AUGIWorld Magazine - September/October 2008 - (Page 21)

the Design bar. If you don’t have the Architectural tab, you need to right-click on one of the headings in the Design bar and select Architectural. Within the Architectural tab, select the Stairs button. Figure 3 You can draw any stair profile you would like. The one pictured in the article was drawn by first using the Run function. Once the two half-stairs and the landing were sketched in, I clicked on the Boundary button. This allows you to freely sketch the outside edges of the stairs and landings. It is basically trouble-free to do this, but just make sure you have a continuous loop with no gaps and overlapping lines. Figure 4 Landings Now, just click the Landing button, and choose from the array of wonderful landings that Revit provides and automatically joins into your stairs. What? You don’t have one of those buttons? Neither do I. We will have to create one. Now, before I even broach this subject, know that I have about 500 words left before this article is too long. I will have the family shown here— email me at ewing@cscos.com to get it. Or even better, you can head to Autodesk University this year and take my Custom Stairs and Railings class! In all seriousness, Revit provides no inplace solution to land a staircase, or to accurately transition a staircase. It will basically cut your stringer or, in this case, your railing off straight. To transition the stairs, Revit will basically “scab” components Sep/Oct 2008 together. This is okay, though sometimes I like to take matters into my own hands. Perhaps too much automation is not always a good thing, right? What I like to do is just make my own family. Think about it. Now you can start from scratch — a blank canvas. If you need specific functionality, you can just build it into a parameter. If you have a C channel for a stringer, then you can make a C channel landing. Again, I can’t cover every detail here, but I can give you some guidelines. This family will consist of two stringers that can tie into the stringers on the stairs. In plan, you will have to adjust the width of the family to fit the width of the stairs. You will also need to edit the stringers on the stairs themselves to be set back far enough to meet up with the beginning of the landing family. The first time you do this it’ll seem a bit picky, but after you have done a few, it will seem like second nature. • Start a new family using the Generic Model.rft template by going to File>New>Family… • Reference planes! You need to offset two reference planes up and down to create each stringer line. • Dimension them and use the EQ constraint. • Put an overall dimension and label it Stair Width. • Name the reference planes front and back. • In the front elevation, offset a reference plane back about 2'-0" to the right. • Dimension it and label it Landing Run. • Offset a reference plane up about 2'-0". • Dimension it and label it Landing Rise. • Draw another reference plane at an angle intersecting the two reference planes. • Add an Angular dimension and label it Stair Angle. • Offset a reference plane to the left about 1'-0". • Label it Landing Seat. • If you are lost, send me an email at ewing@cscos.com to get the file. • Set the Work Plane to front. • Now, draw a reference line forming the landing seat to the Stair angle. You will have two lines, one straight and one angled. Look at the picture of the landing. It will help. • Go to the Back Elevation. • Set the Work Plane to back. • Draw the same two reference planes as you did in the front. • Load a C channel into the model. Make it the same one you used on the stair. C10x30. • Go to a 3D view and go to Solid form>Solid Sweep. • Sweep that channel up the front reference planes. Of course, you will have to change the rotation and the offsets to get it just right. • Repeat the procedure for the other side • Extrude a void family across the back to cut off the back end of the stringers. • Save it and load it into your model. • Click the Component button and place it under your stairs. First you will have to move the stringers into place in both plan and elevation. Once the stringers are in place, you will have to select and edit the stringers to be set back to meet the new landing. Yes, this article went from easy and practical to intensely difficult in about two Figure 5 seconds, but I hoped to get across the concept of what needs to be done here. We used Revit to calculate the rise and the run of our stairs given our floor-to-floor dimensions. The rest, well…it’s up to us to add the stringers and the landings. Revit can’t — at least not at the time of this writing. Perhaps someday… Eric Wing lives in Syracuse, New York. He has been teaching AutoCAD and Autodesk products for a decade. He has been in the construction and engineering field for 17 years. Eric is the president and founder of SLUG (Syracuse Local User Group) and director of the AUGI Training Program (ATP). He writes regularly for AUGIWorld magazine and AUGI HotNews. Eric has co-written Mastering Revit Structure, which will be released at the end of 2008. 21

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of AUGIWorld Magazine - September/October 2008

AUGIWorld Magazine - September/October 2008 Contents The CAD Manager 2008 Salary Survey Save Time with Impression Blocks In the Family Way Structural Stairs Autodesk University 2008 Preview Action Recorder How to Embrace Third-Party Data On the Back Page

AUGIWorld Magazine - September/October 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.