IES-VE User Forum

Yet again today have wasted ages trying to partition a room, each time getting intersection errors, unbound surfaces, etc.
Have also had to give up trying to put dormers onto a pitched roof for the same reason (even though I followed the guidance from IES on this).
IES admit that the partition tool only really works properly when your building is drawn to the grid and you want to partition onto the grid. Sounds fine in theory, but presumably IES have never considered the fact that is not how many people work. I import a DXF file (often rotated at an inconvenient angle, which I have no ability to change as I don't use autocad and must import what the architect sends over). Even a building nicely aligned to the x- and y-axes will likely have parts that are at a diagonal, and certainly will have diagonal internal walls. As soon as you start using the partition tool on a diagonal wall you are in trouble, since none of the points on that diagonal line (aside from the ends, assuming you've drawn it to the grid), will be on gridpoints, so you'll be creating objects with off-grid co-ordinates.
It seems IES just don't understand this, as the "help" from them is always the same: "we recommend drawing to grid points". To follow this advice would mean putting every single room co-ordinate onto a gridpoint as you go, so that when you come to partition it up you'll be using those grid-aligned co-ordinates. Again, nice theory, but virtually impossible in practice. And what happens when you need to change the layout later on? There's no way you could have drawn your building at the outset to anticipate those later changes. You're screwed. You'll be spending hours, days, deleting and redrawing, trying to get Model-IT to behave. Or you'll give up and leave the model incomplete, but error free just so you can move on.

And it's not just partitioning that is problematic - drawing new object and trying to attach them to a diagonal wall (nearest point snap?) will get you in similar difficulties since the newly created object's co-ordingates will again be off-grid

Jerry

Often these errors aren't even apparent at the time you run a model-check but only come to light later on when you make geometry changes elsewhere (even in a completely different part of the model). The only way to be "Safe" is to run "rebuild adjacencies" before every model check - and to do all this every single time you partition, draw an new object, merge objects. It's ridiculous and very time-consuming.


Jerry

Sorry to hear it is frustrating you so much. I am still relatively new to it (only 1 yr exp) compared to you but I have found it easiest to just keep the drawing simple and using grid settings between 2"-4". Using the DXF overlays I draw the rooms and typically will not partition spaces unless it has to do with zoning schemes. If the internal partition intersects with a perimeter line that is sloped and only has the endpoints locked to the grid, then I will adjust the sloped line first before partitioning internally for the zones. To do this I partition the space at an offset from the sloped perimeter line in order to create points to snap to for the internal partition later on. This new sloped line will be the new perimeter and the space between the two perimeter lines can be merged with the adjacent space to mirror the perimeter correctly and should not have the unmatched adjacency errors. I know it might not be the easiest to read and interpret my post so if I have time I can make a video or take some screenshots to help depict it better. Otherwise you could just delete the spaces and redraw from scratch but seems like almost a waste if you have a bunch of data assigned already and are looking to make adjustments according to architectural changes or design zone changes. Hope this may be of some help

-Jackson