Paneled Railings

[robert.manna]

Looking for some help on this... I hate the railing tool.... I can't get the panels to panel equally going up the stair. I read on another a post a suggustion that you split the sketch line for each panel you want. I tried that on the lower run, and I can get the first two panels to show up, but I can't the third. I'm assuming it has something to do with how the corner is interperted, but I just don't understand how Revit is doing the math etc to figure out the spacing. It doesn't help either that to change the panel length, I actually have to edit the family itself and create a new type with the desired default length. Any help or suggustions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
-Robert

[greg.mcdowell]

Haven't looked at your file but from what you wrote I can tell you that you're on the right track... you will need to create custom families for the end of the runs (unless you've thought far enough ahead to have it space out correctly).

I personally don't like how Revit does this though I think I might understand the rational.

[robert.manna]

I'm willing to compromise on the spacing, and I thought I had divided it equally per the required length, but it doesn't seem to work correclty. In this case I don't have a set spacing in mind, the panels are custom fab (and simple) so it isn't a big deal to have them at any size, I just want them to all be the same size...

-R

[dhurtubise]

What size do you want the panel to be ?

[robert.manna]

I don't know yet. Something in the 3'-4' range is all I care about. My biggest issue at the moment, based on the sample file I uploaded, is I don't understand why I can't get the third panel from the bottom to fill in... The first run is sub-divided evenly, so it shuld fill in, based on the fact that I can get the first two to fill in.

-R

[Andre Baros]

This has been my biggest issue to date... the only thing since I learned Revit which drove me crazy. For the last one I did, I ended up drawing a whole seperate railing for each segment, using custom balusters which included panels for the odd ends and another complete railing which was simply the handrail and guardrail to tie everything together. I never got every segment to divide up correctly in the situation your showing.

[robert.manna]

Thanks Andre,

I don't mind seperate objects for the hand & guardrail, I end up doing that all the time anyway. Its just annoying that I can't seem to get the panels to work even when I seem to be following the rules.

You gonna be at AU this year?

[dbaldacchino]

Rob, try this...

Edit the railing and edit the baluster placement; Select "Never" for "Break Pattern at:" and set center justification.

[robert.manna]

Well... that is closer, but still not right... I'm not even looking for exact here, the details cover that and they've already been drawn. I just need something approximate that will be 90% or so.... I knew from expereince that monolithic rails don't work well, but I thought that I would be able to do this type of rail system without so many issues.

-R

[WT-09]

I played with your railing a bit. This is what I got. See if it will work for you.

[robert.manna]

I played with your railing a bit. This is what I got. See if it will work for you.

Yes that looks much better... What did you do? I swear I'm just misunderstanding something, or missing something. Did you just calculatate out the required lenghts? Did you adjust the sketch path at all?

Thanks,
-Robert

[Andre Baros]

Skipping AU this year. It's been a crazy year and I can't spare the time.

[wearethestones]

So I'm having a similar problem with railings on my stairs. I have created a Baluster panel & Baluster Post family from the standard Revit templetes. I have inserted them into the railing profiles in my project I created, but the spacing between the post and panel are off by a few feet.(see attached JPG - 1) The posts seem to be in the middle of the pnels when they should fall into the gaps in between the panels. In the "Edit Baluster Placement" dialog box there is no way to control the distance between the panels and posts.(see attached JPG - 2) Also another problem has been the height of the bottom side of the panel...Each panel doesnt seem to line up to each other...with no rhyme or reason. Why is it like this? (see JPG-1) Also attached is a portion of the project stairs I have been working on.

[robert.manna]

Distance from previous is measured to the centerline of the panel family. So you have to account for half the distance of the panel, when setting the property to seperate the panel from the post, then again, for the final seperation.

-R

[wearethestones]

agh! - that worked - thanks much - but I still have the problem of the bottoms not lining up...Whats the deal? Ive had this problem before with my flat railings and the solution was to change the base in the "edit baluster placement" from host to baseplate...but I get an error this time(see JPG-3) WTF? Thanks much!

[robert.manna]

With panels you may need to specify a rail... not the host... it may get confused when interperting the host as the the base of a panel.... It might be trying to take them to the top of riser... not the angle defined by the nosing of the riser(s)

Or its something how your panel family is built.

-R

[wearethestones]

Well thanks...but I'm not sure I understand what you mean!

[wearethestones]

Geez - It seems like every time I ask a question to either Ideate or AUGI, I figure the answer out on my own...about 20mins after I ask the question....now I think I will ask the question as soon as I have a problem, instead of battling for a few hours or so, then asking.

Basically the problem was exactly what I thought it was when I originally posted the question. In the "edit baluster placement" dialog box in the main pattern catagory there is a base column and a base offset column. For the panel the Base was set to "host"...I set it to "Handrail" - in the Base Offset column I set the offset to -2'-10" and I have my clean, straight panel base!!! - So what that means is that the "base" of the "panel" is at the "handrail" which is 2'-10" above the host(wherever that is???..the stair I guess) so set it to (-2'10") and presto...clean stair railing!!!

now I'm working on figuring out how to break up the railing so that I can insert "end" and "start" panels