By John Flanagan
Curtain Walls and Type Parameters
To change Type Properties, select an element and click Modify tab > Properties panel > (Type Properties). Changes to type properties apply to all instances in the project.
Vertical and Horizontal Grid Patterns
In Type Properties we can set an automatic vertical/horizontal layout for curtain grid lines along the length of a curtain wall. When set to a value other than none, Revit automatically adds vertical/horizontal grid lines to a curtain wall.
Fixed Distance indicates that the curtain grids are placed at the exact value specified for Vertical/Horizontal Spacing.
Grid Layout Settings
In our first example, the layout settings for the vertical and horizontal grids are set to Fixed Distance and the spacing to 2000mm. With the wall width set at 11000mm, the vertical grids are unevenly spaced. When the width of the wall is changed to 12000mm (a multiple of 2000), the vertical grids are evenly spaced and a new one is added. In this case it is the width or overall distance of the wall that is the governing factor regarding the grid spacing.
Fixed Number indicates that you can set different numbers of curtain grids for different curtain wall instances. The number of mullions or divisions is fixed always regardless of the distance. Check in Type Properties – the spacing is greyed out for both the vertical and horizontal grid layouts.
You can change the number in the property’s palette. Change the number of vertical grids from 4 to 5. The result is shown on the right illustration above. In this case another grid is also added, but the fixed number is now the governing factor making sure that the number of divisions is always equal, and the distance is not considered as part of the formula.
Maximum Spacing indicates that the curtain grids are placed at even intervals along the length of the curtain wall at a distance up to the value specified for Vertical/Horizontal Spacing.
In the example above, the maximum spacing for the panels is 2000mm. It can be less, but it cannot be more than 2000mm. Select the wall on the left, change the width to 11000mm, enter. Check what happens to the panel width and you can see that the maximum spacing control is dictating that the panel width shouldn’t go beyond 2000mm. To accommodate the increased width the panel width has adjusted and a new one is created.
Minimum Spacing is the opposite of maximum spacing – so now the value should never go below 2000mm. It should go to 2000mm or more.
Change the wall width to 9000mm. The panel width increases, but they are still evenly spaced.