Life Safety Plan Line Patterns

[ChappyEight]

I was curious as to whether or not anyone has, or can tell me how to create, line patterns such as triangles, circles, and rectangles.

I am defining smoke partitions, fire walls, etc. and my company would typically use these types of line patterns to create their life safety plans.

Any suggestions/advice?

Thanks.

[twiceroadsfool]

Consider using Filters and different dashed line styles and line weightsm, and altering the office standard. Its not IDEAL in its solution, but its basically no time added, since the Filter, the Fire Rating parameter, and different line weights/patterns are already included.

You can use a Line Based Generic Model, or a Line Based Detail Component to make triangles and other cute shapes, but then you also have to manually retrace all the walls, and manually coordinate the items.

There are some other solutions here if you search... Nested sweeps, material cut patterns, etc.

The filter is still my favorite, though for those who are biased towards old hat drawing traditions, its a completely unacceptable solution...

[ghale]

Since it may be easier for the time being to use a traditional standard than to change company standards, here is a line based family for 1,2,3, 4 hr rated walls, and Smoke Barriers. I do recommend relooking at conventions to automate the process as Aaron suggested, although I haven't been able to accomplish this to anybody's liking myself. You can modify as necessary for triangles or whatever other symbols you use.

[twiceroadsfool]

its not gorgeous triangles, by any stretch of the imagination. But heres how i present my case to Upper management:

1. Filters: Require no time investment, beyond setting up the view in the template, and setting up a view template for additional views. (One time investment, in the template, plus showing the office how it works).

2. Between the different Line Types and weights, PLUS the wall tags delineating the fire rated wall types (and the legend on the sheet), weve NEVER encountered an issue with misinterpretation in the field or in code reviewers hands.

3. It doesnt require us to manually check the walls and the additional linework/family work/detail work/fire ticker tape parade or whatever, EVERY time on EVERY project.

I think it works wonderfully well, andis fully intelligent....... As long as you dont mind it looking different than the "norm"...

[WillE1984]

I agree with TwiceRoads... filters are a much better way to handle fire rated walls. They have a few drawbacks... but overall it will save a lot of time and help prevent mistakes.

[ghale]

As a much broader subject goes, I agree with greater automation and changing of old conventions to achieve efficiciency and accuracy. My solution is a temporary fix for some project managers and architects who don't find it so easy to let go, no matter what the efficiency losses. That isn't true for all PM's and PA's, even within my own firm. I know that most of you run into the same issues and at times need to make compromises. This is just one example of many.

[jcoe]

Here is one I have developed. however, recently it prints as though it is wire frame even though it views properly on the screen.

Any thoughts

[ghale]

Jason,
I just took a quick look at your smoke barrier line and don't see anything wrong with it. It views and prints OK. I'm guessing its a local problem such as a Revit or printer configuration.

[DaveP]

We're still sticking with our old-fashioned "draw over the top" symbols. I love the idea of automatically generating Code plans, but here's a few of the problems we have with using a filter:

Our Code Plans are usually done at 1/16", so it gets hard to distinguish between Line Styles
Some walls have multiple Ratings (Fire vs Smoke vs Occupancy Separation)
Walls may be too short walls to display the dash (think Column cladding)
Just because a wall's Construction ALLOWS a Fire Rating doesn't mean the rating is significant to the Code Official.All that said, we are developing a filter that will - as a coordination check only - show us both the walls and our "Fire Tapes" in colors so we can visually see which Tapes are on top of which walls.

[Calvn_Swing]

I'll third Aaron's method. It is exactly what we use most of the time. We have run into a problem with a few municipalities that DEMAND a certain convention on code plans. However, it is much much easier. It would be even easier if you could submit color plans to code officials... We have views set up for modelers that show fire rated walls in Red, Acoustic walls in Blue, etc... Shades of red and line weight denote rating. It is all very intuitive!

[rebeccamcwilliams]

I am having what appears to be a program error. The wall hatches rotating to "align with wall" which is how I set them up to behave in the filter dialog and it works great in the first floor plan.

I created a view template to bring my filters over to the second floor plan, and they work, but they do not align with the walls when the walls turn! This is bad behavior and there is no other difference between the plans.

Solutions?

[William Troeak]

I think it works wonderfully well, andis fully intelligent....... As long as you dont mind it looking different than the "norm"...

I like the automation of it but I also run into the fact that alot of the PMs I deal with grew up on the drafting table....

Do you by chance know if the National CAD/BIM standard will address this issue as it relates to Revit?

[twiceroadsfool]

I highly doubt it. National Standards are slow to be reactive.

Weve ALL run in to PM's and old-had-traditionistas who wont let go, and so i just do this: I draw it there way on a markerboard, and then i draw it my way right next to it... And i ask them how much theyre willing to pay for their way. Literally.

Dont get me wrong, there is a LOT of talk on Revit forums about the lost *art* of producing documents, and im all for a beautiful set of documents... But guess what: Its not my end deliverable, a BUILDING is. If i can convey the same information AUTOMATICALLY (Less up front investment of time and money), and convey the information easier and with a higher chance of perfect coordination, i have trouble getting on board with extra time and money WASTED on drawing convention.

AND... Depending on the genre or architecture you work in, the old hat drafting method could really bite you downstream. ANYONE doing Lease Outs, out parcels, or Large scale multi tenant retail facilities, knows that those smoke/fire barrier walls are CONSTANTLY moving, and that NOTHING is in place until its BUILT. One thing i get tired of, is REworking that code sheet / fire barrier identification sheet, EVERY time i need to reissue a plan.

Ask your PM's if theyre okay with a few hours on the back end for EVERY drawing resubmission... Im betting they wont mind my ugly Filtered solutions. ;)

[William Troeak]

Yes I agree with you 100%, once the building is built and at the budget with no major problems who cares what the drawings look like!

I think this will all wash out once more firms are on board. The firm I am at is still in the infancy of Revit (I have been here for 3 months, have things ready to go but no projects).

Hopefuly in a few years we can look at this post and this topic and laugh at how follish it was to waste our time on it.

When we start a project I intend to use the filters in a manner similar to what you have done. I will post my results.

Thanks for the reply!