Walls and wallsets

Walls are the single mst complicated objects in Punch!. Individual walls join at their end points (vertical edges) into wallsets which is the proper name for this object.

Walls cover a lot of design ground. The same basic objects serves for retaining walls, interior walls, exterior walls and foundation/basement walls. Walls have left and right sides (as viewed from their start toward their end) and two vertical edges, and all the walls in a wallset are aligned so their left sides are together. The top and bottom of a wall are not covered (until version 10), and none of the edges are permanently colorable like the sides are.

Sets of exterior walls create autofloors that extend between them. These floors can be turned on or off, and have a thickness. Exterior walls also have a foundation footer attached. It is, however, a plans-only function, as in use a footer is buried and invisible, so there is no 3D representation of a footer. All walls have optional trim (including flat base trim, wainscot or library paneling); in version 8.0 and above, they also have crown trim, and either one can be a custom trim. In 8.0 all four trims can be different, and differently finished; before 8.0, the base trims on each side shared finishes. Walls have a variety of shapes (as viewed face-on). The autodimensions can be turned on or off, can be moved from center to edge, and the edge can be swapped from side-to-side.

Many wallset properties are actually properties of the individual Walls. Since the wallset is the object, and InSync treats whole objects, if any of these properties are set they are set for all walls in the selected wallsets.

There are actually three dialogs for wallsets; the one used will depend on the version of Punch! that is being used. The simplest is that for versions before 8.0, and the dialog is displayed below on the left.

Walls before version 8.0

AutoFloor Top Finish selects the finish used on the autofloor top surface.

Flat trim finish is the finish used on the trim if one of the flat trim types is selected.

Library panel horizontal/autofloor bottom finish is the finish shared by these two uses. This can sometimes lead to sub-optimal choices, such as having the ceiling below a library panelled room being forced to have a wood veneer. The "horizontal" refers to those parts of the library panelling which are horizontally oriented (the horizontal rails).

Library panel vertical finish is the finish used for the rest of the library panelling - the vertical rails and the panels themselves.

Wainscot finish is the trim finish used if the trim option is for wainscotting.

Exterior? determines whether the wallset is to be considered interior or exterior. There are significant differences in plans and in 3D between the two types of walls; essentially, an exterior wallset should bound the house on each Punch! floor, defining the difference between inside and outside. All other walls should be interior. For more detail, see The Ten Commandments of Walls.

AutoFloor? turns on or off the autofloor when the wallset is exterior. Depending on your version, this has differing effects; see the Ten Commandments article mentioned above.

AutoFloor thickness sets the thickness of the autofloor. By default it is an unrealistic 1/2", and can be set to any value greater than that. Curiously, this has effects even when the wall is an interior wall or if autofloors are turned off, all detailed in the Ten Commandments article.

Autofoundation? controls whether the foundation footer lines drawn on the foundation plan are to be displayed there or not; there is no 3D effect, since footers are only useful when buried, out of sight.

AutoFoundation width sets the width of the foundation footer lines if they are turned on.

Wall thickness sets the thickness of all the walls in the selected wallsets. Punch! sets a single value for all Walls in a wallset; this cannot be changed even using Punch!.

All the following properties (below the line in the dialog) are Wall-specific. If you use InSync to set them, they'll be set identically on all the walls in the selected wallsets.

Wall Shape sets the shape of the Walls. A secondary dialog shown to the right is opened with the choices displayed; clicking on one chooses that shape, or the Cancel button returns with no change. The current shape is displayed beside the button.

Left/Right side finish sets the finish used on the wall's left/right side.

Left/Right trim sets the trim style to get used on the wall's left/right side. Walls are only capable of base trim in these versions.

Autodimension? sets whether autodimensions are visible on the plan for this Wall. Note that there is a also a global auto dimension switch, and either can turn off the auto dimensions.

CallOuts? sets whether door/window callouts (labels) are visible. Again, there is a global switch for this, too.

Curved Wall? is turned on when a wall is intended to appear curved. It causes the shading on the wall surface to vary from edge to edge rather than from top to bottom, so the results appear more rounded.

Elevation is the distance from the wall's lower edge to the zero reference plane. If the auto floor is used, it is to the bottom of the auto floor. See The Ten Commandments of Walls for details.

Base Heightsets the first height for a Wall. Depending on the wall's shape there are from one to three heights and from zero to two additional pitches that define the shape's measurements, and this is the single, always present height (in the shape's picture it is the measurement of the red edge).

Pitch A sets the measurements of Pitch A on all the walls. Pitch A is one of the two pitches that may defines a particular Wall shape; it will be enabled for entry only if an appropriate wall shape is selected.

Pitch B sets the measurement of Pitch B, the other pitch required by some wall shapes.

Height C/D set the two additional heights that may be required for certain wall shapes.

Dimension what? sets whether autodimensions are to be displayed for a wall's "center" or "edge". Oddly enough, this is the one wall attribute which does not get defaulted by the previous wall; it is always set to "center".

Which surface? sets whether the autodimensions will be on the "left" side of the wall or the "right" side. It also determines which wall surface is being dimensioned, if the selection above is set for "edge" dimensions.

   

Version 8 Walls

In version 8.0 both crown trim and custom trim for both base and crown was added to to the wall trim repertoire. The dialog for setting wallset properties for version 8 Walls is displayed above on the right, and the changes from the controls in the previous versions is discussed.

Left/Right base trim sets the type of the wallset's left/right base trim. Available are all the previous version's standard base trims and the new custom trim, which is defined by a trim file created by the Custom Trim PowerTool.

Left/Right crown trim sets the left/right side crown trim for a wallset. The only choices here are flat trim in four widths or custom trim. Note that custom trims for base and crown are interusable, although the effect of using a custom base trim on a crown is like installing the trim used for the base without turning it upside down, so usually there is a separate base and crown version of any custom trim, stored in separately marked folders.

Version 10 Walls

In Punch! version 10 the finishes used for trims are finally separated form one another, so the base and the crown, and the base trim on either side of a wall may now be completely independent. Also in version 10.5 wall top surfaces are provided, although they cannot be finished, so that advance has no effect on InSync. The version 10 dialog box is displayed below.

Actually, there are no functional changes from the Version 8 dialog except that now the finishes described earlier for wall trim are now broken out separately for left and right, base and crown trim.


    

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