Concrete Beam Joins (Again)

[david_peterson]

Can someone tell me why you can't do skewed concrete beam structures? They won't join like they should? I keep getting the "Can't cut joined elements" error, but I didn't cut anything. I'm just trying to place a beam and join it to the slab. When are they going to fix concrete beams? This program is just about useless and a complete waste of my time to use it. I can't get line work to be even close. The linework tool won't work in my case. Been there done that. I've spent more time adjusting the linework than I have modeling it. This would have taken me about 15 min to make these adjustments in Cad, I've be screwing around with it for about 4hrs now. Everything I've tried don't work. I shouldn't have more workarounds than I do basics. See attached image.

[tedg]

I wish I could help you but I'm sort of new in this Revit Structure thing myself.
Silly question, did you use the "join" tool or are you relying on it joining automatically?

Anyway to back off the beam overlapping the column below so it doesn't extend beyond the skewed beam?

Like I said, I'm new at this and just stabbing in the dark.

[david_peterson]

Tried it. It won't join by my action or by the "automatic" function either. If I don't connect the beam to the column/beam, it's fine and joins. Again, Why can't RS do skewed concrete beams? Do I need to start tell clients they can't get concrete buildings in Revit? We don't do boxes.
The Automatic "Clean Up" is why the beam end extends beyond where it should. That another issue. I have to manually go and cut by face every skewed connection. Which takes longer than modeling the beam.
You just have to love a program with more exceptions than rules.

[david_peterson]

Same project, different area, same damn problem. Looks like I'm back to hiding objects and drawing lines.
Again, all same material, same depth, same elevation.

[TheViking]

Could you post some 3D views, so we can see the different beam sizes? Better yet can you send me the model or portion of? erik dot snell at autodesk dot com

Thanks,
Erik

[benmay]

2011 is much better with this sort of thing, but something you will often have to do in the situations shown above is drag beam end node past the point you want it to trim at. Then use extend on the face you want it to cut at. This will work in most cases. If you are still having the problem I would think it is either a beam depth issue or sometimes the support structure can interfere with the beams joining as well

[Craig_L]

This has to be about the 1000th time I have posted an answer to this sort of problem...
No offence intended there, it just seems to be a very common problem.
My answer remains the same..
The original "beam" OOTB is based on a footing family and still retains some of that annoying behaviour. Try the beam I have attached, you will find that it plays nicely, and not only that...you can cut geometry to a reference plane so that even if you can't quite seem to get it to play the way you want, you can still make it look right by trimming it where it needs to happen.

Hope this makes your life a bit easier.

[TheViking]

Hi,

I'm a little confused how a Precast Concrete beam family will help this situation, I'm all ears.

I was a member of the development team that did the last round of work of concrete beam joins. I think we did a lot to improve the situation, but it is a very complicated problem with many, many variables. Our methodology does care a lot about the beam sizes (width and depth), slope and angle between beams. This is why when an image is shown I often ask for 3D view so we can determine the depths and how they interact with each other.

If we get a more complete "picture" of the issue then it is easier for us to debug why the join looks like it does and then we can possibly improve our logic.

We are listening and we are very sorry that it can take so long.

Thank you.

[david_peterson]

Erik now has the model, hopefully he can find a solution to a repeatable problem.
Again, for those looking at the image, all the beams I'm having problems with are the same depth.
As for triming to a ref plane, Why should I have to?
One other thought of suggestion to the Adesk Crew; have you ever thought about Trim Place sim to those used in ACA? Revit will not be able to "Auto-Join" everything all the time, hence it would be nice to be able to better tell Revit where that beam really wants to end.

Just some more thoughts.

Edit:
Also I did find that if you delete the slab covering the beams, the problem goes away. It's not just the beams, it's how they play with others. I think it may also have something to do with the order in which they were placed. Not sure that it should matter, but I think it does

[Peter Davies]

Hi,

I'm a little confused how a Precast Concrete beam family will help this situation, I'm all ears.

Hi Eric, I believe many issues such as this may be resolved by allowing "CONCRETE" beams to be cut to a ref plane. It appears at the moment any other material can be cut to a plane (wood, plastic,...) but not concrete.

If you change the material to say Precast concrete you can cut to a plane, and things play together nicely.

Can Autodesk take a look at why concrete beams can't be cut to a plane, as finding the answer to this may resolve the other issues? The opening by face tool is not always going to give the required results. If you search through the forums I think you will find many threads and requests about this.

While we are at it, any chance of a decent test editor, something like the acad one will be fine