creating an angled window

[HumbleChief]

Thanks for the vid Scott,

 

I posted a suggestion in the suggestions forum.

 

https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/9588-would-like-additional-bottom-offset-setting-dbx-in-window-dbx/

[HamlinBC]

What about a 3D molding polyline with the moulding being your casing/frame/sash, etc...  Then just put a hole in the wall, and fill in the gaps with plines?

 

I will post pictures in a bit...headed to a meeting.

[Chopsaw]

Create a window symbol with the shape at the top, flip it upside down, and then manually patch that little triangle area with a polyline solid.

I'm assuming the latter is what Rich did. (Alaska_Son post #22)

Not quite sure what happened to Rich but I am quite sure this is what he did.

[Rich_Winsor]

Sorry for the tardy response but my nocturnal proclivities

sometimes don't lend themselves to immediate responses.

Although, like Larry, I don't like to be coy about revealing

methods of work in this case I was responding to the nature

of the OP's specific request "Anyone care to actually make

a real window do this so I know its actually possible? Which

seemed to me to imply "if" rather than "how" it could be done.

 

Anyway, that all being said, there was no real mystery to the

process. As several here have predicted the basic process

involved creating the "rightside up" version of the window

and then turning that into a symbol and then rotating the

symbol 180° to get the angled side on the bottom. The

problem with this is that the symbol cuts a square hole in

the wall leaving an open triangle which needs to be filled

manually. I tried a couple of approaches to filling this space

including adding the triangular patch to the symbol as Joe

suggested but I had problems getting interior and exterior

textures and patterns to display properly in all views. In the

end I used 2 triangular Polyline Solids to fill the gap. One

the width of the exterior sheathing and one the width of the

rest of the wall. This made it easy to match the materials of

the interior and exterior walls. By tweaking the fit of the P-

Solids I was finally able to get the window to display cleanly

in Standard & Vector views but obviously it won't frame

properly.

 

So I guess the answer to the OP's request is it depends on

what your ultimate goal is. The window can be made and it

will display in 3D views, but basically it's an upside-down

bassackwards symbol and the simple addition to the DBX

requested by the OP is certainly a valid and helpful one.

 

[dshall]

Nocturnal proclivities? Inquiring minds ....

[Chopsaw]

Rich, may I ask how you were able to eliminate the "cut out line" of the window symbol?  I thought this would have to wait until layout but you seem to have dealt with it in your live elevation view.

[HumbleChief]

Sorry for the tardy response but my nocturnal proclivities

sometimes don't lend themselves to immediate responses.

Although, like Larry, I don't like to be coy about revealing

methods of work in this case I was responding to the nature

of the OP's specific request "Anyone care to actually make

a real window do this so I know its actually possible? Which

seemed to me to imply "if" rather than "how" it could be done.

 

Anyway, that all being said, there was no real mystery to the

process. As several here have predicted the basic process

involved creating the "rightside up" version of the window

and then turning that into a symbol and then rotating the

symbol 180° to get the angled side on the bottom. The

problem with this is that the symbol cuts a square hole in

the wall leaving an open triangle which needs to be filled

manually. I tried a couple of approaches to filling this space

including adding the triangular patch to the symbol as Joe

suggested but I had problems getting interior and exterior

textures and patterns to display properly in all views. In the

end I used 2 triangular Polyline Solids to fill the gap. One

the width of the exterior sheathing and one the width of the

rest of the wall. This made it easy to match the materials of

the interior and exterior walls. By tweaking the fit of the P-

Solids I was finally able to get the window to display cleanly

in Standard & Vector views but obviously it won't frame

properly.

 

So I guess the answer to the OP's request is it depends on

what your ultimate goal is. The window can be made and it

will display in 3D views, but basically it's an upside-down

bassackwards symbol and the simple addition to the DBX

requested by the OP is certainly a valid and helpful one.

Thanks Rich nice work.

[Alaskan_Son]

Rich, may I ask how you were able to eliminate the "cut out line" of the window symbol?  I thought this would have to wait until layout but you seem to have dealt with it in your live elevation view.

 

He actually answered that question in his previous post...

 

"In the end I used 2 triangular Polyline Solids to fill the gap. One

the width of the exterior sheathing and one the width of the

rest of the wall. This made it easy to match the materials of

the interior and exterior walls."

[Chopsaw]

This has taken quite a bit of time to figure out in my situation and I think it is important to give a complete picture of the complexity of a "Workaround" when asking Chief for a Software Modification.

 

Rich, may I ask how you were able to eliminate the "cut out line" of the window symbol? I thought this would have to wait until layout but you seem to have dealt with it in your live elevation view.

For me this just did not do the trick:

 

He actually answered that question in his previous post...

 

"In the end I used 2 triangular Polyline Solids to fill the gap. One

the width of the exterior sheathing and one the width of the

rest of the wall. This made it easy to match the materials of

the interior and exterior walls."

This comes a little closer but I feel is still not complete:

 

By tweaking the fit of the P-Solids I was finally able

to get the window to display cleanly in Standard & Vector

views but obviously it won't frame properly.

Tweaking has a lot of meanings so I tweaked and tweaked and tweaked until I gave up and then tweaked again. About the fourth time I closed and reopened the plan I noticed that I lost one of the offending "Symbol hole" lines and although I did not know how this happened I then knew it was possible so I tweaked some more and accidently moved the Window Symbol and when I moved it back the other "Symbol hole" line disappeared. Eureka!! I had just discovered tweaking maybe, or maybe not the same way Rich did.

So now I have the Standard View and Vector View figured out I still need to make the Plan View look right. Fortunately there are CA training videos (#370 & #371) that illustrate this so I will figure that out.

All of this just to illustrate how important it is for Chief to take this Request seriously as it would be a massive time saver.

Respectfully, Chopsaw

[Rich_Winsor]

Hey Chop, I feel your pain. I had a similar experience.

I wish I could tell you that I was in total control but truth

be told I was just trying to make sure that all the surfaces

of the P-Solids matched the wall and window surfaces. 

The Vector view hadn't been clean and I wasn't too

optimistic that it was going to get any better, but when I

brought it up it was clean so I did what anybody would

do. I pulled a screen shot to prove it and posted the result

just like I knew what I was doing.

[Chopsaw]

Thanks Rich, Your honesty is something we need to see more of on this forum.

There needs to be an open discussion on these things if we are going to get them resolved.

I am finding that there are many things in the software that I struggle with and eventually fix but have no idea how it happened or how to reproduce it again. Software bug, operator error, hardware glitch, it is often hard to report a problem that is not understood.

There seem to be huge gaps in the recorded knowledge base that need to be addressed so that CA can understand the frustration that we go through and let their development teams forge ahead on these issues.