Structural Framing (other) - can you change (other) to some other Category?

[troypiggo]

Hi there. First post, so please be gentle on me. :)

I've drawn some bearers for a timber framed floor. I have added a subcategory in the Object Styles under Structural Framing for "bearers". However, this does not appear as an option when drawing the beams (nor does many of the other options in the Model Categories).

The only options available under "Structural Usage" are girder, horizontal bracing, joist, other, and purlin.

Can somebody please explain how to implement the other categories? Is it possible? Do I just have to use "girder" as a kludge?

[Craig_L]

Ok the problem is these are essentially 2 different "functions".
The first you mentioned, object styles, is graphical "on screen" representation, where-as the structural usage, which you can set in the properties box of the object after placing it or before, are for the analysis package in revit. Also, you can use these usages in your schedules/lists, and filters.
If you want to be able to set your beam as a "bearer" to schedule, then you need to edit the family, go to the "family types" properties box under "create" menu and "add" a new paramater.
My version is in french, but all the buttons are in the same place if you follow the image attached.
Personally, I would add this as a "graphics" option (down the bottom of the paramater you are adding) but you have many choices here, perhaps try a few out, just remember NOT to save over your original family, always "save as" with modified families.
Putting this under graphics allows me to put the "yes/no" option, which is essentially a toggle switch on/off to say it is or it isnt a bearer. This means, if you havent ticked that box, and you add this "bearer" to schedule it will only show on beams where you ticked yes, for example...
This will then appear under the subcategory of the paramaters dialogue box and can be modified at will. You then need to load this family into the project and test it out, and test out scheduling it too to see if it gives the result you want.

Edit: I should mention also you have the option of "type" or "instance" on the right hand side there of the new property creation.
This means that it either applies that property to all of those of the same family in the project, or just one item at a time as you click bearer on/off. I would suggest you want this to be an instance property, as you may not want every framing element you place of the same size to be a bearer. Making it a type property essentially defeats the purpose of giving it a toggle switch on/off "bearer" because it will apply the on or off to every single element of the same family type. Useful in some cases, not this one.

Hope this helps.

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[troypiggo]

Thanks for the detailed post. Really appreciate it.

Must admit, still learning about the scheduling. If I understand correctly, you're approaching this from the opposite direction that I was anticipating. I'll do some testing.

Still have the question, how does one assign the other structural framing subcategories?:
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[Craig_L]

Simply select your element once it has been placed (or access the properties before placing it)
Scroll down the properties dialogue box to "structural usage" and click open the drop down menu, select, and Bob is your fathers' brother.
In addition to this, You can create a schedule (its under the "view" tab), and add "usage" to your list of scheduled things, then you should see any existing framing families that have it set as "other" and actually change it in the schedule. If not, you can at least select that particular element from your schedule and then change it's properties there - this just makes it easy to find elements that haven't had their usages set properly.

To create the schedule it requires a bit of understanding exactly how the element is named, etc.
I followed this proceedure, but "steelwork size" and "steelwork mark" is a customised paramaters that shows how I want it to for the company, for our fabricators.
go to view tab > click schedule > schedule/quantities
filter - structural > framing > phase - new construction
add - beam mark, steelwork mark, steelwork size, structural usage
move each category up or down so that it shows in the order you prefer, this only affects the order that it shows in the table produced at the end and can be changed later anyhow.
Then under "grouping" tab at the top I select to filter by "beam mark" and "ascending" and also I want to see each instance, so down the bottom I leave "show every occurance" because if I have two B2's well...thats not supposed to happen so its a way of eliminating double up beam marks. Then hit "ok" and it spits out the table seen below.
I can then choose to alter the usage in this table, which can be very handy in a large project with 1000+ sticks of steel as a quick check to make sure all my usages are set properly without missing any.
Also you can hand that list to the engineer for verification, and alterations are made easy.

Cheers

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[Steve_Stafford]

Just to offer a little background on the Structural Usage parameter. When Structural Usage is set to Automatic a...

Girder - is defined by a beam that spans from column to column
Joist - is defined by a beam spanning from a girder to another girder
Purlin - is defined by a beam spanning from a Joist to another Joist or Purlin to Purlin
Other - is defined by a beam spanning nothing or some other combination of connections

Revit is setup to allow different lineweights to be applied to each kind of structural usage so each can appear a bit differently, more obvious which is which (primarily used in framing plans). Settings are Globally managed with Object Styles and Locally overridden with Visibility/Graphics.

[troypiggo]

Thanks guys.