LIGHT GAGE METAL TRUSSES ON COMPLEX ROOF

[dbumgarner]

I am looking for opinions on the best way to model roof trusses. I have experience, but looking for new ways. I have light gage metal roof trusses on a pretty complex roof. It is a very large building, going to have 200+ trusses @48" oc. The last project we modeled the trusses as sweeps and grouped similar trusses. This was pretty time comsuming, but about the same as modeling each as "true" trusses. I have attached two images. The first is a 3-d version the the roof. I circled one truss that I added, but as you can see, each truss is going to be different depending on its location and the hips and valleys of the roof. The next image is an elevation of that one truss. Is there any way to add reference plans on each side of the ridge, valleys, and hips and connect the truss? Thanks. 8715187152

[david_peterson]

I thought someone created an add-on for this, but maybe not. I know visionrez had one for ACA that did a decent job.
There is the "Truss Creator" tool in RS that was an add-on, but I was never very impress with it.
You could contact your supplier and ask for a model that they might be able to provide in some type of 3d format that you may be able to convert via Navisworks or something.
Just a thought, but you're correct, what you're doing is a very painful process, but if you're going to design them yourself, you'll need each drawing for each individual truss anyway. When I used to play with wood trusses they always gave us the option to use a hip and valley set or to allow the contractor to stick build it on site which usually saved them money.

[dbumgarner]

I will look for an add-on. We do not design the trusses, but usually the supplier doesn't design them until after the fact. It's looking like I might be doing it the old way.

On another side note to the building I'm doing is that there is no good way to indicate bearing walls. The architect owns the walls so I am limited. I can tell him to indicate them as bearing and create a filter so the wall is "hatched", but I only need the acturl steel stud hatched, not the entire structure (stud, sheathing, air space, veneer). This leaves me asking the architect to create two seperate walls, that will never happen. I created a detail component where I can draw one line and it creates a "hatch" inside the studs. My workaround. Any ideas?

[david_peterson]

I make my archies split walls apart all the time. It's the only way to do it. The alternative might be to try to show their bearing walls as course, but I believe you'll end up with the outside face of the true bearing surface in the wrong location. The only other option would be to use the copy monitor tool, but that kinda sucks too. This is one of the problems with the problem IMHO. In reality, Structural should own the bearing walls, and the archies should be able to adjust openings and door locations within them. Just my 2 cents.

[kmarsh]

Have you tried modeling the trusses in plan, in the configuration you like, and then attaching them to the roof so that the top chord conforms to the roof shape, however complex it is?