Wrapping Your Head Around Wall Wraps

I was talking to Eugene O’Day, one of my Ideate colleagues and a contributor to the Ideate Solutions blog, regarding an issue he was running into with controlling the wrapping of wall layers at the insertion of a door or window within a wall. What he was looking for, was a way to control the distance a wall layer would wrap around the wall where a door or window was inserted.

Wall Wrap at Door/Window Insertion

By default, the System Family: Basic Wall allows you control how wall layers are wrapped around a wall where a door or a window have been inserted. The default option is Do not wrap. Options include: Do not wrap, Exterior, Interior, and Both.

Default Wall Wrapping at Inserts Options

When an option is chosen, the wall layers on that appropriate side, wrap around the wall and stop at the wall centerline. For example, if the Exterior option is chosen, all wall layers on the exterior side of the wall will wrap around the end of the wall and stop at the wall centerline.

Default Exterior Wall Wrapping Stops At Wall Centerline

The default options are great as a starting point, but if you would like to control the distance the exterior or interior wall layers’ wrap around the end of the wall, then you will need to modify the door or window family. Door and window families control the wall wrap of the wall they are inserted into.

When working with a door or window family, the simple use of reference planes and their “Wall Closure” parameter is used to control where the wall layers stop. If you need to control both the exterior side and the interior side wall wrap, draw two reference planes inside the wall found in the door and window family. Draw the reference planes across the door or window opening. Next select the reference planes and in the Properties Palette turn on the Wall Closure parameter. Additionally, consider naming the reference planes for future editing. I like to name my reference planes so that I can later come back and decipher what it was that I was doing. In this case, I named the exterior side reference plane “ Ext Wrap” and the interior side reference plane “Int Wrap” accordingly.

Create reference planes to represent where the wall layers will stop.
Assign each reference plane to the Wall Closure parameter.

Wherever you draw the reference plane(s), the wall layers will now stop at that point when a wall is set to wrap at the inserts. Should you wish to control the distance of the wall wraps from the edges of the wall, you will need to add parameters to make the reference planes parametric.

When adding dimensions to each wall closure reference plane, start the dimension from the outside edge of the wall, to the reference plane. This uses the outer edge of the wall as the controlling dimension edge and causes the reference plane to be adjusted when the dimension value is changed.
 

Dimension the location of the wall closure reference planes.
Select the outside edge of the wall first then the reference plane.

After the wall edges and wall closure reference planes have been dimensioned parameters can be assigned. Select one of the dimensions and in the Options bar select.

Select a dimension, go to the Label drop-down
and choose Add Parameter.

In the Parameter Properties dialog box, create a new parameter. In this example I have named the dimension controlling the exterior wrapping reference plane Exterior Wrap. Notice too that I have selected the Instance type of parameter. The reason I chose Instance was that I could use the same door type in a number of different wall types that had varying wall layer thicknesses. If a Type parameter is used, then different types of doors would be needed for the various types of wall the door family would be inserted into. Of course which parameter type you choose is up to you and your workflow.

Create a new parameter for the dimension.

Repeat the steps to create a parameter for the interior wall wrap dimension. Both wall closure reference planes have been dimensioned and parameterized.

Wall wrap parameters have been assigned.

After the door or window family has been created with the wall closure reference planes, dimensions and parameters, save the family. Load the family into the project.

In order to see your results, create a wall. Select the wall type and in the Properties Palette select the Edit Type button. In the Type Properties dialog box change the Wrapping at Inserts parameter to “Both.”

Change the Wrapping at Inserts parameter to “Both.”

Next, insert the door or window into the wall. If you had created the wall wrap parameters as an instance based parameter, in Properties, the parameters are available for you to control the distance the wall layer wrap

Enter the desired wall wrap distance.

If everything was done correctly, you should have a door or window family where you can control the wall layer wrap, providing a more accurate representation of the design intent. Unfortunately, this technique only applies to the wall wrap where door and window families have been inserted. 

Now that you have your head wrapped around wall wraps, go out and modify your door and window families. Until the next time, have fun with wall wrapping. 

If you would like to check these new features out or see what else is new in Revit 2016, take a look at my, and my colleagues videos on the Ideate, Inc. YouTube page.   

For more information on training and consulting for the various products Ideate services, visit our website at www.ideateinc.com

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Ron Palma
AEC Application Specialist
Ron has over 24 years of experience in the architectural industry as a drafter, designer, lead project designer, trainer, and a CAD manager implementing Autodesk Architectural Solutions for a residential design firm. His instructional background includes being an Autodesk Certified Instructor (ACI), trainer, support technician, educator at Portland and Clackamas Community Colleges, as well as a U.S. Army certified instructor where he was a senior instructor at Ft Lewis Washington. Ron is a member of the Oregon Army National Guard, where he is a platoon sergeant specializing in training and mentoring soldiers in their careers. Ron is a published writer and continues to author professional technical training manuals and shorts for AutoCAD, AutoCAD Architecture, and Revit. As an Autodesk Certified Instructor and Revit Architecture Autodesk Certified Professional, Ron provides Revit Architecture and AutoCAD training and support for AEC firms. Find him on Twitter.