How to offset part of a Wall?

[Anonymous]

I have a Wall shaped like an L; and I need to offset only the outer outline of this wall, in one go, like offsetting a Pline.

First off, it does not let me select an individual line of the wall, just the whole wall;

Then, I have to select each segment at a time.

So, how do I offset those edges but in the end still remaining a Wall? (I need that because of interactions with Windows, Doors etc.)

Thank you.

[leothebuilder · Accepted solution]

Draw a line along the edge of the L- shaped wall and offset the desired distance.

AEC objects and lines/circles are two different animals.

[David_W_Koch]

I am not clear on what exactly you are looking to do.

Walls are single objects.  You cannot select just one side.  You say you want to offset just one side, but still end up with a Wall.  A Wall that is the same as the original Wall?  If so, then you do not need to select just one side.

Or are you trying to make a wider wall by offsetting one side of it?  Or offsetting just one or more components from that side of the Wall, and ending up with a new Wall Style with just those components?  Neither of those is possible with the out-of-the-box tools.

Wall Cleanups sometimes give the appearance that multiple Wall segments act as one object, particularly for grip edits, but they remain separate individual objects, so their behavior will be more like Lines than Polylines.  The OFFSET command will only work on one Wall at a time, and you will likely have to then edit them further to get the offset Walls to have their ends meet at the corner.

[Anonymous]

What I am trying to achieve is filling the outer, let's say, 1/3 of the wall with a hatch pattern. And as I need a closed border for that I thought of offsetting the outer edges of the wall about 1/3 to the inside of the wall, then fill that space with hatch. But, as you remarked, Walls can not have their edges selected separately.
So that's the problem.

[David_W_Koch]

Does your Wall Style have more than one component?  Do the components correspond to actual wall construction?  Does the 1/3 of the Wall that is to be hatched correspond to one or more Wall components?  Are you displaying the hatch component of any of your Wall components?

If you are not currently showing any Wall hatch components, and you have one or more Wall components aligning with the area you want hatched, you could add the hatch to those Wall components.  If you add a style-level Display Override for that Wall Style, you can specify which hatch component(s) should be turned on and which should be turned off, for just that Wall Style.

If you just want to add a separate hatch on top of the Wall, then as @leothebuilder suggeted, you can trace the Wall edge with a Polyline, offset that, PEDIT them together (you will likely need to add a segment at one end of one of the Polylines before you can join them) and close the resulting Polyline.  Then you can use that as the hatch boundary.