Openings
Places sized openings wherever ducts, pipes, cable trays, conduits and ShaftMaster shafts cross walls, beams and slabs — in linked models or the current one — and keeps them updated as the MEP model changes
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General usage instructions
Openings finds every place where your services cross the building structure and puts a correctly sized opening there — then keeps those openings right through every revision of the MEP model.
Choose where the walls and slabs come from — any loaded link, the current model, or both — and run. Every crossing visible in the active view, or only the elements you selected, gets an opening: the full section of the duct, pipe, tray or conduit, plus insulation if you want it, plus a margin on each side, as deep as the host is thick. A single round element crossing square-on gets a round opening; everything else is rectangular, and nearby openings can be merged into one.
Run it again tomorrow and nothing is duplicated. Each opening remembers its host and its MEP elements, so it is updated in place — same element, same Opening ID, tags kept. Move a duct and its opening follows; delete the duct and the opening goes too. Your own decisions hold: an opening you edit or move by hand is locked and left alone until its duct actually moves, an opening you delete stays deleted, and a pinned opening is never touched.
It is built for MEP designers and BIM coordinators who issue builder’s work openings to the architect and structural engineer.
Key features
- Hosts from links or the current model: walls, beams, floors, roofs and ceilings.
- Services handled: ducts, pipes, cable trays, conduits, their fittings and accessories, and ShaftMaster shafts (any outline).
- Openings as Generic Models (any shape) or as your own face-based families for rectangles and circles, with a parameter mapping — convert between the two at any time.
- A palette that stays open while you work: every opening with ID, host, shape, size, level and height above the floor below.
- Edit by sketch — width and position in plan, height in a section, the full outline of a slab opening — plus a temporary section through a wall opening in one click.
- Height above the finished floor found automatically, or set by hand.
- Lock, pin and delete are respected by every later run; family openings placed by hand are picked up and tracked, and grip-resizing updates their data at once.
- Shared parameters for tags and schedules: Opening ID, sizes, depth, heights from floor, from Project Base Point and in shared coordinates, level, host and MEP elements.
How to use it
- 1Open a plan, section or 3D view that shows the walls / slabs and the MEP elements (for slab openings a 3D view with a section box works best).
- 2On the Vixeldorf tab → Openings panel, click Openings. The palette opens and stays open while you work.
- 3At the top, tick the models the walls and slabs come from (links and/or the current model), and choose whether openings are placed as Generic Models or as a family.
- 4First time: open Options — host and MEP categories, margin, insulation, round openings, merging, and (for families) the rectangular and round family types with their parameter mapping.
- 5Select MEP elements to work on just those, or select nothing for everything visible in the view, then click Place Openings. A report lists what was created, updated and deleted.
- 6Use the list to select, show, lock or delete openings; Edit to adjust one by sketch; Section for a temporary section through a wall opening; Convert to switch openings between Generic Model and family.
- 7After MEP changes, run Place Openings again — existing openings are updated, not duplicated.
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