"standard" beam styles

[david_peterson]

I would love it, if Autodesk had a "standard" beam style for concrete, a "standard" beam style for steel and a "standard" beam style for wood. This way you can change the standard steel beam to display the way you would like them, and the same for the rest.
We don't show a concrete beam the same as a steel beam in plan. In fact I'd love a "standard" beam style for joists as well. It makes it difficult to pull in styles off the structural member catalog when you have to change the display set ups for every beam style you bring in. When I get my RAM ADT link, and Import my 8 story building model that contains 150 different beam sizes/styles, that'd be a lot less work if I didn't need to change all of their display configs.

[tatriest]

David,

I would like to see a joist style. As far as the display representations, could we set them in the template drawing:

--steel beam as single line.
--concrete beam as double line.
--wood beams as double lines.
--bar joists as single lines.

Then, when ADTlink pull the styles from the template, they will carry the Display Rep you desire. Does this sound possible.


Have done anything with beam tagging? I am going to mess around with that today.

I have been using RAM CADstudio since Sept 2004, but it is developed for vanilla ACAD more so than ADT. I know ADTlink can convert the OVERALL model to ADT entities, but why do the extra step when the Structural Department is already using ADT.

We need a product that can import into ADT, and has been developed with the beam tagging capabilities of CADstudio.

With CADstudio, the beam/joist labels are automatically displayed. The user has the flexibility of toggling camber, studs, and reactions. These labels are automatically aligned to the member.

As I type this, I am thinking that the ownership of the tagging should be on AMS. We know it can be done, so they need to program it into their ARX application.

[david_peterson]

the problem I see happening is this.

1.) ADT needs to work for all types of people and with out them creating the out of the box style's (generic) to differentiate between a "standard" concrete beam or "standard" steel beam. Right now I don't think this is true, you only have one option of "standard" for a beam.
2.) When ADT link looks sends the model information it needs to start with a "standard" beam style and then add the "profile shape" of said beam size.

So.....

If you were to set up ADT templates with your own styles that would separate concrete from steel from wood from joists, ADT link would need to be re-written to look for those styles before looking for the "shape profile"

If that makes sense.

[tatriest]

That makes sense.

Were you able to get dynamic Beam Tags to work?

[david_peterson]

I haven't gotting the 'out o the box" one to work.

I'm a little behind in this department. We don't have either ram Cad Studio or ADT link.
All I know about them is what the software rep told me.

With reguards to tags, I think if you can set up the property definetion set, and Ram knows where to put the information, you should be able to import a model and have all the beams display with tags that have the size, number of shear studs, camber and elevation.

It's a big assumption, and I know the first person to tackle it is going to sell it.

I just wish Autodesk would jump at the opertunity to make us structural types happy for once