OpenBuildings Designer - Beginners questions

Hi Louis,

There is a video stepping through the process here: communities.bentley.com/.../how-to-create-custom-compound-wall

The build up of multi layer walls is defined in the part properties in the Family and Part Editor, they then need to be added to the appropriate group in the Catalog Editor.

The topic to search for in help or here is 'Compound Walls'.

Multi-layer slabs are not available yet, but development of these has commenced, adding that feature to OpenBuildings is a long standing request from our users.

Louis van Amerongen said:

Is there a tutorial that explaines the building of Walls and Profiles (see above)?

See this vid on profiles. Double curvature walls Parametric panel walls. Standard walls. Curtain walls.

Louis van Amerongen said:

Is there a tutorial that explaines the building of multi layered floors / slabs?

OBD does not really have multilayered or compound slabs... yet? Layering is possible using GC. In theory, the structural decking tool could provide a layered slab, but I have not been able to get this to work. Slabs can be generated using Mstn's solid tools and assigned BIM attributes. The OBD slabs can also be subject to booleans. Slabs can also be combined with beams, and unified to form features like downstands and thickenings.

Louis van Amerongen said:

• Amsterdam quay walls.
• Underground bicycle sheds.

Interesting that you are looking at quay walls. I have been looking at some of the different sites for the Thames Tideway project here in London, which have a number of riverside wall types. Modeled in Aecosim / Mstn.

Underground bike sheds? If you mean underground parking spaces for bikes, you may want to use GC or the 3d Linestyles. Quite compact way to model the racks without slowing things down... too much. OBD U7 can apparently leverage OpenSite designer which has a parking lot tool... but it is probably overkill or problematic for bikes.

HTH

Hi Dominic, 

Thank you for showing me the Thames Tideway project. These are the kind of projects that are also common here.

Amsterdam doesn't has lot of space for the parking of bicycles or cars at groundlevel. What it does has, is a lot of water. So in the past 10 years plans where made for parking under the water. 

For example:

In front of the Central Station of Amsterdam an underground bicycle storage for 7000 bicycles is build at this moment. The modelling part was done with OpenRoads Designer (ground level and quay walls) and MicroStation (Solid modelling (objects and the construction of the underground storage)). Modelling the construction was cumbersome. Especially if a change had to be made. OBD seams (as far as I can see now) a solution for this kind of work.

For quay walls, i'm not sure if OBD is a good solution. With OpenRoads Designer a template can be made where the capstone follows the ground level while the fundation is at one specific height. Foundation piles and local changes only can be a lot of work. As far as I can see, the wall or profile function doesn't seem to be more efficient than templates in ORD or Solids in MicroStation.

Regards Louis

Louis van Amerongen said:

where the capstone follows the ground level while the fundation is at one specific height.

Yes, you will probably need a GC script to help with automation here. Lots of examples of some complex undulating capping details / piles following an alignment curve. OpenRoads is also getting GC as an addon, so there should be some compatibility soon.

Louis van Amerongen said:

Modelling the construction was cumbersome.

Yah, I doubt that you will be able to find much off the shelf that does what you need exactly. Most of OBD's tools are Triforma-vintage, no fly-by-wire or much OOTB parametrics between objects. I think that OBD team is waiting on Mstn Parametric Solids and Constraints to mature..?

Cheat: I think getting the bottom of the piles to be constant can also be done manually by editing the start and endpoints in OBD's Edit-in-Excel tool.

In any case, the project is looking good. What did you use for the hard landscaping to model the falls and drainage? I always thought that the landscape architects always had a very hard time here, whilst the highway engineers had better tools for this kind of thing, which was always a problem where the engineers were not responsible for the levels inside the kerbs (almost always!).

dominic SEAH said:

What did you use for the hard landscaping to model the falls and drainage?

For this project we made a rough drainage model. The contractor later made the detailed design for the underground infrastructure. 

dominic SEAH said:

I always thought that the landscape architects always had a very hard time here

Modelling the streets, squares and canals in an unban environment can be a challange. The focus of civil design applications like ORD or C3D are indeed more the highways. Therefore we built our own Amsterdam inner-city workspace for OpenRoads Designer. Many design standards where integrated in for example templates. 

dominic SEAH said:

Cheat: I think getting the bottom of the piles to be constant can also be done manually by editing the start and endpoints in OBD's Edit-in-Excel tool.

Thanks you for this advise. I think GC certainly have increased value for our projects. Problem when I looked to it in the past, for me it had a large learning curve. I hope to make another attempt one of these days.

Regards Louis