Scheduling curtain walls, railings or studs

[Steve_Bennett]

Well, I've been working with a general contractor company who does mostly interior metal stud walls. Using ootb styles, which would give
a) The most functionality for showing in 3d all stud components of a wall such as king studs, trimmers, headers, cripple studs, etc.
b) Have the most flexibility for scheduling the individual parts of the style for material take-off/estimating?

Based on what I explored it would seem that a curtain has the most functionality for modeling, yet terribly poor when it comes to pulling information for scheduling. Railings are great for scheduling yet I would have a nightmare of a day trying to get all of the stud components to show correctly in a railing.

Which leaves the stud itself modeled as either a structural member style or mass element style. That would open up a ton more of options for scheduling but placement of those objects in 3d would be a Royal PITA.

Any ideas would be most welcomed! Especially those from the legendary David Koch...

[Chuckyd67]

There is a third party software package that does exactly what you ask for. It creates walls with either wood or metal studs, shows all the headers, sills, king, queen, jack, and cripple studs. However, I'm not sure about the scheduling aspect. I'm not sure of the name, but it may be something like COINS.

I sure hope you're getting paid plenty for all that extra detail.

[dkoch]

Legendary? What stories have you heard now?

I am afraid that in my work, a metal stud and GWB wall is shown by the two shrink wrap lines in plan, and that is about it. The style has all the correct components, but they are not shown. And I could not care less where in that wall the actual studs are (oh, we have specifications to describe what we want, and 2D details to show double studs at door jambs, etc., but I would never dream of trying to model all of that.

Then again, I am not buying the studs, so I do not have to know just how much is needed to build the walls I show. So I can see the value in a model that has actual studs in it - but as you note, modeling actual studs in ACA would be tedious.

[Steve_Bennett]

There is a third party software package that does exactly what you ask for. It creates walls with either wood or metal studs, shows all the headers, sills, king, queen, jack, and cripple studs. However, I'm not sure about the scheduling aspect. I'm not sure of the name, but it may be something like COINS.

I sure hope you're getting paid plenty for all that extra detail.

Legendary? What stories have you heard now?

I am afraid that in my work, a metal stud and GWB wall is shown by the two shrink wrap lines in plan, and that is about it. The style has all the correct components, but they are not shown. And I could not care less where in that wall the actual studs are (oh, we have specifications to describe what we want, and 2D details to show double studs at door jambs, etc., but I would never dream of trying to model all of that.

Then again, I am not buying the studs, so I do not have to know just how much is needed to build the walls I show. So I can see the value in a model that has actual studs in it - but as you note, modeling actual studs in ACA would be tedious.

Thanks for both of your input which confirmed my suspicions. COINS and VisionREZ were both options I suggested they look into.

[Bob the Bimmer]

I've been running into the same problem. On one side Revit encourages us to 'think outside of the box' and use the Curtain Wall tool for things other than just glazing. However, having the curtain wall defined by a single line as well as not being able to define mullions or panels as structurally load-bearing elements severely limits this tool.

Imagine if you could dedicate a mullion as load-bearing. You could then use the curtain wall tool to create stud walls and schedule each stud.

Also, programs like Revit Structure and IES <VE> import anything built out of a curtain wall as neglectable or just plain glazing, no matter how the wall is defined. Adding this functionality, i.m.h.o., would unlock a great many number of new uses for the tools already in Revit Architecture.

[Chuckyd67]

It still wouldn't work, bacause it cannot automatically add king, queen, jack, and cripple studs, nor can it add opening headers. Also, it will not add studs at wall intersections. So, I think the best solution is a third party package.