...and Even More...

Cornerstones and Quoins

This page is designed to create cornerstones and quoins - a series of cornerstone-like pieces running up the edge of a building. Exterior Decorator will create one or several in a series as one 3D object, so they cannot be lost or misaligned.

The controls are:

Elevation - As above, the initial elevation of the object or, if more then one, the lowest).
Vertical number - The number of objects in the series. For a single cornerstone, that's one, of course.
Spacing - The amount of space separating the stones vertically.
Height - The height of each of the stones.
Total Height - a read-only cell that yields the totoal height of the quoin as specified.
Left width - The width of the "left" piece, that runs normally left to right. The width doesn't include the thickness of the right edge, where the bend occurs. Think of the total width on the front as the width plus the thickness.
Right width - The width of the backside of the stone, measured similarly to that of the left side.
Bend Angle - The angle at which the right side breaks from the left. measured as a deviation from a straight angle where the two sides are in alignment. To wrap around a corner as usually they are used, the angle would be 90 degrees.
Thickness - The thickness of the stones.
Finish - The color / texture applied to all the members of the object.
Alternating stones? - This setting will cause the stones to alternate measurements vertically, cycling between Left width and Right width.
Mirror? - With the addition of the Alternating Stone feature, the quoins have become non-symmetrical. It is necessary to introduce a way to create a quoin pair that are mirror images of each other, to use on opposite sides of a wall. Using this checkbox will mirror image the quoin.

This is used as though it were always going to be applied to the front (facing) wall, at the right hand corner of a building. A similar cornerstone for the lefthand side would be built with the same specs except the bend angle would be the negative of the right side one, and then the stone would be rotated 180 degrees in Punch! for proper alignment.

Beams

A beam object is a simple quadrilateral which can be used to represent a wooden beam, such as a rafter or support beam. The tricky part of the beam is that it can be angled in a couple of different ways, making its use in ceilings (where it would be tilted to match the roof pitch) a possibility.

The basic beam is usually oriented with its long dimension parallel to the ground. Normal rotation in the plan can change the direction it points in, but the angling in the other two dimensions is not adjustable in the plan. It can be set in the 3D Workshop, but only within there. Looking at the beam from one end, the first angling will be called "roll", because the beam rotates around its long axis. The beam remains parallel to the ground, but it can be rolled to match a roof patch, and thus become a transverse roofing beam, as used in pole and beam construction.

The second rotation is called "dive" (it would be called pitch to those familiar with aircraft terms). A dive angle causes the beam to see-saw up and down as if pivoting in the center. with these two angle adjustments plus the flexibility of defining length, width and thickness, a beam or other quadrilateral of any orientation may be created with Exterior Decorator.

The beam controls are:

Elevation - an initial height the whole beam may be created at. This can be adjusted in the plan as needed.
Length - Usually (but not necessarily) the longest dimension of the beam.
Thickness - the dimension that, like length, is also parallel to the ground, but at right angles to the length. It is usually (but, again, not necessarily) the thinnest dimension of the beam.
Width - The remaining beam dimension. To easily picture these three dimensions functionally, imagine a 2x8 stud that is resting on a long edge, as a joist normally is when it is in the joist box.
Dive - an angle through which this joist "teeter-totters". It may be expressed as an angle or as a pitch (up to +/-50 pitch) by using the appropriate entry control; the other will display the equivalent reading.
Roll - the angle that the beam is rotated around its length axis.
Surface finish - a color and/or texture to be applied to the beam in its entirety. Unlike the other objects, a vertical wood texture will actually be applied horizontally, as would be natural for a wooden beam.

Sheets

The sheet object is a 2D sheet that can be colored or textured. A Punch! setting even allows it to have a image applied so that it isn't tiled, but stretched to fit the sheet. Punch! uses several examples of these items in the product now. A vertical, upright sheet is used in as the photoview object in the same way we will use this one. The Punch! wall accessories object (built with the accessories tool in some 8.0 and up packages is a sheet that can be attached to a wall. While our sheets cannot be attached to a wall, they can certainly be positioned manually to have the same effect, which allows Punch versions which have the textures available but not the tool able to make use of the drapes and such accessories.

In addition to the uses Punch! makes of them, sheets can also be used as floor "linoleum", allowing different flooring in different rooms. While all sheets from this tool are rectangular, such a flooring sheet can have handles ("points") added to it so it can be stretched to other shapes. This capability to add points to an object is in Punch! version 8 and above, and also with using the TKE BreakAll PowerTool. Using a sheet rather than a thin piece of flooring avoids issues in the Framer and Estimator PowerTools with the extra floor. Similarly, a vertically aligned sheet can have similar use in rooms along an exterior wall, without disturbing the wall's integrity or again adding another thin wall just to receive color. Finally, the sheet object here can be "leaned over", so it can be used to create paintable cathedral ceilings (painting a ceiling could not be done before version 7.5). Beware about modifying a sheet which is pitched, however - stretching points except within restraints will result in a "warped" sheet, one in which the points don't all fall within a single geometric plane. These kinds of objects tend to cause OpenGL to vibrate between the possible interpretations of such a shape, causing weird vibrations in the surface.

A sheet can be thickened into a wall-like structure (one that has two separate, paintable sides and edges) by clicking on the Widen into wall checkbox, and entering the data in that section, described below. This wall is not like a Punch! wall - it cannot host doors or windows, or trim, for example, but unlike a Punch! wall it can lean at any angle.

The controls are:

Elevation - The elevation of the sheet; see the same control in the arch object for more information.
Length - The horizontal dimension from left to right as viewed from the front (as the right half of the screen display shows).
Width/Height - The other dimension. It is measured along the left or right edge of the rectangle. It is so-named because it can be regarded as width if the angle is near 0 degrees, or as height when it is near +/-90 degrees.
Angle - The first of three ways to set the leaning angle of the sheet. A zero angle means the sheet is horizontal (flat to the ground). The angle can be set to any value between -90 and 90 degrees. When this option is changed, the Pitch and Rise options are also set; however, these other two angle-setting methods are also disabled (grayed out) so there is no confusion. See Angle method below.
Pitch - The second angle setting option. The pitch refers to the distance in inches that an angle rises against a standard run of 12"; thus, a pitch of 12 refers to an angle where the angle rises 12" for every 12" of run, which is a 45 degree angle. Pitch may be set to any value from -50 to +50, which will not allow for a fully vertical setting (where the pitch is infinite). When pitch is changed, the Angle and Rise values are also changed to correspond, but they are also disabled; see Angle method below. This control is provided because the sheet must sometimes correspond to a roof, which angle is usually specified in terms of pitch, at least in the US.
Rise - This control is a third way to specify the angle of lean in a sheet, the same as Angle and Pitch do. Instead of specifying the actual angle, specify the amount of elevation increase or decrease at one edge of the sheet as referenced to the other. There is another difference - if you specify the angle with rise, that rise will be held constant when the Width/Height of the sheet is changed (that is, the actual angle will change) within the Exterior Decorator. When Width/Height is changed under the Angle or Pitch regime, the angle remains the same and the Rise therefore changes.

Angle method - When one of the three ways to set the angle of sheet leaning (Pitch, Rise or Angle) is chosen, the other two are immediately disabled (grayed out) to eliminate confusion. In order to change the method, press this button to enable all three again. When one of them is again chosen, they others will again be disabled, although the equivalent values will still be displayed.
Transparency - allows the transparency of the sheet to be set from 0% (opaque) to 100% (totally invisible). A partial transparency is useful for window, screen and water effects. This feature is only available in Punch! 10.0 and above.
Widen into wall - This checkbox, when clicked, specifies that the sheet is to be thickened into a wall, with two sides and edges. Transparency is not possible with a sheet widened into a wall, so it is set to 0% and disabled when the Widen into wall checkbox is checked.
Thickness - This entry box specifies the distance between the two sheets making the wall's faces. The distance is measured perpendicular to the faces.
Edge type - The edges around the wall can be arranged in three ways: perpendicular, in which all the edges are at right angles to the sheet all the way around; vertical, in which the front and back edges are vertical, and horizontal, in which they are horizontal. Vertical is a valid choice until the leaning angles is exceeds +/-85 degrees, and the vertical is not allowed when the angle is less than 5 degrees.
Surface Finish - As before. However, note that a sheet has only a single side. Anything applied to one side will be visible on the reverse side, in reverse if it is a texture or image. As for all objects, applying a complete black color (RGB (0, 0, 0)) induces transparency on those pixels so colored. The sheet can make particular use of the Punch! pseudo-object textures, wall accessories and fences, which all make use of this transparency capability.

As with fascia, stretching a pitched sheet in Punch! may alter the pitch, so use care.

Exterior Decorator and the contents of this help file are
Copyright©2006 by ThistleKeep Engineering; all rights are reserved.
Comments and suggestions, as well as support, are entertained at Lmc@ThistleKeep.com.
"Punch!" and other titles of Punch! operations are trademarks of Punch! Software L.L.C.