In this session, I’ll show you how to use the “Door” tool to create doors in a BIM model. Because a door is hosted by a wall, we need to create the hosting wall elements first. In this model, we have already got some wall elements created according to the underlay. Now let us start creating door elements. First, open the floor plan we want to place doors on. Then go to the “Architecture” tab, on the “Build” panel, click on the “Door” tool, and in the “Properties Palette,” we can see the existing door types listed here. After choosing the desired door type, we can start placing the door element. Click a wall to place the door element. Note that when we are placing a door, the cursor is usually on the center of the element, so it is difficult to position the door by a single click correctly. Therefore, we often place the door in an approximate location first. Then use the “Move” tool or the “Align” tool to move this element to its right position. Here we use the “Move” tool as an example. Select the door we just placed, then go to the “Modify/Doors” tab. On the “Modify” panel, click on the “Move” tool. Click on a corner of the door element as a move start point, and then click on the corresponding corner on the underlay as the move end point. In this way, we can move the door to the correct position. If the door’s hinge side or swing is not what we need, select the door first, then we can see two flip arrows show up. One is “Flip Hand,” and the other is “Flip Facing.” If we click on the “Flip Hand” arrow, the hinged side of the door will be flipped. If we click on the “Flip Facing” arrow, we can see the flip of direction for the door swing. If we cannot find the required door type in the type selector, we can load a door family into this project or duplicate an existing door type and modify its parameters to get the door type we need. If we need to load a door family, under the “Architecture” tab, on the “Mode” panel, click on the “Load Family” tool and choose the door family file. Click on “Open,” and we can select this door family in the “Type Selector.” If we have the door type in “Type Selector” but we don’t have the dimensions of the type we need, for example, the height or the width is not what we need, we can add a new door type to the project. First, in the “Properties Palette,” click on “Duplicate…,” and in the “Name” dialog, enter the name, and click on “OK.” Then, modify the parameters to what we need. When there are same doors on the same corresponding locations of each floor, under the “Modify” tab, we can copy and paste the door to other levels with automatic alignment. Let me demonstrate this. Select the door to be copied, then under the “Modify/Doors” tab, on the “Clipboard” panel, click on the “Copy to Clipboard” tool. Then click on the “Paste” tool. In this drop-down menu, choose “Aligned to Selected Levels.” In the “Select Levels” pop-up window, select the levels where the door needs to be copied to. Then click on “OK” to finish copying the selected door to each level.
