Indicating Seismic Joints on Plans

[RobertB]

How are you experienced Revit folks showing seismic joints in the model? I don't have to do this myself, since I'm in the MEP world. But I know the proper way is not to draw a wall where the joint exists just to show the dashed line in the wall up thru every level in the building. Which is what I've recently seen done.

So, in the interests of helping my architect friends rather than just whining about poor modeling, what would you suggest? The goal is to have a heavy dashed line indicating the joint that only needs to be modeled once for all levels of the building and have visibilty control even thru linked models.

So that rules out symbol lines.
That also rules out model lines unless there's some way to draw the lines on the base level and have them show up on all levels (plan view only, perhaps RCP?).

At this point I'm stuck.

[Ning Zhou]

see attched, that's the best i can do untill someone can figure out better way?
you may have to turn off floor for some levels, and check object style for line thickness stuff, etc.

[RobertB]

see attched, that's the best i can do untill someone can figure out better way?
you may have to turn off floor for some levels, and check object style for line thickness stuff, etc.

Joe,

Thanks for the attempt, but symbolic lines won't work. The architect cannot draw the line once and have it show on all 20 levels.

[cliff collins]

We use a sweep with the profile of the EJ, and run it thru all the walls in the model.
i.e. model it like a real joint, instead of trying to "draft" it in all views.

cheers

[ron.sanpedro]

Joe,

Thanks for the attempt, but symbolic lines won't work. The architect cannot draw the line once and have it show on all 20 levels.

Interesting, because I would have thought the invisible line trick would work in this case. I wonder if this is a change in behavior in 2011? Time to test!

Gordon

[RobertB]

Interesting, because I would have thought the invisible line trick would work in this case. I wonder if this is a change in behavior in 2011? Time to test!

Sorry, that's my bad. I simply opened the family and saw that it was a symbolic line and dismissed the idea without actually testing it in a live model. However, floors still mess with the representation, so I call it an inadequate solution.

[jeffrey.kuchta]

Interesting question. I am currently developing Revit families of my companies expansion joint systems. My thought was to add a 'void extrusion' so that when the EJ gets placed (either wall, floor or ceiling), then the Family would cut the wall for the architect(s). ie. if its a 2" EJ system the joint opening shown would be 2", or 6" for a 6" system. Does this work/appeal to anyone?

[twiceroadsfool]

We use a Line Based Family. In elevation its a Model Line (much lower performance hit), and in plan it shows the joint, the sealant, and whatever other Joint items are included in the type selector.

So it can be sketched in elevation the way the Designers and Architects want, and it shows up everywhere, in all views, and all plans, since its detail items that are in a Model Family.

That also means it works on stacked walls (if its drawn through them), through all levels (if its drawn through them), so its much less labor intensive than anything traditionally wall hosted. Its variable in joint thickness and composition, through the nested detail family, so they can be quantified and altered to fit in the different walls if necessary.

[RobertB]

We use a sweep with the profile of the EJ, and run it thru all the walls in the model.
i.e. model it like a real joint, instead of trying to "draft" it in all views.

Do you have a sample? I've attached my own test and while I like it as a model, I'm not thrilled with the plan representation.

[ron.sanpedro]

Sorry, that's my bad. I simply opened the family and saw that it was a symbolic line and dismissed the idea without actually testing it in a live model. However, floors still mess with the representation, so I call it an inadequate solution.

Robert, I was actually not getting it to work either. It seems the issue was that the annotation needs to be on the ref plane at the upper extent of the object, rather than the ref level. See attached.

That said, Aaron, would you be willing to share an example of your elevation placed item? My sense has been that we need two families, one for horizontal surfaces and one for vertical, with some mechanism for coordinating how they connect/interact.

Gordon