About Creating Element Definitions for a Curtain Wall Style

Element definitions determine the appearance of the four basic curtain wall elements. There is a different definition type for each element.

Curtain wall grid element types

Each type of element can have multiple definitions. For example, you can define a division to create a horizontal grid or a vertical grid, and you can define the cells to contain a nested grid or a door/window assembly. To make reuse easier, you can save the element definitions, and then assign them to grids, cells, frames, or mullions as needed.

Element definitions are style-specific. When you create element definitions for a specific curtain wall style, those definitions are available only for curtain walls of that style. For example, if you define a door and window assembly infill for one curtain wall style, that infill is not available as an option when you edit a curtain wall of a different style.

When you create a new element definition, like a new grid division, a new frame, cell infill, or mullion, you need to define a display component for this element in order to control the visual appearance (layer, color, and linetype properties) of this element separately from the other elements. For example, if you have defined a new panel infill, and want to assign a concrete gray color to that, you need to define a display component for the new infill, and assign it a grey color. If you do not define a display component for a new element, its display will be controlled by the display component of the default element of that type. For example, if you have a new panel infill, but do not define a display component for it, then its display is controlled by the default infill display component.