View Range Cut Plane for Structural Elements

[mayuhara]

Does anyone know how to show the cut plane at 4'-0" above a level for a diagonal W shape in plan view? Right now, no matter what I do, the entire structural member shows up in plan with no indication of a cut at the cut plane. Does this have anything to do with detail level?
I have attached a jpeg of this issue.

[dbaldacchino]

You're out of luck. Braces don't cut and show the full length of the member. This is by design. If you want to show the brace as cut, you'll have to create a cuttable family, such as a Generic Model family, but beware of the consequences if the structural engineer needs to send the information from the model to analysis and design software.

[marcoavallone]

I’ve got to tell you I’m not to flippin thrilled about this. I’m not making a special family for braced frames not to show up in plans. There has to be better way.

[Mr Spot]

If you don't want the braces to display at all you can just turn them off in the view... But if you want to display it cut then you'll need to use a different family category.

I'm not sure if Revit Structural is any different for this?

[marcoavallone]

I've been messing with changing the family types. Thats a good idea, maybe I'll see if I can change the category of the structure to something else.

On another note, could you enlighten me as to how to make an animated avatar. Can I do it in photo shop? No big deal if you don't want to...but I'm really looking forward to doing something better than the one I have....

Thanks...

[tomnewsom]

I really, really, really HATE this behaviour. We're working on a building with a 2 storey attic roof, and the engineer's sloping structure shows up blotting out my plans. I want to see this structure in plan, because I have to place windows etc. so they don't interfere with structure - and for that fact to be visible to anyone who reads the drawing. But I can't. I've ended up creating a detail object that looks likea a cut beam and locking it to the beam position. This is far from ideal, as I have to turn the beams on and off to make sure everything's in the right place, plus it's just Not Revit. Control over cut-by-cut-plane-ability in visibility options would be nice.

[marcoavallone]

I hear ya. I have at least 24 4 story brace frames, Chevron & Xs that are not showing up like a normal Architectural Drawing in any plan. I am thoroughly ticked off. It really chaps my a-- I’ll tell ya… The structure families are nice but AUTODESK needs to start paying more attention to detail. Well until I become a software developer I guess I to am at the whims of the Giant…

[s.ault]

this thread was in 2007, i'm just wondering if there is any change since the new releases of revit? cause i'm still having this problem.

[Alfredo Medina]

See illustration. Figure 1 shows some beams and bracing structural elements. Figure 2 shows the correspondent floor plan. Regardless of the elevation of the cutting plane of this floor plan, it won't have any effect on the bracing elements. Now switch to a 3D view, type Shift+W to activate the wheel, go to the wheel's menu and select Orient to view > Floor plan > Level 2 (in this case), then do Orbit > select the top shape handle to pull down the top face until the bracing is cut, as shown in Figure 3. Then, from the cube, switch to the top view. From the cube or wheel's menu, save this view, so that you can refer to it later from the project browser. Notice in Figure 4 how the floor plan shows the bracing elements cut as expected.

[s.ault]

Thanks for the help Alfredo. However, I think my problem was a tad simipler. After trying for hours, I did finally figure it out. My structural engineers were using HSS members for their diagonal bracing. After trying everything, I went into the family and went the family parameters and unchecked the box labeled "show family pre-cut in plan views". Such a simple fix to my problem. Wish it hadn't taken me hours to figure it out but it was a stroke of confidence to say the least. I've never been so excited!

Thanks again!

[dbaldacchino]

That's exactly right. You don't need to switch to a generic model family like I hinted back in my 2007 post :D Back then I didn't know that you can have framing families show pre-cut (default) or have them respect the cut plane by unchecking that option. FYI, this setting was put in there to improve performance by not having to calculate the cut representation for each member. If you search on these forums, you'll find an explanation by David Conant, Factory Worker Extraordinaire. I'm not sure how much impact this has nowadays given the latest hardware.