ARCH ESSENTIALS: User Guide
Box Sash Tool
Use for
- Contemporary double-hung windows (Alu/uPVC-style)
- Historical box sash designs
Overview
A highly adjustable tool for creating double-hung window designs for use with your buildings and interior scenes. Ideal for arch-viz, interior visualisations and set extensions.
Workflow
To use this tool,
- Left-click on the ‘Box Sash Window’ button in the Arch-E user interface.
- Left-click in the 3D viewport to create a window.
You can reset the tool’s attribute values to a preset condition by right/alt clicking on the ‘NX Box Sash Window’ name in the tool pipe and selecting ‘Reset Tool’ prior to clicking in the 3D view. Note, please do not set the tool to ‘Auto Activate’. This will prevent you from being able to reset the tool in the tool pipe prior to use.
Minimum and Maximum Values
This tool dynamically changes the minimum and maximum values for all attributes to keep the geometry well formed; i.e. changing the value of one thing will ultimately affect the minimum or maximum value of another. For example,
- the sash frame depth will limit the glass depth, seal depth and chamfer size; and
- you can only fit so many sashes into a window of a given size.
Hence, you might hit a limit when tweaking a given value. If you wish to increase it further you must first increase the value of the attribute that is constraining it. In reality, this is much easier than it sounds; e.g. increase the size of the window opening if you want to add more sashes or make the sash frame deeper if you want thicker glass or big chamfers.
User Interface (UI)
The ‘box sash' window user interface (UI) is divided into logical sections for ease-of-use. To reduce visual clutter, when the tool is active, individual sections can be collapsed by clicking on the section names/dividers in the UI. Below is a description of each of the attributes within each section of this tool’s UI,
UI: Window Opening
The tool prioritises the window opening as the most important attribute, hence, modification of other attributes will never alter the window’s height or width.
Height
The height of the opening the window will fit into. The window will never exceed this height.
Width
The width of the opening (e.g. in a wall) that the window will fit into. The window width will not exceed this value; Note, the window sill may extend at either end beyond this value.
UI: Frame
Height
The height of the frame around the outside of the window, excluding the bead (see below).
Bead Height
The height of the bead; i.e. The piece of geometry that surrounds the sashes and in real windows prevents the sashes from falling out of the window.. The corners of the bead can be rounded using the ‘Bead Point Mod’ attributes.
Bead Depth
The depth of the bead; i.e. The piece of material that in real windows prevents the sashes from falling out of the window. The corners of the bead can be rounded using the ‘Bead Point Mod’ attributes.
Bead Point Select
Select a corner of the bead to modify. When a point is selected a 2D cross-section of the frame+bead profile will be shown and the point will be highlighted. Once, selected you can apply a chamfer to the selected point using the fields located immediately below.
Chamfer Primary
Apply a chamfer to the selected corner point. The size of the chamfer is the distance from the corner along the edge.
Chamfer Secondary
Creates a chamfer at each point created by the primary chamfer. When combined with the ‘Rounding’ attribute this allows for the creation of ‘rounded chamfers’, which are commonly used in window design.
Rounding
Apply rounding to the primary or secondary chamfer. Use larger numbers to create a smoother curve; The maximum rounding value is 10.
UI: Sash
Count
The number of sashes within the window. The minimum number is 2, whereas, the maximum number can vary depending upon the height of the window opening, except in ‘manual mode’ (see below) where the maximum is limited to 3.
Frame Height
The height of the sash frame.
Frame Depth
The depth of the sash frame.
Seal Height
The height of the rubber seal or bead that surrounds the glass.
Seal Depth
The depth of the rubber seal or bead that surrounds the glass.
Glass Depth
The thickness of the glass.
Glazing Unit
Choose between single-glazed or double-glazed windows.
Pane Spacer Depth
The distance between the window panes within a single sash. This only applies when when ‘double-glazed’ is selected for the ‘Glazing Unit’ attributes.
Glass Geometry
The glass panes can be created in one of three ways and your choice will depend upon the requirement of the rendering engine that you use. You can choose to make the glass panes as individual boxes (‘Box’), as individual boxes that overlap the surrounding frame by a small margin preventing collocated polygons (‘Box Overlaps Frame’) or as a pair of opposing polygons that are part of the sash frame (‘Polygon Pair’).
Sash Point Select
Select a corner of the sahs frame profile to modify. When a point is selected a 2D cross-section of the ‘sash frame’ profile will be shown and the point will be highlighted. Once, selected you can apply a chamfer to the selected point using the fields located immediately below.
Chamfer Primary
Apply a chamfer to the selected corner point. The size of the chamfer is the distance from the corner along the edge that connects to the previous or next point..
Chamfer Secondary
Creates a chamfer at each point created by the primary chamfer. When combined with the ‘Rounding’ attribute this allows for the creation of ‘rounded chamfers’, which are commonly used in window design.
Rounding
Apply rounding to the primary or secondary chamfer. Use larger numbers to create a smoother curve; The maximum rounding value is 10.
Size
Choose between ‘Auto’ (automatic) sizing where each sash has an equal size within the window or ‘Manual’ where you can specify the size of each sash.
Please note that ‘Manual’ mode limits the number of sashes to 3; The number of sashes will be reduced automatically if you have more than 3 sashes. In addition, ‘Manual’ mode also locks various other attributes: opening height, frame height, sash frame height, sill height and sill step height. Hence, you should set those attributes prior to switching to ‘Manual’ mode.
Top, Middle and Bottom
Set the size of each sash within the window by hand. This only applies when ‘Size’ is set to ‘Manual’. This does not affect the overall ‘Window Opening: Height’, but rather changing the size of an individual sash will affect the size of its neighbour.
Bottom Sash Position
The position of the bottom sash in the window frame; You can set the sashes to alternate from back-to-front or front-to-back.
UI: Sill
Height
The height of the sill at the base of the window.
Extension Height
The height of the sill extension that projects from the front of the window. This value cannot exceed the sill ‘Height’ attribute.
Extension Depth
How far the sill extends from the front of the window frame; The minimum depth is 1mm (~0.0393701 inch).
Extend Length
The distance the sill extends from each side (to the left and right) of the window frame.
Step Height
The height of the weatherstripping that sits under the bottom sash in the window frame; The minimum height is 1mm.
Sill Point Select
Select a corner of the sill to modify. Currently, only a single point at the end of the sill extension is available for selection/modification. This may change in future, depending upon user feedback.
When a point is selected a 2D cross-section of the sill profile will be shown and the point will be highlighted. Once, selected you can apply a chamfer to the selected point using the fields located immediately below.
Chamfer Primary
Apply a chamfer to the selected corner point. The size of the chamfer is the distance from the corner along the edge that connects to the previous or next point..
Chamfer Secondary
Creates a chamfer at each point created by the primary chamfer. When combined with the ‘Rounding’ attribute this allows for the creation of ‘rounded chamfers’, which are commonly used in window design.
Rounding
Apply rounding to the primary or secondary chamfer. Use larger numbers to create a smoother curve; The maximum rounding value is 10.
Common
Draw Magnified Profiles
Enable or disable the drawing of the magnified profiles (cross-sections) in the 3D view.