I've got a 4 story exterior concrete wall with multiple window openings. Does anyone know a quick and painless way to draw multiple openings in a wall?
In new version of ETABS they have introduced an easy way of doing this but I usually draw null lines and mesh the wall on those lines and delete the solid portion for opening. It doesnt take long.
I beleive someone has better option, but this is what I do.
zeemas gave you a nice procedure to help create openings, drawing null (property NONE) lines, then Edit menu mesh areas to mesh your walls to create openings. In case you don't already know, you select a meshed area where you want to have an opening and press Delete key on your keyboard to delete it, thereby creating an opening. Another method is to add reference planes and reference lines, then use Edit menu to mesh areas based on visible grids.
Using either zeemas' suggested procedure or reference planes & lines, if the opening is the same size and location on multiple stories, you can mesh the wall on 1 story and then replicate to other stories in order to save time
The draw windows and draw doors draw tool options look nice, but you cannot easily mesh with precision using those draw tools from what I can see
@Stressed,
Once you draw the windows using the tool, you choose mesh wall for openings under the edit menu and it essentially does what the null lines and reference planes would do.
Somehow, I also like the null line or ref. plane option.
