Tutorial 23: Building Elevations with Corner Intelligence

A tilt-up building is four walls that have to meet at four corners. In cv-web, group your panels into elevations and tell ConstructiVision how each wall ends — and it works out the joint at every corner for you.

Everything in the panel thread built one panel at a time. A building is more than a pile of panels: the walls have to close — the back wall meets the right wall, the right meets the front, and each corner is a real detail a fabricator has to form. This lesson moves to cv-web, the browser companion at simplestruct.com, and works at the building scale. You will open a project, switch to the Elevations view, and set the corner condition at each wall’s ends — choosing from the seven conditions ConstructiVision understands, and watching the model resolve the joint where two walls meet. The web side’s project and account mechanics behind this lesson live in Work with cloud projects and Using cv-web.

Note

cv-web is a live browser beta. Viewing any saved project is free; the in-browser editor — including setting corner conditions — unlocks with a membership, and the model keeps evolving. This lesson describes the Elevations view as it works today; if a control has moved, the concepts below still hold. See Membership & Tokens for what editing needs.

Note

This lesson also exists in the browser. Work it in ConstructiVision on the web — same steps, same values, so you can follow either and end up with the same panel.

What you will build

From a project open in cv-web:

• your panels grouped into elevations — the building’s walls (Back, Right, Front, Left by default), each an ordered run of panels;

• a corner condition chosen at each elevation’s left and right end, from the seven types ConstructiVision resolves;

• a connected corner chain — each wall’s end links to the neighboring wall, so the building closes and every corner joint is worked out consistently;

• a reading of the result in 2D (the elevation strips) and in the 3D building model, where the corners visibly turn and the joints take their correct widths.

Before you start

• Have a project open in cv-web. If you followed the CAD thread, you can bring the Riverside Distribution Center project across first: Tutorial 16: From CAD to cv-web exports it as a .cvp and imports it into your cloud library. Any saved project with panels works here.

• Sign in at simplestruct.com. Viewing is free; Create your account covers sign-in, and note that the account needs a company email address.

• To change corner conditions you need an active membership — the editor is read-only without one. You can still follow every step and read the model; only the edits are gated. See Membership & Tokens.

Tip

No project of your own yet? Open any project from My Projects, or start a New project and add a few panels — a handful is enough to see the corners resolve. The mechanics are in Work with cloud projects.

Lesson

Step 1 — Switch to the Elevations view

With a project open, find the mode buttons in the top bar — Project · Building · Elevations · Brace · Cast · Panel. Click Elevations. The view changes to show your building as a set of horizontal strips, one per wall: Back, Right, Front, and Left in a new project, each strip holding the panels assigned to that wall in order, left to right.

A 2D / 3D toggle sits beside the mode buttons. Start in 2D — it is the plan-like layout where each elevation and its two ends are easiest to read.

Step 2 — Read an elevation and its two ends

Each elevation strip is a wall seen straight on: its panels in sequence, and at each far end a small corner control. The left control governs how the wall starts and the right control how it ends — the two places this wall touches its neighbors. Alongside each corner control is a connection selector naming the neighboring elevation that end joins.

Click an elevation to select it, and open the properties panel: it names the wall and lists its Left Corner and Right Corner conditions, along with the elevation each end connects to. This is the whole idea of corner intelligence — a wall is not just its panels, it is also how it ends on both sides.

Step 3 — Choose a corner condition

Open the corner control at one end of an elevation. It offers the seven corner conditions ConstructiVision resolves at a building corner:

Condition	Shown as	What it means
Continuous	Continuous	The wall runs straight past — no end joint (an inline or expansion joint).
Terminating (interior)	Terminating(I)	This wall’s end panel butts the interior face of the perpendicular wall.
Terminating (exterior)	Terminating(E)	The end panel butts the exterior face of the perpendicular wall.
Miter	Miter	Both walls meet at a 45° cut.
Pilaster	Pilaster	The wall terminates at a poured column at the corner.
L-Panel	L-Panel	A single L-shaped panel wraps the corner — monolithic, no joint.
Gap	Gap	An intentional separation is left at the corner.

Pick the one that matches your building — say Terminating(I) where a side wall dies into the back wall, or L-Panel where one panel turns the corner in a single piece. The choice is recorded on that elevation end immediately.

Why the condition matters beyond the picture

The corner condition is not cosmetic. Each type carries a design joint width — a butt or pilaster corner opens the standard inter-panel joint, a miter uses a tighter 45° joint, and a continuous run or L-panel has no end joint at all — and it sets the turn the wall takes at that corner. Choosing the right condition is how the building’s geometry comes out correct where two walls meet.

Step 4 — Let the connected corner resolve itself

A corner is shared by two walls, so a condition on one wall’s end implies the matching condition on its neighbor. ConstructiVision keeps the pair consistent: a butt corner always pairs one terminating wall with one continuous wall — never two terminators fighting for the same corner — while the symmetric conditions (miter, pilaster, L-panel, gap) apply the same type to both sides. Set one end, and check the connected elevation’s touching end: it now carries the complementary condition, and the two walls close cleanly at that corner.

Walk the building’s corners in order — Back → Right → Front → Left and back to Back — setting each shared corner once. Because the elevations are chained, each wall’s end already knows which neighbor it meets; you are only choosing how they meet.

Step 5 — See the corners in 3D

Flip the view toggle to 3D. The elevations lift into the building model, and the corners you set now read as real geometry: a terminating wall stops against its neighbor’s face, a miter cuts both walls at 45°, an L-panel turns the corner in one piece, and a gap leaves a visible break. Orbit the model and check each corner against what you intended — the 3D view is where a wrong corner condition is obvious at a glance.

Switch back to 2D whenever you want to re-read or adjust a condition; the two views are the same model seen two ways.

Check your result

Tip

This lesson’s result lives in cv-web against your cloud project, not in a single drawing on disk, so there is no CV-CHECK-LESSON23 command — the CAD lesson checkers cannot see the browser model. Check the outcomes themselves against the list below.

You should now be able to verify all of the following:

• The Elevations view shows your building as one strip per wall, each holding its panels in order.

• Every elevation has a corner condition set at both ends, chosen from the seven types, and the properties panel reports each wall’s Left Corner and Right Corner.

• At each shared building corner, the two touching walls carry complementary conditions — one terminating / one continuous for a butt corner, or the same symmetric type on both sides — so the building closes.

• In 3D, each corner reads as the condition you chose: walls butt, miter, wrap, or gap where you set them to.

If an edit is refused with a read-only banner, that is the membership gate, not an error — see Membership & Tokens. For sign-in trouble, Troubleshooting → cv-web (simplestruct.com) has the field notes.

Watch this lesson

Transcript (23 captions)

0:01 — Tutorial 23 — a building is not a bag of panels. It is walls that meet each other, and how they meet is a decision.

0:09 — Start from a sample building — a full multi-panel project, so there is something real to work with.

0:15 — ConstructiVision Sample Building — 60 panels. Nothing you do while looking around changes anyone's data.

0:21 — The cv-web editor — the same project you draw in the plugin.

0:25 — Elevations mode: each exterior wall as its own run of panels.

0:29 — Pick an elevation and its properties appear on the right.

0:33 — Direction — which way this wall faces.

0:37 — Total Wall and Avg Height — the run summarised.

0:42 — Then the two that matter here: Left Corner and Right Corner — the ends.

0:48 — Each end names its condition AND the elevation it connects to. A wall knows its neighbours.

0:53 — Switch to 2D — corner conditions are set on the plan, where you can see which walls meet.

1:00 — Open the corner control at one end. Seven conditions — the ones ConstructiVision resolves at a building corner.

1:07 — Continuous runs straight past. Terminating(I) and (E) butt the interior or exterior face. Miter cuts both at 45°. Pilaster dies into a poured column. L-Panel wraps the corner in one piece. Gap leaves an intentional separation.

1:19 — Terminating(I) — where a side wall dies into the back wall's interior face.

1:24 — This is not cosmetic. Each condition carries a design joint width and sets the turn the wall takes — it is how the geometry comes out correct where two walls meet.

1:35 — A corner is shared by two walls, so the condition on one end implies its neighbour's.

1:41 — ConstructiVision keeps the pair consistent: a butt corner always pairs one terminating wall with one continuous wall — never two terminators fighting for the same corner.

1:50 — The symmetric conditions — miter, pilaster, L-panel, gap — apply the same type to both ends.

1:56 — Watch the far end resolve itself rather than waiting for you to set it twice.

2:02 — Now stand it up. The corners you just chose are the ones you see.

2:07 — A miter reads as a 45° meeting. An L-panel turns the corner with no joint at all. The choice is visible, not buried in a field.

2:16 — Back to 2D — the toggle is non-destructive, so compare as often as you like.

2:22 — Get the corners right and the building closes. Get them wrong and every panel downstream inherits the error.

Where next

• The browser companion in full: Using cv-web — everything cv-web adds around the building model, your account, and your team’s library.

• Where your building lives: Work with cloud projects — open, save, and share the project you set corners on across your whole team.

• Bringing a CAD project across first: Tutorial 16: From CAD to cv-web — export a project from AutoCAD and import its .cvp into cv-web to work on its elevations here.

• What the editor needs: Membership & Tokens — free viewing versus the membership that unlocks in-browser editing, and what the AI features cost.

• Reading a set at building scale: Analyze panel sets — once the building is assembled, see where its panels sit within observed ranges.