Adding doors can be a challenge because, in the case of closed doors, it is necessary to avoid co-planar surfaces and, in the case of open doorways, AGi32 does not allow for cutouts that extend all the way to the edge of the surface. Adding closed doors is relatively easy as you can either avoid adding a door altogether or you can simply add an Object that is slightly offset from the face of the wall. Adding openings for doors is also relatively easy, but door openings that go between Rooms can be a challenge and this is the scenario that will be discussed here.

First off, Rooms should have a physical space between them just like real rooms would have wall cavities between them. The space between Rooms should be at least 0.1 foot, but can be larger. With this in mind, it becomes necessary to add a reveal to the opening between the Rooms. This is accomplished by placing an Object with the dimensions of the desired doorway and the thickness of the space between the Rooms (the thickness of the wall) between the Rooms. It them becomes necessary to add cutouts to the Room walls for the doorway but because one cannot add cutouts that extend all the way to the floor, something else has to be done.

The way around this issue is to open the 2 rooms in Surface Edit, set the 2 walls (one on each Room) with the doorway to “Removed=Yes”, and then add Planar Objects to replace each of the Removed walls. The Planar Objects would be the dimensions of the walls being replaced, but would be modeled without any surface area where the doorway Object is located. To add the Planar Objects, you will have to go into an Elevation View at the location of the wall being replaced, add the polygon Planar Object, then repeat the process for the second polygon Planar Object on the other Room’s wall. It will be necessary to check the surface normal of each of the Planar Objects to ensure that the normal surface is pointing into each respective Room and to ensure that the color, reflectance, etc. is set to match the walls that the Planar Objects are replacing.

The next step is to perform a Surface Edit on the Object added between the Rooms and change some of the surface properties. First, set the parallel large surfaces, the ones that would be co-planar with the Room walls if left in-place, to “Removed=Yes”. Next, click on the “Tag All” button to tag all the surface on the Object then click the “Flip” button to make the surface normals point into the Object.

That’s it! You now have an open doorway between the Rooms. Keep in mind that 2 of the Room walls were replaced with Planar Objects so if you ever want to change the properties of the Rooms walls, you will also have to change the properties of the Planar Objects to match.

As a side note, if you wish to make the floor of all the rooms merge together as one Object, you can set the bottom surfaces of the Rooms and the doorway Object to “Removed=Yes” then add in a new Planar Object (polygon) that traces around the footprint of one Room, goes through the door opening, traces around the second Room, and finally goes back out into the first Room where it completes the polygon. The result of this will be one object for the floor that will have no breaks in it where the doorway and Rooms meet. You will also have to set the surface properties of this Planar Object to match those desired for the floor of the Rooms (including making sure that the surface normal for the Planar Object is facing up, into the Rooms).

Windows are quite a bit easier though adding windows to a model where both Exterior and Interior surfaces are in place is accomplished in exactly the same manner as adding a doorway between Rooms. The difference here is that there is no need to add Planar Surfaces to replace walls because cutouts can be added to the Room walls to accommodate the windows. If a window is being added to a Room and there are no exterior surfaces, simply add a cutout to the Room wall where you want the window and when AGi32 asks if you wish to add an Insert, say “yes”. If, however, you do have 2 walls between the environments to be separated by the windows, you will need to add cutouts to both walls, stating “no” when asked if Inserts should be added, add an Object between the walls that matches the size of the cutouts, then Flip the surface normals on the Object, set ONE of the large surfaces (the interior one) to “Removed=Yes”, and finally changing the properties of the other large surface on the Object to Glass or, if performing a Daylight calculation, Daylight Transition Glass. Whichever surface you use for the glass should have its surface normal facing into the Room. In this manner you are using the Object for both the window reveal and the window itself.

Once you become familiar with the above process and understand how it is working, you will discover that there are a lot of things that can be done with Planar Objects to make your models more accurate and look better in Render mode (given that, as with the floor, you can use Planar Objects to replace several surfaces at the same time so there are no breaks or color changes where there shouldn’t be).

Note: There is now a tutorial available on this subject, called Interior Windows and Doors (V2.1).