Create maritime traffic control tower

[Daniel de Reus]

Hi guys,

I recently started using Revit (I completed this guide my university provided: http://wiki.bk.tudelft.nl/toi-pedia/...t_Architecture). I'm also busy with my second project (i'm in first year of architecture at the Technical University Delft in the Netherlands), I have to create a maritime traffic control tower. The project is almost over and right now I have to make a lot of drawings. Now that I have completed my first ''lesson'' i'm really excited by all the opportunities Revit provides.

So I'm trying to make the tower I made in Revit The only problem is that my knowledge is fairly basic. If my building were orthogonal everything would be fine, but unfortunately my building has sloped walls in 3 directions. So creating the the sloped walls seems to be the first challenge. I think I have almost discovered the trick how to do this, but i'm still experiencing some problems. Using In-place mass I created the sloped walls and by editing the walls I made everything connect, however although the walls do ''connect'' they don't form one solid wall, the walls just intersect (the lines do), i've tried to split and then trim the walls but it won't work. Also when I go to floor view, because the walls are sloped, I see (not sure how to describe this) ''double walls''. I've tried solving this by setting Cut plane to offset 0.0 so it cuts the building at the absolute bottom, however when I do this I don't see any walls at all. So thats the first challenge.

The second challenge is that my facade's are made of Cortensteel plates which are organized in a grid, I have absolutely no clue how to make this.

The third challenge is that the building I have to make has a huge glass wall which is offset about 1meter from the arched wall (however it's still at the same angle). Also standing before the glass are blinds about 0.5 meter offset from the arched wall (still at the same angle).

I was planning to do all this (or at least 80%), this weekend (I have a fairly tight schedule). Do you guys think this is possible? And if it is could someone help me with my challenges, or point me in the direction I need to look (i looked through quite some tutorials and videos but there is just more info than there is time).

Sorry for my bad english and thanks for bearing with me

BTW
I uploaded photos of my section views, floor plans, facades and model to give you an idea of what i'm trying to create, it's fairly basic but I think it will get the idea across.
(the horizontal lines on the facade drawings in the extrusion (look at the model) are supposed to be the blinds, behind that is a huge glass facade, the darker lines on the rest of the facade are supposed to be profiles of the windows.

[Daniel de Reus]

Here are some photos showing what I mean with double walls and the walls not forming one piece.

[Revitaoist]

You should try to do the majority of the massing for this in the family editor, to make use of the sweeps, blends, and extrusions.

[Daniel de Reus]

I have no idea what you mean with sweeps and blends....

I have been busy all day trying to make my walls angled, just found out you can use google sketchup... took me 30 seconds to make the shape

However now i'm encountering a new problem the interior walls i've drawn don't form a single piece with the angled walls, even after editing the profile to follow the angled walls (triming isn't possible or split for that matter). Also when trying to draw a wall the ''ruler'' not sure how to call it, the blue line that shows the dimensions, measures from the outside of the top of the exterior wall (when your working on groud level). So when I try to place a wall it's an enormous hassle to position it correctly. This is made even more difficult by the fact that the wall is shown at an cut plane of 1200 so the walls are a bit off from the exact ground level (setting it to 0.0 just makes everything disappear).

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Daniel,
I'm sorry to say but the project that you have selected as your pilot project is not that difficult... except if you have little training and practical knowledge of Revit and how it works.
I can see so many issues that you will encounter as you work through this that your tight schedule will not be met and you are basically setting yourself up to fail. (not necessarily your fault either)
I'm sure you might find a number of people willing to help with some of the issues but if I said the 'double walls' were the result of the view range settings and the grid pattern can either be shown as a surface pattern or created using the conceptual massing tools and a pattern based adaptive curtain panel family... what would all that mean to you?
I don't mean to be entirely negative, I'm just trying to give you a realistic opinion of what I have seen a hundred times in the past and I want to save you the grief.
By all means stay with Revit but maybe hold off until you can find a more appropriate pilot project.

[Daniel de Reus]

Daniel,
I'm sorry to say but the project that you have selected as your pilot project is not that difficult...except if you have little training and practical knowledge of Revit and how it works.

That's what I figured, felt confident that with a little trial error I could figure things out, but there are like a million options.

but if I said the 'double walls' were the result of the view range settings

Came to that conclusion myself, just don't know at what setting to set it.

the grid pattern can either be shown as a surface pattern or created using the conceptual massing tools and a pattern based adaptive curtain panel family... what would all that mean to you?

not much, what you saying is somewhat familiar came across it somewhere, but it's pretty vague.

oh and I appreciate you opinion, if it isn't realistic I'm not gonna spend my whole weekend trying to make it work. It's one of the main reasons I came here figuring out whether it was worth the little time I have. Il just stick to drawing everything by hand then (good thing I have an drawing board ).
I'm still gonna try to make it though, just not within this project so any feedback is still appreciated.
In a few weeks I have to recreate a famous building anyway so its good to get a head start, especially since many people fail this assignment.

(included some pictures to show the double walls, isn't that bigger problem actually, bigger problem is the blue line not measuring from the correct point. Managed to clean up the the joins between the angled and horizontal wall however now you can still see them intersect in elavation and 3d view.)