FireTape?

[formology]

FireTape



Recently we've started work on a prototype of a FireTape tool and we're excited to see what people think about this idea.

FireTape is intended to help users prepare life safety plans by stamping (tagging) fire rating information repeatedly on walls in life safety plan views. This tool would allow you to set up fire tape rules where you can define which wall type should receive which type of wall tag. The tool will place repeating tags at a spacing specified by the user on each wall in the plan view.

We're working on adding even more configurable options for which views to place firetape and working on making the prototype dynamic which will automatically keep your firetape up-to-date as the model changes.

If you have some thoughts on a FireTape tool we'd love to hear them. Also please let us know if you would be interested in trying out the prototype.

Please take a moment to let us know your thoughts about the questions below.

Cheers,
Formology

1. our current strategy is to allow users to specify which walls should be "taped" by specifying the family type. Do you organize your fire rated walls this way? would you want to be able to specify different criteria (other than type name) to indicate which walls should be taped?

2. If additional criteria are provided for identifying walls, should the Taping tool attempt to process all rules or should it stop at the first matching criteria? e.g., i specify two rules rule1. all walls with mySharedYesNoParam = yes get TagTypeA and then rule2. all walls with type name "oneHour" get TagTypeB. if a wall has mySharedYesNoParam = Yes and type name is "oneHour" what should happen?

3. Should which Tag Type to place be part of the rule definition? or would you apply the same tag to any walls which match a rule criteria?

4. Should the tool provide the ability to place drafting lines on top of the walls in the specified views either in addition to or instead of repeating tags?

5. How should settings be stored? Do these rules typically apply company wide? project wide? particular to an individual user?

6. Other wishes for a fireTape tool?

Once the prototype is ready we'll post a link here.

[dbaldacchino]

Hi there, YES YES YES :) I'll see if I can help with getting some traffic towards this post and perhaps solicit some opinions.

[jhendershot]

so glad someone took this on.

i created a series of fire tapes, based off what dbaldacchino did awhile back that have worked, but not at all integrated. would love to help test out.

cheers.

j.

[formology]

Hi J,

I took a look at your video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pTuV5qVVIs&context=C35c3ba5ADOEgsToPDskJ6p4tLGbAKVVNcIo3iufOz

and found it very insightful. could you post one of those families so that I can play with it a bit? I would imagine that if we could automate the operations you presented in the video then you would be a lot farther ahead. Do you feel like the drafting component is important or do you think we could achieve equivalent functionality by specifying a custom tag for each type of wall (that gets repeated along the wall) where we could put the diamonds/lettering in the different tag types? (I'm trying to get at wether we need to enable drafting lines/detail components or if the multi-tagging would also fit your use case.

Also, can you share (privately or otherwise) how you "define" your fire rated walls? What constitutes a double diamond/triple diamond, "S" type etc. We're struggling a little with how best to allow users to define the wall criteria in FireTape Rules.

Thanks,
-Zach

[jhendershot]

no problem. i went ahead and just attached a 2012 warehouse version that has all the families in it.

personally i don't have a preference one way or the other what it is as long as it comes out looking like the NCS.. not because i am in love with the standard (i prefer just colored walls myself) but in some states we are required to show the NCS at different governing agencies / jurisdictions, so we don't have a choice in the matter.

at least for our office, we have a standard set of wall types that we have created that is loaded into every project some rated 1hr through 4hr others that are shaft walls or furring with varying sub types based on stud size, insulation or sound attenuation criteria. it would be nice if those rated walls just had an option under the properties to show the overlapped rating. in my opinion this should be a one click process.. on and off within the code compliance view or whatever view other people use.

if it was part of a view template that would be great as well so you wouldn't even have to click on or off per wall..

cheers.

joshua.

[formology]

Working off of Joshua's file, I made a quick video demonstrating the prototype. Will be interested to hear any thoughts on it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ePmHYBXzI

[jhendershot]

awesome. this looks very promising indeed.

[formology]

That's great! I'm glad that we're on the right track here.

The tool currently provides the ability to set "equals" criteria for tall type name. We know we need to add "contains" criteria as well.

Any comments on how you identify your life safety plan views? Do you use shared paramters, or something similar? I'm asking because we want to allow you to optionally specify some paramters which define life safety plan views so that multiple views can be dynamically updated when necessary.

We hope to get some of these improvements added soon and post a working version.

[dbaldacchino]

In terms of identifying the fire rating, some firms add an instance Fire Rating parameter to do that (or at least that's another way I can think of). This doesn't really work perfectly IMO because in most cases, the fire-rating has an impact on the make-up of the wall layers. For example a 1-hr rated steel stud partition with 3 5/8" metal studs is the same as a non-rated version (in terms of thickness). So the above approach would work and you'd avoid having to create duplicate wall type families. The same applies to a smoke partition, whose definition by code is that it has to be 1 hr rated but doors in such partition only need to be 20 minute rated.

Now, if you have a 2-hr partition, you cannot just take the same partition and make it 2 hours since you need 2 layers of gypsum board on each side, which makes the wall 1 1/4" more thick. This is where the instance parameter approach fails, so I think unique wall types is really the most plausible approach.

The biggest problem with life-safety or fire-safety plans is scale. Typical fire-taping methods, which consist of applying detail component families or using cut fill patterns in combination with filters, works great in views up to about 1/8" scale (1:100 metric). Any smaller, such as the very popular 1/16" for larger buildings (1:200 metric) starts failing. Why? Because most typical 1hr partitions become really thin and the pattern within the wall thickness loses its readability. Also there is typically not enough length to properly display the pattern in short segment. And then there are curved walls *shudder* :)

I like the NCS approach although we don't use it here (we try to stick to the UDS and obviously, some legacy graphical standards). I'll have a second look at it though because it seems quite clear as a convention.

As to your question regarding whether to place line-based family through the application, I think it would add a lot more flexibility but personally, I like the tag approach because it avoids having to build complex families, especially when it comes to curves. Did you see how s l o w it was to place those curved families?? It's just not the way to go IMO if there's a better way.

[BIM Branch]

I was actually searching for any info on trying to create custom corner mullions in Revit Arch 2012 and came across this thread and was reading this one. Intersestingly enough I have been working with a client on this same issue. Long story short the solution that we have come with is having a series of custom fill patterns (i.e. 1 hour stud, 2 hour stud, 1 hour CMU, 4 hour CMU, etc.).

We have then created a filter that is named the same as the rating mentioned above. The filter is associated to the wall category. Then a filter rule is applied to filter by: fire rating equal to the (rating description - i.e. 1 hour stud).

Next you go to Visibility Graphics override and add the Filter and change your wall cut pattern override to match the fill pattern that you want to use for your rating. Doing this allows you use the same wall type without having to create any additional walls. When you change the fire rating (i.e. nothing to 1 Hour Stud) then the fire rating fill pattern automatically applies.

When you get to smaller scale drawings you can apply a color to the Filter in the VG Override and it will flag your different rated walls.

This is the quick version of this solution, but it works on a 500,000 square foot building very well. I will be glad to go more indepth if you want to know about this solution more.

[dbaldacchino]

Dave, as stated in my post above, this method works for scales up to 1/8" but fails thereafter, especially for short wall segments. And it doesn't really work for curved walls. Of course where it fails is highly dependent on the length of the pattern repetition.

[jhendershot]

completely agree. i am digging the tag approach.

the curved detail component ratings are such a pain to use and actually get in the way as they have hidden lines you can select that point to the center of the arc which makes them very cumbersome and take way to long to place (there are 5 nested families in mine which could account for some of the time). our office has no choice but to use the line types like i stated before because of certain state agencies requirements so we are stuck with them until something easier/better comes along.

we have different wall types for each wall variation, not stud size however as those are subtypes, yes even if they are virtually identical, as it just makes it easier for the user knowing that if they pick the A1 or whatever they know the A wall type is always 1hr rated. this provides consistency across all our offices and makes it easier for our quality control people as well to view multiple projects with the same criteria.

i would love to get rid of the detail components all together and be able to embed into the wall. system families in general need to have more flexibility out of the box, but i digress.

j.

[BIM Branch]

Dave,

I just saw your post. I am going to try it in the morning at my office with curved walls with the way I have it setup. I understand what you are saying - I just have not encountered any issues with they way we have it setup.

[CADMama]

I am tired of fire tape patches frankly.

Embedded hatch patterns - not all the same width for the fire "tape" because they are based on the width of the material where the pattern is placed.

Detail lines - 1 -not a clean look with the rounded corners and therefore rejected by the upper level management 2 - plus it is double the work by having to do linework over the walls and align and lock - 3 view restrictions - have to be copied to every view you want it in

Rail - 1 - double the work by having to do rails over the walls and align and loc 2 - cannot be used in legends so double the work to recreate fill regions to represent the patterns so therefore there is not real connection to what the pattern represents

Tags - cannot show up in legends so double the work to recreate fill regions to represent the patterns so therefore there is not real connection to what the pattern represents

How is that for the devil's advocate? Did I miss any "workarounds" here?

Right now I am doing double duty to redraw the patterns that are represented by the Rail option so I can have a legend to use around the project.

[geistwolke]

This tool looks very promising. One thing we have an issue with on both detail components and patterns is that we have to show LSP fire tape at differing scales and neither adjust well based on view scale. Is that addressed with this tool? I really like how it can quickly be applied to a view. Patterns for us are automatic though which is nice.

I notice in several forums Formology is talking about really neat tools like this and graphic column schedules but I cannot find any information on them.

[bwesche895322]

Great thread and thanks for sharing your families! I find the lack of ability to do this disturbing as practically every project includes this process.

Anyway, the issues I've been having is printing. When you use families like these, and print with vector processing. It looses the opaque fill behind text. See picture.

Does anyone know a way around this other than adding masking region to the nested family?

86426

[Chuckyd67]

I don't know what you mean by "fire tape". Is it like "crime scene tape"?

I have developed a fire rated pattern for use in rated walls, which will be ON all the time, in all views. See the sample. The patterns are copied from patterns I made for ACA 2008. The benefit of using wall patterns is that the pattern does not obliterate wall openings. If this is desirable I can upload the *.pat files.

[CADMama]

So were there more than four workarounds discussed here?
It appears to be a personal preference as to what gets used. My boss has one preference and I have another.




He won!

[Wanderer]

So were there more than four workarounds discussed here?
It appears to be a personal preference as to what gets used. My boss has one preference and I have another.




He won!
;) Funny how that works, isn't it?

I haven't developed a preference yet myself... it would be nice if I didn't have to.

[CADMama]

Hurry up and develop one before your boss finds out you don't have one or that he/she has options.

[Wanderer]

Hurry up and develop one before your boss finds out you don't have one or that he/she has options.

No worries about that. My boss only cares about electrical.

[CADMama]

Does anyone know where it was I saw wall tags used for fire rating?