How do you model a sloping & curved beam?

[cadkiller]

Group;

I'm having trouble figuring out how to make this member. I want to be able to sweep a beam profile along a sloping curve and maintain a vertical web throughout. Is this possible? Any help would be appreciated.

[Mr Spot]

You would need to do using a ramp and a railing. Make the ramp width/thickness the same as the top flange thickness so it will get lost in the railing profile. Then apply a railing utilising the appropriate profile.

HTH.

[knurrebusk]

Try to make this beam cut another object?
Then control the start/end conditions, and cut/fill.

All this is possible in the Revit core, why am I the only lunatic on this forum.

[knurrebusk]

I´ll relax myself and watch the big blue, great movie.
Still why so little support for my thoughts, all these great minds.

What a waste.

[ejburrell67787]

You would need to do using a ramp and a railing. Make the ramp width/thickness the same as the top flange thickness so it will get lost in the railing profile. Then apply a railing utilising the appropriate profile.

HTH.Very clever lateral thinking Mr Spot!

[knurrebusk]

This is all workaround.
If not I´m interested in the sollution that I can not present.

[cadkiller]

Mr. Spot;

Thanks for the reply.

The thing is I'm trying to do this in the family editor and the ramp nor the railing feature is available. Do I have to create them first and then nest them into the circular stair family I'm creating?

[archjake]

Mr. Spot;

Thanks for the reply.

The thing is I'm trying to do this in the family editor and the ramp nor the railing feature is available. Do I have to create them first and then nest them into the circular stair family I'm creating?
If this is going to be a family, have you tried using separate solids and voids? Take a vertical cylinder like shape and cut a top and bottom off and you'll have a vertical web. Flanges may be a bit more difficult.

[Mr Spot]

So your creating a stair as a family as opposed to using the stair tool... May i ask why? Almost all stairs are possible in revit (i can think of one that i needed to resort to modelling a family for - it was a complex spiral stair where the treads overlapped each other at varying amounts).

But unless you have this kind of situation you would be better off using the stair tool as you could host a railing to achieve the curved beam your after. If its for ease of repetitive use - may i suggest create a template file of stairs and railings presetup that you can simply copy into each project you require them in.

HTH.

[cadkiller]

Archjake;

I have thought about making the member out of solids and voids; but the profile shape wouldn't be exact as it would have sharp corners. It also would take some work to get it exactly the way I want it. If the stringers were made out of plate material and had a sawtooth profile, that would be the way to go.

Mr. Spot;

I've tried to model custom circular stairs with the stair and railing tool with little success. I keep getting error messages and I can't control the miters and ends of the stringers and rails as I would like to have them. Also some members have mentioned that they would use the family editor to create such custom stair work; so I wanted to give it a try.

PS: ADT has a similar workaround for using profile shapes in the railing as stringers. I was hoping it would be easier to do in Revit.

[Mr Spot]

Okay. Well if it were me and i couldn't achieve what i was after in the stair tool. I'd model the stair externally, then load in use the stair tool over the top of this stair (setting the treads to minimum thickness with no risers so it gets lost in the external family stair), this will enable you to get appropriate cuts and arrows.

Then host a railing to achieve the curved beam/railings. This is the method i've previously used.

[cadkiller]

It would be great if I could lock two points of a profile used in a sweep. That way I can control the rotation of the sweep and keep the member plumb.

[SkiSouth]

Edward, I'm lost as I really don't understand what you're trying to achieve. Obviously, you have set a profile (such as a wf section) as the rail on the stair and It is not what you want, although that is what I am reading in my unclear state. Can you elaborate with a sketch?

[Andre Baros]

This may not help directly, but for a complex stair we had in our office, someone used the stair tool to create the "skeleton" of the stair, then created a custom stair family with the tread and structure nested in it. We locked the custom stair to the Revit stair (one tread at a time) and then the whole thing flexed normally. As an added bonus, we embeded all the details in the custom stair tread assembly so that once it was all in detailing only involved notes and dimensions.

(Sorry, on a mac, AUGI spell check crashes)

[cadkiller]

Skisouth;

Yes the profile used in a railing that is attached to a simple circular stair works great; but once you start adding multiple curves to the run, changing the angle of the risers (which changes the tread length) or creating an elliptical shaped stair it doesn't. I can't control the location of the miters nor can I control the elevation of the stringers as needed.

I can model these stringer members with other programs like Rhino that has the two point locking ability when using a sweep that follows a path. Also a friend of mine uses SDS2 and he has a spiral offset tool that you set the elevation of the spiral and it sweeps the member while keeping it plumb.

We should have one of these tool features along with the ability to extend or trim the ends of the members with reference planes.

[cadkiller]

This may not help directly, but for a complex stair we had in our office, someone used the stair tool to create the "skeleton" of the stair, then created a custom stair family with the tread and structure nested in it. We locked the custom stair to the Revit stair (one tread at a time) and then the whole thing flexed normally. As an added bonus, we embeded all the details in the custom stair tread assembly so that once it was all in detailing only involved notes and dimensions.

(Sorry, on a mac, AUGI spell check crashes)
Andrebaros;

That method sounds very interesting. Can and would you be willing to share more information about this?

[Andre Baros]

I'm about to take a vacation for the holidays. I'll dig it up and post it next year.

[cadkiller]

Thanks I really appreciate it.

Have a good vacation &
Happy Holidays!

[Andre Baros]

I havn't forgotten, as a matter of fact, I have Outlook set to remind me every morning. I'm just in a stretch of 12-16 hr days... I have not forgotten and actually need to make changes to that stair in the next couple weeks so I was goint to send it along when I got around to working on it.