Open Lattice Brickwork

[trbrock]

I am designing an elevated beach house that sits on pilings faced with brick arches that will have a single thickness open lattice brickwork inset in the arch to allow for water to flow through if we have a big storm.
Does anyone know how to generate this 3D pattern without using a separate CAD program and then importing the pattern. I tried using 3 3/8x4x8 inch soffits with a 12" repeat, which gives a 4" space between bricks. Then I raised the next soffit 3 3/8 inch off the floor with the same repeat and then moved it over the first row offset so the there was a space below each solid brick. Then I raised the next row 6 3/4 and repeated the process until the wall was as high as I needed. This looks great but the process is very labor intensive and Chief crashes when the structure gets too large. It would be nice if Chief had a 3D Configurable Pattern Generator. I can think of a large number of uses and it would be a tremendous time saver.

[David J. Potter]

I would make a solid brick wall and then set arched openings in it to simulate the effect you want, though from your description it is hard to actually visualize, from words only, what you want. I created some stone arches for a house I designed that seem similar, you might check out the plans on my site and let me know if they are similar enough. Go to http://members.spree.com/djpotter
What you see was done in Version 6, a blockier effect could be done in Version 5 if that is what you have.

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David J. Potter
Austin, Texas

[Glenn Woodward]

You CAN create your own patterns.
Either have them reside in their own file or add then to the Chiefarch.pat file. Have a look at the files in the Patterns folder.
The patterns are the same format as Autoyuk, so you can probably import these as well if you can find what you want.

[This message has been edited by Glenn Woodward (edited 27 August 1999).]

[fitz]

Glenn, interested but what is Autoyuk, searched and did not find
Mike Hall - San Diego

[trbrock]

Thanks for the suggestions, but none have helped so far. An open lattice brick wall is spmething all of you have seen. You can see though it. It is put in most solid brick walls to save money since it is only one vs two bricks deep between columns and the bricks are spaced 1/2 brick apart to create the HOLES (These holes are why all the patterns don't work). You then center the next row of bricks over the holes, which for an 8" brick gives you 2" of overlap with the two bricks either side of the void to put mortar on. You continue this process until the wall is as high as you wand. You have a similar problem with alternating color tile on a floor or wall but with either no overlap or 1/2 tile overlap.

[Max Humphreys]

After reading your post I opened Chief to experiment with the openings. It seems the windows can be adjusted to a 6 x 6 size. You can turn off the trim and set all sash and case sizes to 0". I created a single layer brick wall and inserted a window set up as mentioned. This certainly gives the opening a true "see thru" look. You can copy and paste the window in plan view to create multiple openings. Something to play with. I tried various window types and sash settings with different results. You might be able to combine these to achieve the look you want. Unfortunately, the window will not size down small enough to place on each mortar joint which would be ideal. I still think you can come up with a design along these lines which will result in the same effect but slightly different than what you had in mind.

Max

[This message has been edited by Max Humphreys (edited 28 August 1999).]

[trbrock]

Dean, That is exactly what I was trying to do with soffits. If anyone else doesn't know what an open lattice brick wall looks like go to the site dean has listed. Thanks, I will try your way!

[Glenn Woodward]

fitz,

Autoyuk is what I use to refer to a 'high end' cad program called Autocrap or Auto$, or Auto...

[Glenn Woodward]

trbrock,

I hope you are not really expecting any storm water to move through such a wall.

If it were me, I would have my Engineer certify such a construction before putting my name to it.

I would imagine an open lattice single brick wall as described here would just about fall over if you turned the hose on it.

[trbrock]

Glenn,
You get a gold star! These walls are called break away structures because they are designed to give way if any real force is applied to them. But they will let minor storm surges through. They are not structural merely decorative and for $1,000,000-$2,000,000 homes are required to sell the house. Better than looking at 10 foot high pilings.

[David J. Potter]

Gee Mr. Wizzard, you are something else!

Dean,
how long did you spend making the rest of us dummies look like neanderthals? I swear you walk on water! Great job of problem solving again!

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David J. Potter
Austin, Texas

[trbrock]

Dean,
I finally got a chance to try your approach, and I built a 14" wall 96" high with only the first two bricks and first two mortar colums on a CAD detail. With the 2" overlap, this essentially gives you a 1' wall section, which I then step and repeat with a 12 repeat to any length I need on the plan. Thanks for a great solution.

[trbrock]

Well, what at first appears to work cuases the program to crash under actual use. Using primatives has the same problem as using soffits to create open lattice brick walls. I have 240 linear feet of wall 8' high to construct, which adds so many parts to the plan which is 8,000 square feet and fairly complex already that it causes the program not to draw elevation views completely or to crash the program. If I turn off the cabinet layer everything works correctly and the number of sorts shown while building a view fall from 35,000 to 23,000.I tried deleting the brick structure and it disappears but the calculations remain and the program slows to a crawl on a 550mhz machine w/256 mb of ram w/ cabinets turned on. Undo is not enabled. So this solution works well for small areas but not for larger ones and I sure would like to figure out how to get rid of the residual calcilations that remain. What we need is a simple pattern geneeerator that doesn't cause the program to give up. Thanks for the suggestion though.

[trbrock]

Dean,

Thanks for both of those suggestions. I actually read the manual cover to cover and I remember something in the book recommending multiple panes but had forgotten it. The book is very good and has helped me solve most of my problems. I have only been using Chief for a couple of months and am still getting the hang of its nuances. I am an experience computer user and am enjoying 6.0 even with its quirks. It really helps to have people with a great deal of experience like you help less experienced people like me with their problems. Thanks very much for your time and interest. I'm sure others feel the same way.

Tom Brock

[trbrock]

Dean,

Both suggestions worked beautifully. Views are produced in seconds instead of over a minute. Thanks again!!!