A couple of things worth noting after working with a customer via Skype this morning:

1.) If your custom walls have reversed faces this will affect the plugin. The solution is to jump into the group, right click on the face in question and reverse the face.

2.) The plugin calculates the bottom of the wall by looking at the origin of the group that is the container for the wall geometry. If the origin of this group is below or above the bottom of the wall then the vertical distance for positioning various electrical fixtures (ie. switches, outlets, data etc...) will not be correct. I may change this up to consider the lowest point of the face rather than the origin of the group, I will need to give this some additional thought.

Combining a slab-on-grade with a stemwall footing (with steps):



View model here:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/05197bec-7041-4b9b-ad93-73b12921ebb8/SOG-combined-with-Stemwalls-and-Steps

I've moved to the complex roof development but there are still a number of glaring holes in the foundation plugin.  To get a better feel for how well it would work I modeled up a foundation for a residence that I did some local engineering for a couple of years ago:



View model here:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/7991f2ff-be4c-4835-8a88-18792bf6f699/Complex-Foundation-1

Really the only manual edits that were required was the blockouts for the garage doors and the footings for the porch roofs.  The following list summarizes some areas that need further development:

1.) Need some sort of option for garage door block outs.
2.) Need the ability to create holes in stemwalls (crawl access, windows, doors)
3.) Add interior footings to regular slabs, similar to the interior footing tool for slab-on-grade foundations.
4.) Stemwall opening tool should also remove any conflicting rebar (boolean subtraction).
5.) Still need to add the tool for a simple polyline footing (ie. porch footing shown). The workaround is to create a stemwall and then manually delete the stemwall leaving the footing portion.

I'm also thinking about creating a material list table that summarizes quantities, similar to the legend I generate in the electrical plugin. 

So much to do, I really need a whole team of developers to get everything done I need to do.

What would be interesting to know is how much time it would take to manually model up the equivalent geometry, also bear in mind that there would be no parametrics available so if you need to adjust something it would require considerably more time and effort to make that change.  With the plugin if I need to adjust something like anchor bolt spacing I simply edit the assembly with a right click and the changes are instantaneous.

Modeling time was about 30 minutes.  Most of that time was transcribing dimensions from a large, crumpled set of paper plans.  The rest of the time was largely spent on fiddling with the garage door block outs and then trimming the rebar back.  As it stands now I do think the plugin offers some significant time savings but there is much that remains to be done.

Version 1.4.2 - 09.06.2019
- Fixed a bug with the rebar in closed loop stemwall assemblies.

Critical bug fix, I strongly suggest upgrading to this version of the plugin.

Version 1.4.2 - 09.05.2019
- Enabled CMU blocks for polyline stemwall foundations.
- Enabled CMU blocks for stemwall steps.




** NOTE **

If you have previously installed the plugin and are upgrading to this latest version in order to utilize the new CMU feature please do the following action once you have installed Version 1.4.2:

1.) Click on the global settings tab.
2.) Click on the Layers tab within the Global Settings.

This action will initialize the "CMU Layer" for future use. New installations of the plugin will automatically initialize the new layer when they enable the layers options for the first time.  This action is only required for those users upgrading their plugin installation.

First look at a CMU polyline stemwall:



Note that the callout includes the number of CMU block calculated per the volume of the stemwall and the standard block size (16" x 8" x stemwidth).  For now the nominal depth and height of the CMU block is hard coded to these typical values found in North American construction but I will probably provide some parameters in the global settings where these values can be customized.

The horizontal face texture I'm using only really works well for standard CMU block sizes and if the walls are orthogonal and in 2' length increments.  I don't have a work around yet to deal with exceptions.  I will give this some additional thought and come up with a better solution.

Now all I need to do is enable CMU for the stemwall step tool and then I'll roll a new release.

This update is a direct result of discussions had in today's training session, thank-you to everyone who participated and providing feedback which will directly impact the plugins' development.

This bi-directional pattern (even though not as realistic) seems to be a decent compromise and provided the segments of the polyline stemwall are orthogonal and in length increments that are multiples of 24" the texture works:

Medeek Live Training: Session 1



Scheduled time is 11:00 PST

This is my first attempt at live streaming so hopefully things go smoothly but I'm sure it will be a bit of a learning experience.  The primary topics covered will be the recent additions to the foundation plugin however I am willing to open it up to other questions about all of the other plugins.

There has been some call to provide a CMU option for the polyline stemwall module.  In order to represent CMU my intent was to not alter the model but just apply the appropriate material/texture as I am doing with the Wall plugin.  However this method only really works with linear sections of walls (at least for the faces parallel to the Z plane):



As you can see from the image/model the vertical faces come out just fine however the horizontal faces are a bit of a mess.  I really don't want to change up the way I'm modeling the stemwall itself (ie. breaking it into linear segments) so the solution might be to simply provide a more generic material for the horizontal faces without any of the brick interior design, mortar lines etc...  thoughts?  It would look not quite as realistic when looking at the top of the CMU wall but it also wouldn't appear as confusing as the result shown here.

SketchUp Essentials latest video on the mdkBIM suite:

Tutorial 6 - Polyline Stemwalls, Steps and Interior Bearings (13:27 min.):



View model here:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/b0a41dfb-0a18-4468-9995-3f15cb2130d0/Tutorial-6-Polyline-Stemwall-Steps-and-Interior-Bearings

I would like to add a CMU interior footing/bearing variant but I am not finding any good details online. Does anyone have a preferred detail showing an interior bearing constructed with CMU?

Version 1.4.1 - 09.04.2019
- Enabled the "Draw Interior Bearing" tool with the following support types: Post & Beam, Stud Wall.



View model here:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/61392187-486a-474e-a7cd-7cfd08753c5d/Interior-Bearing-Tool

Now a video demonstrating the polyline stemwall, interior bearing and step tool all working together would be interesting.

Parameters for the new Interior Bearing Module:

Basic Options:

Bearing Type: Post and Beam, Stud Wall, CMU
Bearing Height:
Footing Width:
Footing Depth:
Ftg. Offset Start:
Ftg. Offset End:
Sill Plate Offset:
Stemwall Offset:
Rebar Option: Yes/No

Post and Beam Options:

Beam Width:
Beam Depth:
Post Spacing:
Post Width:

Stud Wall Options:

Stud Depth:
Stud Width:
Stud Spacing:
Top Plate Qty: 1,2,3
Top Plate Thk.:

Rebar Options:

Ftg. Bar Dia.:
Ftg. Bar Qty.:

Let me know if I'm missing anything.  I haven't included a section for CMU yet since I need to do more research on that particular construction type.

Version 1.4.0 - 09.02.2019
- Enabled drain pipe for stemwall steps.
- Enabled FPSF insulation for stemwall steps.
- Enabled anchor bolts for stemwall steps.



The stemwall step tool is complete. 

Again the only thing missing is the vents option (which I have disabled for now).  I will give this some more thought and address it as soon as I have a practical solution.

The next item of business is the interior bearing tool/module which will allow for linear interior bearing assemblies (ie. post-and-beam, stud wall, CMU etc...)  I'm very familiar with the first two systems however I'm not so familiar with how CMU interior bearings are typically constructed.  Any information would be helpful.

This next module is very simple and I hope to complete it within 3-4 days.  Then back to the quest for the holy grail of the Truss plugin... Complex Roofs.