I have been doing some estimating using plus-spec and have just spent a fair bit of time going through a model and updating/changing the internal linings to suit the requirements.
I’ve got a few suggestions which I think would make this much quicker
Could we have an eye dropper tool which would allow us to quickly change the material type and paint colour of a wall with one click without changing any of the other attiributes. This would save one having to go into the wall dialogue for each wall and manually change the internal/external material which can be very time consuming.
Could we have a way of changing the wall material without having to split the wall. Sometimes one might have a wall drawn which crosses multiple rooms, although the frame and external material are continuos the internal linings change. Having to continually split the walls to change internal materials can be very consuming and frustrating when splitting the wall also changes the wall structure.
If anyone has any work arounds I’d love to hear them.
Thank you for your suggestions, we always appreciate feedback like this from our customers. I’ve passed on the items you’ve raised to the development team for further discussion.
Regarding an easier way to make changes to walls so they retain values & selections, we do have a feature which allows you to achieve this. If you select a multiple walls & right-click on one of them, then select ‘+ WALLS > + Wall Operations > Edit Walls (Retain Values)’ a dialog should appear showing multiple options of what can be retained (shown in the image below). After pressing Submit in this dialog, you can make changes in the Wall Tool as usual & those changes will be applied to the selected walls.
Regarding changing walls materials easier across different rooms with the same wall, a way to achieve this is by setting the internal material for the wall to be “none” & then using the Wall Surface Tool to apply the different internal linings & materials. This will keep the structure & external material continuing across the whole wall.
If you need to change the colour/texture, use the Sketchup eyedropper. However, if it’s the BOQ you want to change, select the walls you wish to change > right-click, and there is an option to change materials without changing geometry attributes.
There is a way to meld internal and external walls but i can’t render how to do it. @Grant You know when a brick veneer wall frame is also part of the internal wall Maybe this would help?
There is a way you can keep the frame continuous across two walls that have a split in them which is partly what @Andrew was mentioning. If you follow these steps you’ll be able to achieve this. Please note that we recently came across an issue with this feature where it sometimes doesn’t work. We’re currently working on a fix for it which we are aiming to have released in the next version or the one after.
Select both walls. Note: These walls must must be the same orientation, starting position & height.
Right-click on one of the walls & select + WALLS > + Merge Framing > Merge/
Update. Note: This is the same option to update a merged frame.
Tip: If you need to revert the merged frame, follow Steps 1 & 2 but select select + WALLS > + Merge Framing > Revert.
Wall Surface Tool to apply the different internal linings & materials. This will keep the structure & external material continuing across the whole wall.