I have just played with VA windows a little bit and here are few suggestions I have got:
Is there any way I could export my custom styles? I would like to have some possibility to exchange my custom styles between rhino files. Maybe export them to external files. Maybe possibility to save some of them as loaded by default. Maybe ability to copy objects from one Rhino file to another with style information included. It is annoying if I have custom furniture and I have to set it up once again every time I start new file.
I think It would be great if there would be ability to create sub-styles. I mean another styles that inherits properties from previously existing and replaces some. For example if I had the same rule for creating all the windows but some of them are differing in their sills it would be great to still have the ability to easily control the main rule. I know it can be worked around with GH styles but please consider also this way that I find personally to be much easier.
About windows styles:
Is there a way to control internal and external sill separately without gh styles? It is very rarely in my country for example that internal and external sills are at the same height.
Is there a way to hide the opening arc on the plan view? When drawn with opening arcs, they can be easily mistaken with doors. Would be nice to have an option to hide it or to set the opening angle without making it the maximum aperture as an information in BIM model.
Would be great to have an ability to control the relationships with wall from inside the widows styles. I think it would be for the further development, but worth it from the workflow point of view. I mean by that how the walls behave at the windows edge. It is often crucial for example to have proper offset around the window profile for the different layers of the wall. It is usually different for the construction core (loose for mounting), different for insulation (which can for example overlap frame), and different for internal and external finish (that can be cut-off or wrapped). As these can strongly influence the visual appearance of windows and become the tool for differing them, I think It should be controlled from that level.
There is probably wrong image illustrating “stop” in “new window style creation” window. I have also problem with the creation window’s size:
Hi Tomek,
You can export your custom styles with the vaStylesExport command. This will generate a .val file that you can import into a different document with the vaStylesImport command.
We will take into account your suggestion about sub-styles. What you can do now is to “duplicate” one existing style if you need to create another one that is very similar to an existing one. Do right click on the style name to choose the “Duplicate” option.
About window styles:
That’s not possible. Sill components are very simplified in Window objects so if you need more detailed ones, the only option now is through GH styles.
You can set the Maximum Aperture (%) value of doors and windows to 0 so they wont’ show the opening arch in plan views:
You can control the settings of wall layer wrappings at openings from the wall styles dialog. However these wrappings are defined by wall style and behave the same if you insert one window style in that wall or another. If you provide more information of the different results you want to get, we can consider improving these parameters and wrapping options.
The icons to define the Stop component sizes are just conceptual, but we can improve them if you think they are confusing. What problems do you have when creating the Window’s sizes?
Hi Tomek,
Ok, I get it about the window size. We will try to figure out why this is happening and fix it. The problem might be related to your Windows (the operating system) scale is not set to 100%.
About Stop icons, you are right, we need to update them.
About window styles, the screenshots are very clarifying. Righ now VisulARQ openings create a regular width opening through the wall, so it is not possible to achieve that level of detail. We will take it into account these requests for the future development.
Thanks for the feedback!
Hi Tomek,
I get back to you regarding this issue in case you still have it with VisualARQ 2.3. Could you let me know that? We fixed some related errors in version 2.3, but if still you still have it, please let me know your screen ressolution and scale so we can reproduce the problem.
Thanks
