Covered Deck Question

[tc3dcad60731]

Hi everyone!

I have a client that has requested a two-tiered deck in the corner of their house and coming out from the frog. The lower deck they would like covered with exposed beam arbour like you see in the deck books. They have seen the garage and decks modeled and when they decided to cover the deck they wanted to know if they could see the cover modeled. I did not tell them yes, only that I would see what I could.

I have modeled the columns and have them placed. But the cross beams are really frustrating. IS this even possible to achieve?????

Thanks in advance!

Thomas

[BWG]

You will probably save yourself some time by just drawing extruded beams for this, copy/array as needed.

[eldad]

You can do the beams very quick using the "beam system" under your structural tab, make sure you have loaded the profile you need. very simple.

HTH

[kpaxton]

Absolutely! Thanks for the tip Eldad. I haven't tried that system, but it will be worth looking into.

I do a slightly different approach. If I'm building a trellis system, and that sounds like what I hear you describing (assuming no real roof), I will make it a Generic In-Place Family. You could do it as a stand-alone family and import it, but if it's not going to be moving, etc. I'll do it in-place.



The first thing I do is make some reference planes for where my main support beams are going to go, and for one of the cross joists (sides).
Name these planes (under their properties)- this will allow you to use it as a drawing plane.
Make some temp views, sections, etc., or go to views that will be perpendicular so you can draw your profiles.
Make your Generic In-Place Family .
Create an extrusion that represent your support beams - select the named reference plane as your starting point. Draw your profile. Close the extrusion drawing.
While still in the family, create another extrusion, but choose the other named plane to do the cross-joists.
While still in the family, but out of the extrusion, Array this joist to the 2nd position to get your 16" o.c. spacing (or whatever you want). Adjust as required.
Make sure to assign Sub-Categories to these extrusions so that you can control the material selections later.
Finish the Family.
Hope this helps. Again, many ways of doing the same thing. This would also apply to a Generic, stand-alone family (probably with nested families), but you'd need to set up some parameters, etc. to help control the spacing and other things.

-Kyle

[tc3dcad60731]

My first reaction was to create a simple beam system and all showed up real well in plan view. Went to 3d view and it only showed up as a black line in the center of each beam. This is not what they want to see or I wanted to see for that matter.

I will try the Generic In-Place Family suggestion and see what I get from that. Thank you for ya'lls assistance.

kpaxton: would this also work for creating lattice screens under the deck between the support posts????

Thomas

[kpaxton]

thomas,

Yes you could, but one has to be careful with creating "overhead". Being that isn't as 'important' as modelling the trellis, I usually prefer to create something with a good model pattern for the lattice work in elevations and then use a good map for renderings.

-Kyle

[Max Lloyd]

lattice is easy. Again just model it it using extrusions etc (although it can be done as a transparent mesh material for rendering purposes.

I have attached an example of how i would do it, although the example I have attached is actually in a site based family, I would do it an an in-place family. Its quick and easy to do.

Max.

[Rhythmick]

A curtain system would be another option, with empty panels and beams for mullions.

EDIT: I played with this a bit and am having trouble with vertical end cuts on the mullions. I created the mass with vert. ends using a triangular void and solid but the mullions do not follow. I created an in place void to cut the mullions but it does not recognize the mullions. Am I missing something or is this a limitation?

[rod.74246]

No that is a limitation.

There is an issue with void cuts and extrusions of any type in some families. However I have only ever had the problem with parametric arrays. The void won't pick up and cut any mullions or extrusions that were not cut in the original family. Hence if you stretch your array and new extrusions are created the void won;t recognise them. Also if you shrink the width and extrusions are deleted so the void now cuts extrusions it previously didn;t it also won't recognise them.

I haven't tried this with a curtian wall system however but am guessing that it would probably work the same.

[ejburrell67787]

My first reaction was to create a simple beam system and all showed up real well in plan view. Went to 3d view and it only showed up as a black line in the center of each beam. This is not what they want to see or I wanted to see for that matter.
Hi Thomas - this is a function of the View Properties / Detail Level - if it is set to course then structure shows up as a line diagram, if you set it to medium or fine then the beams show fully.

Cheers, Elrond

[tc3dcad60731]

Woohoo! That worked great! Thanks Elrond.


Max, your trellis fence is great!