Wall based on walltrace vs Wall with no base

[carlopav]

Keepin on the track to understand better how walls works, i have another question:
what's the advantage of having a wall based on a single sketch segment instead of having a wall that keep the baseline inplicitly enbedded into the wall itself and have no base object?

[paullee]

Maybe it can be commented from user experience point of view, in addition to from developer @yorik point of view.

Not sure just guess @yorik start with something simple from programming point of view.

From user point of view, it add some complexity to the workflow, for me - easier to mess up when you unintentionally move the base...

But this approach seem allow more flexible and complex operation - e.g. a very simple usecase, with 1 Dwire, you can create a series of Wall, offsetting at a range you like, then you have composite wall - dig out @Regis youtube video [ Remarks. Multi-Materials automatically create layers of walls same way; but with the former approach, you can have different height / elevation in those layers ]

What everybody think about the Base object for ArchWall?

[yorik]

I think it's all a matter of flexibility. There are things possible with for ex. sketches that you'll never be able to fully embed into walls. This is the most powerful solution, no doubt about that.

Now, for simple cases where the wall base is only a straight line, I agree with you. It's not necessary in many cases.

The wall object is actually able to work without base line. It only requires length, width and height to be non-zero.

Maybe when creating walls directly with the wall tool, since anyway it is not able to make curves or anything (yet), we should default to this?

[carlopav]

I think it's all a matter of flexibility. There are things possible with for ex. sketches that you'll never be able to fully embed into walls. This is the most powerful solution, no doubt about that.
Maybe when creating walls directly with the wall tool, since anyway it is not able to make curves or anything (yet), we should default to this?

Thx Yorik for the explanation. For sure it's the more powerful solution.
I asked to understand more, but also because i'm still thinking about wall editing with modifiers and with draftEdit, and about placement propagation.
In the meantime i'm thinking that having the possibility to act on wall Placement, but also on the Base vertexes (so without changing placement) could be really interesting. Because placement will be propagated to children, Base vertex editing no.

What if the default when creating wall without a preselected base would be this:
- wall based on a single segment sketch, which lies on the X axis and represent length in the moment of creation;
- placement will be in the middle of the wall, like the wall without base, but placement rotation will be calculated to have the wall in the desired position, with the desired rotation;
- movebase set to true;
- draft move and rotate act on Placement: they are applied to the base object and propagated to the cildrens;
- drat edit will act on base sketch, moving vertexes along x axis and, only if the wall will result rotated, act on Placement Rotation (so children will follow the wall just if it is rotated);
- draft trimex will only act on base vertexes along x axis of the sketch;
- joinStart and JoinEnd Properties will join the startpoint or the endpoint of a wall to another producind T or L joints, without acting on wall placement but just moving wall base vertexes.

Of course we will need to do something at the end of the wall to cut it at the right position (for ex. bisecting a corner joint). (and also if the wall is moved far from the Base Placement)

EDIT: something i didn't consider: using link when creating a wall based on an object. Since Links are copies of the original object, but have their own placement. Maybe we can use this cool feature to have walls that reflect the geometry of the Base, but keep it in place with the wall, and moving the linked Base do not affect other objects based on the same Base. (don't know if i was clear). Something similar to PartDesign base feature.

EdIT 2: what if the base sketch contains 2points constrained on X axis. This points are controlled by joinstart and joinend properties. The default wall have a line segment constrained to the points, but it can be changed according to an arc or whatever without losing the possibility to adjust the endpoints parametrically.

EDIT 3: should be possible to have multilayer wall also without Base sketch

[Roy_043]

Just a small remark:
If a wall does not have a base line applying a multimaterial does not work. Probably because without a base there is no way to determine the direction of the wall.

[paullee]

Just a small remark:
If a wall does not have a base line applying a multimaterial does not work. Probably because without a base there is no way to determine the direction of the wall.

Do a request in Mantis ?

[carlopav]

No such hurry, I think we can wait for december when Yorik will be more available to analize walls and placement issues all together to find the right way... I'd like to set up a document where we can put the issues all together and propose an overall change to fix them all... I started in several posts...
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 68#p348130
any idea on how to create a shareable document?

[paullee]

any idea on how to create a shareable document?

Not much idea, google doc ?

Anybody ?

[Roy_043]

Regarding the multi-materials:
Other objects can also be considered candidates for multi-materials (slabs, roofs, perhaps even columns with a finish). For some of these objects determining the reference plane/line for the application of the multi-material is obvious (top of slab, center line of column), but for walls without a base it might be tricky. Is a 300x100x3000 wall 100mm wide or 300mm wide?

[carlopav]

Regarding the multi-materials:
Other objects can also be considered candidates for multi-materials (slabs, roofs, perhaps even columns with a finish). For some of these objects determining the reference plane/line for the application of the multi-material is obvious (top of slab, center line of column), but for walls without a base it might be tricky. Is a 300x100x3000 wall 100mm wide or 300mm wide?

I quite disagree on that: walls without base (try to draw a wall and to delete the basesketch) still have a width and length property, so it's just a matter of a small calculation to simulate a straight WallTrace. The alignment property instead is not working if the wall have no Base (and i think this should also work, I imagine alignment as a y axis shift from the placement point).