Wall Panels With A Slope
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Here is a situation I've encountered in the past and probably will again. What is shown in the attachment is an insulated, precast concrete, wall panel. In my drawing, I would treat each such panel as a group. The top of the panel slopes 1/4" per 12" to follow the roof.
What I have tried is extruding the panel's top profile as a "follow me", exploded the group, intersected the extrusion with the panel, erased the excess, and then regrouped. Easy enough for one panel, but there might be 100 panels side by side.
Is there an easier way?
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Now this is exactly the case when you should use compoments instead of groups. Within the model they function more or less the same with the exception that if you edit and modify an instance of the same component, all instances will be modified as well. Extra advantage is that your model needs to "remember" one geometry set of the component (and only the location, position colour etc of teh others) thus it will keep your file size way lower than if you use groups.
See my attached file - and edit > change something in one of the component then see the changes in the other one, too. Also see that the file size has only doubled though there are 121 instances in the model.
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Gaieus, put the panels side by side and you will see they slope side to side, not front to back. Yes components will work but they will need to be individual components, each edited to follow the slope.
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Ah, I didn't check that part - only theoretically talked about components. Sorry.
Yes, checked - now I see.
I know that if you just scale the instances, they will get distorted. Would that be a problem? Like in the attached file
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Here's a component that will save you a bit of time...
It consists of a sloped top (component), middle portion (component) and a bottom (group). Note that the edges are hidden where they join so it appears as a single entity (turn off hidden geometry to see this). The two sub-components are nested in a component called "Tee", the group is outside.Just array the Tees, then array the bottoms (group) and scale them to line up the bottom edges.
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Yeah, Paul, brilliant idea! No distortion since the vertical-only components cannot distort.
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Thank you gentlemen for your thoughtful, and useful, replies. I suppose, now that you have stimulated my brain, that I could create one panel as a group, array it along the slope, and then push-pull the bottom surfaces to the correct height. Yes?
Regards,
Walt
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That would also be possible but you would miss the advantages of using components (i.e. small file size as well as being able to edit one instance and having all the other instances edited at the same time). But surely a way to do it...
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Further to Gaieus's remarks -- using components will let you apply materials quickly when you are ready. On the other hand, in my experience with double tee walls once you start to add windows, vents, doors, etc. you will probably end up with a lot of unique components anyway. I once did what appeared to be a simple warehouse in double tees that ending up having 75 different tee panels (not to mention the lead time to make them all).... The project could have been done faster and cheaper with tilt-up masonry panels made on site, but the client would not listen.
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@pmiller said:
once you start to add windows, vents, doors, etc. you will probably end up with a lot of unique components anyway.
Not to mention the off-module oddballs and the inside corners. Nevertheless, I like your approach since it permits one to array the tops along the slope and the bottoms along a level plane, and I would not have to go in and adjust every panel individually.
Also, I think that just a few component styles would take care of 90% of the panels on any one project, even on the large-for-me 200,000 sq. ft. buildings.
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