Stud Walls for Revit 2010

Metal Wood Framer (MWF) is a Stud wall generator that can be added on to Revit Structure 2010 or Revit Architecture 2010 from strucSoft solutions (see link at the end of this blog). It offers many powerful macros and editing tools to provide a stud layout model, construction drawings and CNC output for manufacture. 

The first step is to create your walls and window and door openings. You do this by using any standard Revit wall, window and door style as show above. On the Add Ins panel you will find the MWF ribbon as shown below. To get a quick Stud Wall click the Create button and then select a wall in Revit.

For fast and efficient production you can create wall template files which allow you to set stud configurations based on wall styles and then use the Quick create tool which automatically applies the preconfigured styles to the walls.

Above you can see the MWF stud wall settings dialog box. You can select the basic construction configurations here. Once you have selected the create button then you will be able to set the structural members that will make up the Stud wall construction. You can set general tolerances for the timber and steel members and add in extra structural members as required. Once this is done you are then ready to create a drawing. The only setback with the drawings are that they are created as drafting views and are not associated to the model so you would need to recreate these if the stud wall changes.

The drawing and cutting lists below has been generated automatically with all the relevant tags and dimensions attached. Not bad for a few minutes work.

Obviously there is much more to the product than I have shown here but hopefully it has got you interested enough to download a trial copy.

For more information and a 30 day trial check out the link below;

http://www.strucsoftsolutions.com/mwf.asp

Have Fun,

Regards,

LawrenceH

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Making the right connections

With the release of Revit Structure 2010 we now have the ability to model some very simple connections thanks to the subscription tools. These connections are, however, fairly limited allowing beam to column flange connection and column base plate connections. If you have not yet investigated these tools then feel free to link to our videos:

http://www.excitech.co.uk/Autodesk_2010/revit_structure_2010/revit_structure_2010.asp

A better solution is to export your Revit Structure model to AutoCAD Structural Detailing 2010 and make use of the vast number of macros to generate automatic connections and machining to your steel models. You can then generate detailed 2D assembly and fabrication drawings and then link these back to your Revit Structure project.

To add connections to you steel model you use the ASD Model Ribbon in the Steel module.  The Ribbon has a panel especially for connections organised logically into flyouts. These are 65 macros to choose from and if you can’t find one your looking for you can generate your own custom connections and save them to a library.

All the connections macros have a similar theme and are fairly intuitive to use. Once you have entered all the required parameters and sizes you can save your connection configuration as a template or match properties from other connections.

Once you have all your connections and machining created you are ready to produce some 2D fabrication drawings. This process can be highly automated utilising pre configured drawing layouts, scales and preconfigured templates, interestingly, these are numbered by country dialling codes e.g. 44 for a UK drawing!  ASD will also add dimensions, tags and notes to the drawing views. All of these styles can of course be configured to your company standards.

Before the drawings can be produced, ASD needs to give each part a unique identifier so the components and assemblies can be referenced on drawings sheets and parts lists. This is done through the Object Inspector. The Object Inspector will have a column called position which will currently be blank.

Once you have run the automatic positioning then the object inspector will be populated with part numbers in the positions column as shown below.

There are many options of grouping parts and assemblies together to produce drawings. Drawings can be made of individual components or assemblies and parts lists and tags are automatically added to drawings sheets.

Here are some examples of individual part drawings and assemblies. Once you have generated the connection drawings you can then link these to Revit Structure using a drafting view so that if you update the ASD model, Revit Structure will update the drafting views. It will probably take you a few hours to get into the workflow but the rewards are worth it, so why not give it a try.

Enjoy

LawrenceH

Trimming your Cast in Situ Concrete members

Last week I was working with one of our customers on a project involving a large concrete structure. Most of the beams are cast in situ and the slabs are circular in shape. We faced the following problem below due to the limitations of not being able to cut Cast in Situ members! You guessed it, the beam needed to match and blend into the outer profile of the slab. As you can see below, the top half of the beam is proud and the bottom half is too short.

I did manage to come up with a work around for the annoying problem that involves a bit of family editing and filtering. First, I created a copy of the concrete beam and then added an Object Style called Setout and set a thick Line Weight and a bright colour and added the beam elements to this Object Style. I used an Object style to make it easy to control the visibility in the model and drawings.

The next stage is to draw the newly created beam around the edge of the slab making sure you have justified it to side1 or side2.

You can then either manually switch off the category ‘setout’ in the visibility graphics override or create a view template and apply this to all the plans, elevations and sections that you have in the project. Also you can add a filter to the schedules to omit these beams. The only ‘fly in the ointment’ is that the graphics on the cut members do not show a capping surface but overall this works very well.