In a previous post I outlined a procedure and method of offsetting beams both in the horizontal and vertical planes whilst leaving the analytical model unaffected. In the new Revit 2014 release Autodesk have included some interesting new tools to control these offsets more effectively. Of particular interest is the new behavior of roof bracing.
In Revit 2014 these new tools are grouped under the Geometric Position section on the properties ribbon. You can see that these positions relate to the Y and Z axis. To understand this, refer to the image showing the plan view of a beam.
The key thing to remember is that the Y axis is the offset in plan and the Z is the offset in the vertical direction.
The offsets can either be uniform or independent. For most examples you will likely want to keep a uniform offset but I have found that the independent offset is really useful for offsetting bracing on roof members of differing depths. Notice the below image and the offset of 76mm on the end offset value to maintain a horizontal position for the CHS bracing. At last, a workable solution!
Anyway, have a play with these new tools, I am sure they will help you all.
LawrenceH
Autodesk Revit Structure 
Reblogged this on Sustainability & s-BIM for buildings and commented:
Posiciones geométricas de Vigas y Arriostramientos (Rvt2014)
Lawrence,
As usual, a lot of very useful information. Can you please also shear you opinion about a video tutorial on a Revit 2014 wiki page “Upgrading Steel Framing Families in Legacy Projects (2014)”. New parameters add an obvious advantage but what abilities are we loosing (if any) when we implement above edit? I updated a very large project from Revit 2012 directly to Revit 2014. It has a complex steel roof framing with gables, dormers, braces etc. I have minor problems with loosing several spot elevations, shifted reactions tags, small difference in beam coarse lines ends . More serious issues were with “jumped” braces. Several braces, reattached itself to the different columns. All above is relatively easy to fix. My biggest worry is that I am noticing a slope changes in precisely placed dormers steel. I am really worried about editing a steel framing family on the project with thousands of members.
BTW In this project, in several instances, we used an edited steel family with custom horizontal offset that you help me to develop last year.
Regards
Vladimir
Hi Vladimir,
I haven’t come across any problems with the upgrade of projects and framing but will watch this very carefully. The new framing families are quite different to the 2013 versions and as such would recommend recreating your library of members.