Forums >> Revit Building >> Technical Support >> How to align windows in slanted wall

KseniaEic

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I have a wall that is rotated 6.5 degrees to face slightly down and angled to by 10 degrees from the horizontal grid. I can place windows into the wall but my problem comes when i try to align the base of the windows to a reference line. It gives me an error "can't rotate element into this position" and I have to move them manually... which isn't very accurate. They look like they're slightly angled but that may be because the wall isn't paralelle with the grid and is moving back.

How do I align the windows to the same height?

thanks,

Ksenia

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WWHub

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You will have to have special window families to do this.  Do you know how to create families?

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itsmyalterego

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Reference lines wont work here-- the window is hosted on the wall plane and the wall face/plane (this window family seems to be face-based, which is exactly what you want--many windows are not, but I digress) and this wall face is the only plane in the world, as far as that window is concerned.  MOVE, however, will work to establish a base height for one window via an elevation or section, and then you can use the align tool to base all other windows off of your original window which you correctly place.

So-- back to planes.  You cannot use lines or objects drawn or placed in other workplanes as references.  They have different X/Y/Z axis. (as far as I know.)

Also, a cool trick.

In your 3D view, turn on the "full navigation wheel."  off to the bottom right of the nav wheel, there's a dropdown arrow.  Hit that.  There's a command 2/3 of the way down the list called "orient to plane".  Use this to pick the face of your slanted wall.  Your 3D view will swing around so that you're looking perfectly perpendicular to the face, which can be VERY handy for manipulating objects which are hosted on it. 

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KseniaEic

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Thanks for the tips. I have a view set up that is aligned with that angled wall but even in that elevation align doesn't work. And I did create the window family myself (as the default ones dont align to a face).

I moved one window and tried to align others to it but that didn't work either.

As a secondary question, do you know how to make the bottom and top sills of the window horizontal? (parallel with floor plane)

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itsmyalterego

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What I'm saying you should do is move a window up or down until the sill is at the correct height in section, which will move the window diagonally down the wall it's hosted to, and then in an elevation or oriented 3D view use a line on the window itself--say the sill--to align the other windows to it. 

You can also set your workplane to BE the face of the wall, and draw a line there, which should allow aligning to work. 

To make the sill cut the wall parallel to the ground... wellll.... it's going to take some work making it parametric. 

There's no way for the family to auto-detect level in your project, but you can give the wall void/wall opening a rotation parameter that you manually set to counter the angle of your wall.  And the sill/head could use the same parameter.

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KseniaEic

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Thanks so much for the tips. I was moving the window in section but didn't draw a line in which to align the other windows. I'll try that.

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KseniaEic

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Just to mention for other people experiencing this problem, one way to at least make your elevations correct is to make an extrusion and subtract it from the wall. By doing this I could make a reference line that was angled (as the top edge of my windows sloped upward) and space out the openings evenly. The extrusions are very accurate and so look good in the drawings. Sections you have to fake a bit though.

Another word around was I copied these extrusions and made the copy only extrude 20mm. Although the extrusions didn't angle with the wall, in 3D views from the exterior (and from elevation view) you can render in the glass... also, in elevation you avoid seeing everything in the interior of the building (and having to hide them in the view).

Not perfect but it saved me a lot of headache.

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