Get your Long Side/Leg Horizontal!

Angles and HSS Tubes are modeled with the Long Leg/Side Vertical by default in Revit if the sides are not equal lengths… So here is my favorite way to quickly model LSH (Long Side Horizontal) Tubes, and LLH (Long Leg Horizontal) angles. This method is simply creating a new type for LSH and LLH instead of messing with the cross-sectional rotation parameter and/or making a new family entirely (Flipping all those numbers in the type catalog makes me eyesss hurt).. and sooo.. Here it goes!

• Load the size of angle or hss that is the same as if your element was LSV or LLV
• .. and when you model it you see your legs/sides are vertical.. 

So you think you can get away with changing the cross section rotation to 90° to get your long leg/side horizontal.. but.. as you can see below the grid line (where you drew the member) is no longer centered in case of the hss and is no longer at the strong axis on the angle … ewwww.. and now it's offset from the level those amounts… double ewwww … then you would have to try to get the lateral justification plus the stick symbol plus this that and another thing to make your element go back to the correct; location, representation on plan, and offset from the level and that’s just horrible!  

All you have to do is make a new type and flip your numbers around. It’s Very IMPORTANT to start with the same size as LLV/LSV so that way the other parameters such as the weight are still correct!

•  I select my member, do edit type, DUPLICATE – I rename it with LSH or LLH in the name because my firm shows that in the tag anyway and then just switch these two numbers around.

 

And Voila! They are still centered about the grid, and the offset from the level makes sense!

To get your legs of your angles pointed UP (use the correct type you have already made) having the cross section rotation set to 180° instead of 90° seems to be a lot less annoying so that’s the method I would still recommended on that. It only seems to get a bit wonky when you use offsets and use the cross section rotation at 180°, cuz the Top is the bottom and the bottom is the top for the z-direction justification..

Autodesk University 2011 Here we come!

You may be wondering “Where is the Scottish part of this Revit Alliance?”, “Where are the post that say Colour instead of Color and Primary instead of Girder?” Well, Allan is preparing his AU Class material of course! So if you are going to be attending AU this year be sure to sign up for Allan’s class! You Want Design? Structural Engineers Can Do Functional Graphics in Autodesk® Revit® Structure Too! It’s bound to be awesome! AND he has a funny accent!  Even if you aren't a structural junkie like us, I’m sure you will get some great tips and tricks! 

Oh yeah, and I’ll be there running his powerpoint! Haha! Just kidding, but I will be there heckling him at least! 

I know the Revit Structure class selection is out of this world awesome looking and I personally am really looking forward to all of the classes on the analytical model! Most of the time slots I had 2 to 4 options to choose from, and I really wanted to see them all! Hoofta! 

And remember all of the previous classes are available for viewing under AU Achieves on http://au.autodesk.com/ after you create a free login! So if you aren’t able to make it to AU this year,  just cannot wait for November 29^th, or just need some quick learnin’ be sure check out all the old classes. I especially recommend this one on fool proof ways to slope framing ;) 

See you in Vegas!

Revision Trickery

As I was blog-stalking today, I saw Steve Stafford over at Revit OpEd posted about the revisions on sheet dialog that is somewhat hidden in the sheet properties but helps with revisions schedules so much! It got me thinking I should post about some other little revision tricks that I think are hidden or people just don’t think about.  

In the revision dialog you have the option for your "numbering" sequence to be by number, alphabetic, or None. None is the secret hidden power here!  If you want to add your initial packages such as DD and CD to your revision schedule, but don’t want to show a number because you will not be tagging anything, you can do this by adding these items to the revisions dialog and changing the sequence to none. You’d then need to go to each sheet's properties and in the revisions on sheet dialog check on those initial packages as they apply. Sadly, there is no way to check these on and off quickly from the drawing list.

I’ve also had it where we start clouding and tagging, but then for one issue we only want clouds and no tags, and end up going back to clouding and tagging needing to keep the tags in sequence. I just set the revision that didn't need the tags to None, and the other tags number as they should.

 

The next thing is that the revision tag does not have to read the revision number!  Common examples would be including the ADD, RFI, or ITC indicator in the tag. Or showing the date the revision was made.. etc etc. So, Go on and Edit those Revision Tags! Make new families, new types, whatever works! Look at all your options! And remember just because AutoDesk named a parameter one way does not mean you cannot use it to indicate something else (as long as everyone on the project is aware of it).

Personally when I know the project is going to be heavy on tags like ADD 001 skipping to RFI 023 to RFI 037 I like to use the Issued To or Issued By fields in the revision dialog since I typically never use those for anything else. It keeps all the tags the same for that revision just as quickly as using the revision number and lets you shorten the name from what is shown in the revision schedule. Or just set your schedule up to read any of the other parameters available.

 

If you wanna get crazy, try adding the Mark or Comments parameters to the revision tag label. Then you can basically add whatever you want to that single revision tag.  Not sure why you'd do that for a single tag and not the others but hey! Ya never know!

 And lastly, something I just learned a few days ago... Use split when drawing the revision clouds! Hello! I don’t know why I haven’t tried this; It’s these simple things that really make me go Oh Duh!

So you’re clicking a bazillion times to draw your revision cloud when you fall asleep and get a giant double arch. Instead of deleting and redrawing, just split that bugger!

Until next time good buddies!

Some Little Tips about Foundations

So, sometimes your wall foundations will extend past the edge of the wall foundation its joining into. This typically happens when dealing with wall foundations where the eccentricity is set to something other than zero, but I've also seen it at walls where a curve is made up of a bunch of straight segments.

In the example below you can see that the foundations on the left have their eccentricity set for an offset. This works rather well when you do not want to use a retaining foundation when dealing with the same footing width regardless of wall thickness. On the right is the example of the curve made up of straight portions of walls. And we can see the wall foundations have gone CUH-RAAZZZY!!!

So to fix this is simple. Whereas, I had been putting voids in there, or some disallow join on the wall but then when changes happen, those voids and disallowed joins never seem to follow no matter how intelligently you try to constrain them... and then one day I just.. dragged it out.. and dragged it back in.. and magic happened.

See…

It’s a bit deceiving because the circle drag handle is at the wall join where it should be, so at this point you don’t think that’s actually controlling the end of the footing that’s sticking way out there. But.. hello, duh.. it is!

I usually just drag mine to snap to the edge of the other wall footing, or at the curved situation where I’m not sure where it needs to end I begin by typing in a small distance just a bit more than zero. Then it takes a bit of shimmy-ing at the curved situation but totally do-able. (Helps to turn off your snaps when shimmy-ing)

Next up is something new with Revit Structure 2012. With the cut solids enhancements you can get a better display of your isolated foundations when working with additions to existing buildings where the existing footings and new footings join regardless that one footing was actually poured 50 years ago. *sigh* I’m not sure why Revit lets one phase join with other phases or why the material from the phase graphic overrides does not really affect it (maybe if all my elements were set to by category? Yuck!) Anyone Anyone? Bueller? Autodesk?

Anyways, back to the point here… In previous versions you had to unjoin your isolated foundations and then use the linework tool to hide any of the overlapping lines. This would also throw off you concrete material takeoffs.

In Revit 2012 you can unjoin your isolated foundation and then Cut them. First picking the foundation that will have the volume taken away from it (i.e. your new foundation being poured) and then pick the foundation that will do the cutting (i.e. your existing foundation) and your takeoff is now correctly showing which foundation is really full volume vs. which is having the portion removed.

There may still be some lineweight/type issues depending on the order you placed your foundations to begin with, however this, in my opinion, is a great improvement.. Now if it only worked with wall footings… :(

There are a couple of workarounds for that. You could model your existing wall foundations with a different material than your new foundations, however all those different types would drive me nuts, so I typically model just a small portion of new wall without a new wall foundation simply overtop of the existing wall foundation disallowing join at the wall and unjoining the footings.

Thanks for reading! If you have any additional foundation tips put them in the comments!