I was happily (!?!) putting in the rake mouldings for the gambrels on Vassos. On the sixth one, the outer rake failed to subtract from the steep roof of the gambrel. All the others had worked. Imagine my joy when I saw that all five previous subtractions at the same condition had also failed.

The "solution" is to slightly change the edge angle of the upper roof edge. In my case, the angle of the edge when mitered to the upper roof was 74.3651º. I rounded up to the nearest hundredth of a degree, to 74.3700º. To keep the section through the miter looking presentable, I had to change the adjacent edge angle of the upper roof.

Over time I have have seen these subtractions continue to deteriorate, and I have to change the angles again. It's a pain, but there is no other way to model complex rakes.

A single building element, how about a window, will be represented multiple times in the construction documents.

There's the window in a plan, at least one elevation, often two or more sections, maybe/probably an interior elevation, maybe a wall section, and the window schedule. Then there are dimensions and annotations related to the window. Five to fifteen representations of one element is probably typical.

The goal is to generate these representations with as few project elements as possible. The ideal is one. With a one-to-one ratio of project elements to building elements, you can focus on manipulation of an element, knowing the representations will largely take care of themselves.

With multiple project elements per building element, it falls to you to maintain the integrity of each and every representation. You work more, do the same things over and over, have less fun, and make more mistakes, which, considering how hard you've been working, is a downer.

When you choose to draw a building element that could be modeled, you are shifting the responsibility for the representation of that element away from the software and onto yourself. When you unlink a section/elevation, you are signing on to change that one door or window multiple times. As multiple building elements change multiple times, the added work, and the risk of error, grows exponentially.

This ideal of of unity is only partially attainable with current technology. But you should have a good grasp of how attainable it is.

For example, full-height walls are relatively unified. They display well, automatically, in a wide variety of contexts. Low walls, however, are less unified: Since the plan and section fills can't differ, you need two elements, a wall and a slab, for the the plan and the section.

The reflected ceiling plan is a great divider. Many elements need to be drawn over. Beams, dashed in plan, need to drawn solid, while floor elements, solid in plan, need to be drawn dashed. Given the current design of the software, we're stuck with this.

A lot a higher-level object design is concerned with getting objects to multi-represent themselves better.

Our job as users is to know these limits, do our best within them, and work around them when we can. If you can cut the number of project elements for a building part from 5 to 3, do it. Reduce repetition where it can't be eliminated.

Part of knowing the limits is noticing when they change. It's important to stay informed about developments in technology which can lessen repetition. This includes improvements in software and in our own libraries and standards. This, in turn, means a willingness to change our habits, abandon obsolete workarounds, and adopt better techniques.