Are there features in the works?

[StudioMtn]

Thank you 1 and all so far for sharing! I appreciate it!

Can you describe your ideal workflow for reference ?

First of all, when selecting a wall, UX should clearly show the pivot points which forms the wall axis. The axis line defines the reference relative to which the wall grows in thickness and height. Of course, this means, all walls should be modeled as lines, not areas or solids. The latter are beams or slabs.

Secondly, multi material definition should be openable from the wall context menu or in the dialog when double-clicking the wall. Changing wall layers should affect the wall thickness relative to the wall axis. Multimaterial definition should be more powerful, describing both line appearance and physical properties. Maybe the task area is too small and it should be opened in a dedicated MDI window.

Thirdly, there should be an extrusion alignment setting to change the direction of material extrusion. If alignment to center not supported by IFC, model it as multiple layer sets extruded in the opposite directions.

And last but not least, hatching patterns are very important.

After those are implemented, then there should be some material presets, e.g. cladding + insulation + woodframing + drywall, bricks + air + bricks, plaster + insulator + reinforced concrete + plaster.

That is not correct. Please look at Arch_MultiMaterial.

I'll check out how the multimaterial tool can be extended with presets. Maybe that's the only thing that's missing to implement what OP asks.

Pretty much it. Like I mentioned, I had a brief, but very distant time ago, experience with ArchiCAD in my 1st office job (actually, interning) and IIRC, if you set where your alignment face (in plan) and gave thicknesses of materials (in a dialog box) then the wall would stay where you placed it and it could change automatically if you changed any material property later on in the project. You could also just move the wall (in FreeCAD it would be the Sketch, then the solid would follow) and not have to move an array of studs after modifying the Sketch. <-- I hope that makes sense.

I'm going back into architecture...or at least trying to.

Good luck!

I started modeling my residence in FreeCAD, but I'm thinking that I'm going about it in a very (VERY) detailed manner which won't be the most efficient or adjustable in the working world.

That's good, since I think that FreeCAD is very suitable for very detailed 3d models. Just mind to not overload the model with too many objects because performances may suffer.

- wall assemblies (build a library of wall compositions)

It's perfectly possible to build a kind of revit wall assembly in freecad: just build the shape with some Part Sweep, make a compound and turn it into a wall using Arch Wall. If you base all the sweeps on the same Draft Wire (Polyline), you will also be able to adjust the wall parametrically.

- "level of detail" menu

This is more complicated: some objects have an hi-res featrure, but I'm not aware of any effort to implement this feature globally. And didnt' see soo much discussion about that too...

Looking forward to see your models!

I'll have to look into DraftWire. I've been using the Sketch tool after watching a very well done vid-torial by FreeCAD Community member Dimitar.

And there you go carlopav, take a gander at the beginning of digitizing my current home. CAUTION, it's not structurally stable as I haven't yet created the W8x28 for the 1st floor joists to rest on, lol.

[vanuan]

Thirdly, there should be an extrusion alignment setting to change the direction of material extrusion. If alignment to center not supported by IFC, model it as multiple layer sets extruded in the opposite directions.

Didn't get this one.

Here's an example.

Screenshot from 2020-08-07 02-18-29.png (22.84 KiB) Viewed 1516 times

This is a wall based on the sketch line (white). Placement position is 0,0,0

So by default it's aligned to center (Wall.Align = Center). And you can change it (though there's some bug currently when materials are set). When exporting to IFC (or importing), there's no Center alignment. So, it can be exported as a negative offset from the axis line. That means when importing, the centering information would be lost. So as an alternative, it can be exported as multiple layer sets.
But maybe IFC supports the Center alignment, need to double check.

[paullee]

Model looks good !

[vanuan]

The bug is here:
https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/comm ... 1328-R1349

Previously width (widthList) was a list, now it's a float (curWidth).

[StudioMtn]

Model looks good !

Thank you.

[carlopav]

But maybe IFC supports the Center alignment, need to double check.

My idea was that the wall doesn't have to necessairly be based on a line internally. The editing points can be displayed wherever we want according to the user defined alignment, but that could just be an UI thing. The only thing that matter would be the x local axis of the wall coordinates system.

On the IFC side, I imagined to export the wall in several representation contexts: one containing the wall axis, one with the full 3d shape, the others still I didnt' think about. Could this help to reconstruct the alignment? Probably not indeed...

Instead the alignment could be really useful when you want for example the wall to align to an axis, but i think we can treat it as a different usecase from the edittrackers points display... and when exporting to IFC the only thing that matters is that the wall is on the right position... roundtripping parametric alignments is out of the scope of IFC I think.

[carlopav]

Thank you.

I have a tricky question (to me at least). Can you make the basement 50cm higher and move the 1st floor 50 cm in the z direction without breaking the model?
Can you then undo the operation correctly?

[vanuan]

roundtripping parametric alignments is out of the scope of IFC I think.

Hm. That would mean that IFC is inherently read-only. So the source of truth for the model resides inside the BIM software. So IFC is like a "binary" output and is not meant to be an interchangeable format as it's being advertised as...

[carlopav]

Hm. That would mean that IFC is inherently read-only. So the source of truth for the model resides inside the BIM software. So IFC is like a "binary" output and is not meant to be an interchangeable format as it's being advertised as...

Hmm.. do you know a way to do it?

[vocx]

...So IFC is like a "binary" output and is not meant to be an interchangeable format as it's being advertised as...

I think it is being advertised like this. IFC is like a PDF, it is meant to be shared, but not edited directly. One person (engineer, company) controls the production of a main IFC, and the rest of the project (contractors, builders, other companies) use it as reference for their own purposes.