Introduction to Walls

The walls are the base of your project. Understand the wall and you can then build a solid project.

Wall Depth
Before placing your first wall you should check that the default wall depth (thickness) values are set to your project requirement. This can be changed at any time, but it can be time consuming to edit each wall again.

To change the default value of wall depth the following:

1. Click on the wall icon with the left mouse button and drag out the multiple wall icons.

2. Select the wall size that you wish to edit. Then right click on the selected wall icon.

3. You will then be presented with the Wall options dialog, where you can edit the wall Depth.

4. Click on Default to set the new wall Depth to become the default value for future projects.

All future use of the wall icon will result in a wall depth of the default value.

Placing a wall: Single Wall

1. Select a wall icon. Then left click on the chosen icon. Note how the last selected wall size icon becomes new displayed default icon.

2. You now have a choice of How you are going to place the wall. The choices are:

Insert Multiple walls
Insert Single wall
Insert wall at right angles
Insert angled wall
Insert parallel wall
Insert parallel wall at set distance
Insert wall midway

Note how that the tool tips appear if you allow the mouse to hover over the icon.

3. We will first try placing a single wall, so select the Insert Single wall icon.

Place the mouse cursor at the start position of the wall.
Left click once and drag the wall out to the end point.
To fix the wall left click again.

Note that in our example we are displaying the Grid and that we have Snap to grid switched on. If you find that you can not place your wall exactly where you want then you should switch the Snap function off. Press Ctrl + Spacebar to access the Snap dialog.
As you dragged out the wall length you would have noticed that the status bar at the bottom left of your screen will change to show the co ordinates and length of the wall.

There is another way to set the length of a wall exactly: Double click on the placed wall and you will be presented with the Wall dialog again, where you can set the Length (in same way as you set the Depth)
An additional feature is that it displays the actual length of the wall as it is dragged out, in the form of a dimension line.

Change an individual wall's depth

You can change an individual wall type by double clicking on it to show the Wall options dialog. Then simply click on the wall type icon in the dialog to expand the selection. Selecting a new wall type will change the selected wall to that type.

Placing a wall: Multiple Walls

A building can be constructed quickly if you use the Multiple wall function. This is similar to placing single walls, however the end point of your current wall becomes the start point of your next wall. To end this wall input, press the Esc key on your keyboard.

Insert a wall at right angles

Some of the wall functions require that you have the Snap function switched on. If a function does not appear to be working its normally due to the Snap function being in the wrong status.

This function requires Snap to be switched on. After selecting the Insert a wall at right angles, you will see the cursor snap to the wall edge. Visit the Snap dialog again and you will see that there are additional switches to control what part of a wall you can select to snap to. (See the Snap to section in the Snap dialog).

Copy a wall

This feature often gets missed. You can in fact copy a wall.

Select the wall that you want to copy, then select the Multicopy icon. You can preset the number of copies, offset and angle by first right clicking on the Multicopy icon.

Wall selection- seeing red

When you select a wall, you will notice that the selection is identified by on of the wall edges appearing red. This red edge indicates which surface is currently active. Double clicking on the wall and changing the texture attributes will only apply to that wall surface. You can change the current active edge by clicking on the wall edge.

Invisible Walls

It might be useful at times to make a wall invisible, eg to view the inside of a building. Select a wall edge as above, to view the Wall options dialog. Then tick Invisible in Plan/Perspective view to make that wall edge invisible. You will need to repeat the operation for each wall edge in order to make the wall disappear from all directions. This should not be confused with the Virtual wall.

Virtual Walls

Normally a room has to be enclosed by walls in order to define a room. In cases where you need to define a room, or uses the properties of a wall where there is no wall, then you can use the Virtual wall. The Virtual wall is an additional wall type that operates like other walls, but without existing. This allows you to define open plan rooms.

General notes about wall placement

If you find that your room size is not being drawn to the wall lengths input, then it will be due to your walls snapping to the wall axis, and not the wall edge. If you snap to the wall axis then your walls interior length will be short by half the walls depth to which you have snapped. A common mistake:

After your first click to place the wall,drag the wall out and then press Ctrl W and how the wall snaps to the existing wall will toggle between the outside wall edge, the wall axis and the inside wall edge. This feature, although documented is missed by many people. This will allow you to create exact room sizes. The Ctrl & W function can be used to snap to all possible points on a wall or object. The Snap function does not have to be activated in order for Ctrl & W to work.

A good tip prior to placing any walls, is to use the Guidelines. You can place Guidelines, and use these as a guide to place all your walls Your wall edges will then snap exactly in place along any Guideline. You can place Guide lines at exact distances apart and at exact angles. I prefer to use the Guidelines as my main positioning method, especially as you can make them hide with a single icon click.