall adjacent to a line.

4. Zoom in so the wall and line fill the viewport. Change to Paperspace by clicking the PAPER/MODEL button below the Command line.

5. Select the Top View viewport border and right-click to bring up the contextual menu.

Locking the display
1. Select Display Locked, and then pick Yes from the submenu (see Figure 2). (Locking the display in AutoCAD software allows you to zoom while in Modelspace without changing scale.)


Figure 2: Lock the Viewports so that the scale doesn't change when zooming in Modelspace.

2. Zoom in on the Top View so that it fills your screen, and then change to Modelspace by again clicking on the PAPER/MODEL button below the Command line. You get the view shown in Figure 3.


Figure 3: Line and wall in top view.

3. Select the Wall, and right-click to bring up the contextual menu.

4. Select Wall Modify from the contextual menu, which brings up the Modify Walls dialog box.

5. In this dialog box, select the Justify drop-down list, change the justification to Left, and press the Apply button. Repeat this process while changing and reapplying the different justifications.

Notice the difference between Center and Baseline Justification (see Figure 4).


Figure 4: Baseline and Centerline justification are different.

Note: The Wall Justification feature option controls how the wall is placed in relationship to cursor movement. The Center Justification is at the center of the wall, vertically. The Baseline is dictated by the relationship of the wall components.

Understanding the Baseline Justification
1. Select the wall, bring up the contextual menu again, and select Edit Wall Style, which opens the Wall Style Properties dialog box for the CMU-8 Rigid-1.5 Air-2 Brick-4 Furring wall (see Figure 5).

2. In this dialog box, select the Components tab.

The Components tab in the Wall Style Properties dialog box is used to set the components such as brick, insulation, and so on as well as their vertical location within the given wall style.

Notice in this tab that the Edge Offset of the Rigid Insulation is 0"; this makes that edge the baseline. All other materials have either a positive or negative Edge Offset in relationship to the Baseline.




Figure 5: All components are placed in relationship to the Baseline.

Conclusion
The understanding of the difference between Baseline and Center justification is very important. Baseline justification was added to Autodesk Architectural Desktop 3 and 3.3 in order to enable designers to line up wall materials from floor to floor. Understanding how to apply this in your drawings is critical; for example, the use of concrete block in the foundation versus concrete block with brick veneer sitting on a steel angle in front of the block on the next floor.

Our work with walls will continue in next month's tutorial.
H. Edward Goldberg, AIA, is a practicing architect and industrial designer, as well as Coordinator of Industrial Design at Towson University in Towson, Maryland. Ed can be reached at h.e.goldberg@verizon.net.