Additions to walls

To add something to a wall, you must first select the wall by left clicking on it. When you do so, the wall appears in the 2D view:

2-D view of wall

   2D view of wall

The image above shows a selected wall in 2D view. The wall has two arches and two windows starting from the left. It also has a buttress and a picture. To the left you can see an end- on view of the wall.

You can select an arch or window or buttress by left clicking on the black square (known as a "handle") in the middle. You can select the picture by left clicking on it.

You can also drag arches, windows and buttresses leftwards and rightwards. Note that this movement is constrained by the ends of the wall plus other arches, windows or buttresses. You can drag a picture sideways or up and down.

 

Wall component controls

When you select a wall, component controls appear as shown below. This shows the components for an outside wall. clicking on an inside wall gives fewer things to add (e.g. it does not make sense to add a transept to an inside wall). This does not apply to a precinct wall which is regarded as having two "outside" walls.

    Outside wall controls

 

Arches

To modify an arch, select it in the 2-D view by clicking on the black square at its centre. You can drag it left and right in the 2-D view using this black square. Use the component controls in the left hand panel to change other aspects of the arch. You can make multiple copies of the arch by clicking on the add arch button when an arch is selected. 

There are several different types of arch available, each with their own set of parameters.

Arch terminology used in Church Builder

Arch terminology

springer: The springer is where the vertical support for the arch terminates and the curve of the arch begins. 

soffit: this is the underside of the arch. Parameters enable you to set the width and thickness of the soffit of an arch. This is Church Builder's approximation to the full range of arch mouldings found in real arches.  

Arch types currently available in Church Builder

Round The curved part consists of a semicircle. Also known as a Norman or Romanesque arch. 
Equilateral This is a common "pointed" arch. It has curves with two centres. The left curve is an arc of a circle centred on the right springer while the right curve is an arc of a circle centred on the left springer.

   Equilateral arch
Tudor This arch has four centres. The smaller radius gives the sharper curves near the springers. There are several variations on where the centres are positioned. We have chosen to divide the distance between the springers into 4 equal parts and centre the smaller radius circles one quarter away across from each springer at the same level as the springers. The larger radii circles have centres directly below these. See Wm R. Purchase "Practical Masonry" London 1904. Page 15 Figure 8. I'll try to draw it MS Word one day!

 
Round half left Half version of the round arch:

  Round half left arch

 
Round half right Half version of the round arch:

  Round half right arch

 
Lintel This is a rectangular opening:

   Lintel
Rose window This is a round window. Later versions of Church Builder will elaborate on this:

Rose window
Irregular This is an arch with two arcs of circles for the left and right curves respectively. The curvature of the two arcs can be different so that irregular arches can be made. We use these parameters to specify the arcs:
  • chord  (c)
  • curvature  (d)
  • width  (w)

.The relationship between c, d and w is shown below for the left hand of an arch:

Arch arc parameters

 
Gothic Gothic arches are taken to be symmetrical pointed arches. In Church Builder we use an irregular arch with both arcs having the same values of c, d and w.
Gothic half left

Gothic half right

 These are Gothic versions of the half round arches above.

Here are the component controls for an equilateral arch:

   Component controls for an equilateral arch

 

Soffits and arch mouldings

Church arches have a wide range of mouldings. Here is an example from Whitchurch Canonicorum in Dorset UK.

  Arches in Whitchurch Canonicorum Church, Dorset UK.

 Modelling such mouldings is not a trivial task! As a first approximation in the first version of Church Builder, we do the following.

We enable an arch to be given a soffit with a given width and depth as shown below using the Soffit width and Soffit depth sliders and edit boxes:

 

We can now give the soffit some mouldings using the Mouldings slider and edit box.

Here is the an arch with the number of mouldings set to 5.

 

All we do at the moment is add light and dark bands to an arch. The effect is quite nice though. We intend developing the range of moulding types in future versions of Church Builder.

Here are the parameters used for straightforward arches: round, equilateral, rose

Left offset Distance from left hand edge of the arch from the left end of the wall section.
Height Distance of  top of the arch above bottom of wall section.
Width Width of the arch.

Here are the parameters used for arches which have soffits:

Soffit width Distance inwards from the edge of the arch.. See soffit picture above.
Soffit thickness Distance of  top of the arch above bottom of wall section. See soffit picture above.

Note that if soffit width is zero then soffit width will be the same as the wall thickness. Consequently, the soffit thickness control is disabled when soffit width is zero.
Mouldings Number of bright bands on soffited arch representing mouldings..

Here are the parameters used for gothic and irregular arches. A gothic arch is treated as symmetrical while an irregular arch can have different curve characteristics on each side.

Here are the parameters used for arches which have soffits:

Chord

Chord left

Chord right

 Distance from top of arch to springer of arch. See description of irregular arch for details.
Curvature

Curvature left

Curvature right

 Sharpness of the curve forming the arches. See description of irregular arch for details.
Width left

Width right

 Horizontal distance from springer to vertical line coming down from top of arch. See description of irregular arch for details.

 

Windows

A window is an arch with a sill. At the moment, windows are simply open gaps in Church Builder. In later versions of Church Builder we intend adding tracery and glass.

     Windows in Church Builder

The parameters of a window are the same as those of arches plus you can change the sill height parameter.

Sill height The distance of the top of the window sill above the bottom of the wall section.

  

 

Columns

In Church Builder, you add columns to a range of arches in a wall.  Here is an example

You must create the arches first before you can add columns..

When you add a column, Church Builder places it at the leftmost available spot placing a single arch, in this order

 There are currently two types of column available:

We intend to add more column types (e.g. octagonal) and column detail (e.g. capitals and bases) in future versions of Church Builder.

If you move a column by changing its left offset, it will "jump" across arch gaps.

Here are the column parameters:

 

Left offset The distance of the central vertical axis of the column from the left edge of the wall section.
Height Height of the column above the bottom of the wall section.
Radius (cylindrical column) Radius of the cross section of the column.
Length (rectangular column) Length of the column in the direction of the wall section length
Width (rectangular column) Width of the column.