Quick and Dirty venue beams for Bridles/beam loading

[Wood]

I want to rough in basic beams for a venue, so I can utilize the Bridle tools. I've drawn in a few beams and am having success with the auto bridle tool, but looking for more detail.

 

I don't care about influence lines or any of the advanced BW calculations for the venue steel. I do want total load for any given beam/structural member, particularly the downforce. How can I generate this report and display the information?

-When my truss line is perpendicular to the members, how can I force VW to generate an even bridle and center the hoist between the beams?

-When my truss line is perpendicular, how can I force VW to make the bridle legs perpendicular (square against the beam) as well instead of at random angles?

-Can I make VW display links of STAC vs a dimension in the configuration diagram? 

-Why aren't baskets being generated with the 'Assign parts automatically' button? 

-What is the best way to generate bridle parts in an overall drawing? Magic wand and select all bridles? It's a 500 hoist show, and doing these things one by one is the opposite of being a time saver. 

-How can I configure hoist presets such as naming convention, origin, and all of the other things available when using the hoist placement tool? Do I really have to take an extra step to name the bridle as WELL as the hoist?

-Why can't I select structural members when using the click insertion mode?

 

 

As a rigger, allowing the bridle to define the hoist placement is putting the carriage in front of the horse. Calling bridles is the LAST step in a typical rigging workflow, not the first. Am I missing something? I can understand starting with the building connections in a fixed point situation like those found in a ballroom, but in an arena we can essentially hang anywhere. My first priority is truss loading, and then we just shoot bridles to the appropriate beams, knowing that our basket is defined, as well as our standard leg. 

 

 

Does somebody have a good workflow video? The help file explains how each component works, but doesn't provide any sort of guidance on how one might utilize these tools in the real world. 

 

Thanks

[Wood]

Also one more question. It's very common to find venue roof truss that is two back to back angle iron shapes, with both upper and lower members, plus diagonals. I realize that the complexity here is beyond the scope of VW, but how can I illustrate even the bottom chord basic shape as a single structural member? If we're being exact, the square shape does not create a true effective length of basket...

[jcogdell]

16 hours ago, Wood said:

-When my truss line is perpendicular to the members, how can I force VW to generate an even bridle and center the hoist between the beams?

16 hours ago, Wood said:

When my truss line is perpendicular, how can I force VW to make the bridle legs perpendicular (square against the beam) as well instead of at random angles?

The easiest way is to use the manual insertion mode
to force the exact middle point use some form of geometry as an insertion guide for the middle line between the beams.

A second option for the perpendicular bridle legs is to add hanging points where you wish the bridle legs to attach, seperately classed. Turn off the class with the structual beams in it and then insert the bridle

 

 

16 hours ago, Wood said:

an I make VW display links of STAC vs a dimension in the configuration diagram? 

No, the bridle part symbols have fixed geometry and currently there is no way to change this. That being said you are not the only person who has requested this and I will open an enhancement request for it.

 

 

16 hours ago, Wood said:

Why aren't baskets being generated with the 'Assign parts automatically' button? 

This is a bug and the fix is currently being tested.

 

 

16 hours ago, Wood said:

What is the best way to generate bridle parts in an overall drawing? Magic wand and select all bridles? It's a 500 hoist show, and doing these things one by one is the opposite of being a time saver.

I'm not sure what you are asking here,

Are you needing to add bridles to a plan where the hoists have already been drawn?
If so how would you automatically decide where and to what each bridle leg should attach to in the roof?
This is something that would be incredibly hard to automate, especially if the roof space is busy, with lots of geometry and beams.

If you are meaning to generate parts lists for large numbers of already created bridles then you can do this for both the assmbly diagrams and for parts lists in one go.

for the assembly diagrams group select them and run the command it will create the daigrams based on your chosen settings in the dialogue.

For bridle part lists use the create brilde report command, in the command you can set it to work from all visible objects, all selected objects or the complete file using the filter settings.

 

16 hours ago, Wood said:

-How can I configure hoist presets such as naming convention, origin, and all of the other things available when using the hoist placement tool? Do I really have to take an extra step to name the bridle as WELL as the hoist?

The hoist tool has a set of automatic numbering preferences in the tool mode bar and a set of preferences, that you can use to set the name and id, if you set this on and then insert the hoist as part of a bridle the hoist will be configured using the last settings you set in the hoist tool.

Currently there isn't an automatic data connection between a hoist and bridle (except for structural data).
There are a number of improvements to how hoists and bridles interact with each other and trusses that I'm hoping to see in the future. Such as hoists documenting the truss position name that they are connected to, the connected bridle ID, rigging points, bridles documenting the connected hoist ID, etc....
I'll bring them to the attention of the dev team and see what happens.

 

 

[Wood]

4 hours ago, jcogdell said:

Currently there isn't an automatic data connection between a hoist and bridle (except for structural data).
There are a number of improvements to how hoists and bridles interact with each other and trusses that I'm hoping to see in the future. Such as hoists documenting the truss position name that they are connected to, the connected bridle ID, rigging points, bridles documenting the connected hoist ID, etc....
I'll bring them to the attention of the dev team and see what happens.

Thanks Jesse, you've answered my questions and that should help me move forward. The STAC link display is pretty key, as ground riggers don't use tape measures and are baffled if you give them a dimension. Which means any floor stickers I would generate would be useless to them and require the extra step of somebody doing the math and transcribing it manually. At least in the US, chalk art for drawing bridle calls on an arena floor is fairly standard, and it would be fantastic if VW could output that style in the bridle diagram. Are you able to customize the 'art' in the Bridle diagram?

 

As far as quote above, this would be an IMMENSE improvement in functionality. The Dev team really should make this a priority, as this is pretty key functionality in large shows. The lighting folks have had great paperwork from VW from the very beginning, and it always seems like the rigging side is left out in the rain. We like pretty paperwork too!

 

While I have your attention, is there a work around or best practice for the 'Hanging Position' functionality not displaying real trim height in the Z field of the OIP? I like the idea of hanging positions, and their ability to streamline the drawing and improve paperwork, but not being able to see accurate trim height at a glance is a major issue. Is it still verboten to drag-adjust the Z in a front view instead of using the adjust trim height button? 

 

Thanks!

[jcogdell]

19 hours ago, Wood said:

The STAC link display is pretty key, as ground riggers don't use tape measures and are baffled if you give them a dimension. Which means any floor stickers I would generate would be useless to them and require the extra step of somebody doing the math and transcribing it manually. At least in the US, chalk art for drawing bridle calls on an arena floor is fairly standard, and it would be fantastic if VW could output that style in the bridle diagram

I'll add an enhancement request for this, might take a while though since we are just about to release 2024

 

 

[jcogdell]

20 hours ago, Wood said:

While I have your attention, is there a work around or best practice for the 'Hanging Position' functionality not displaying real trim height in the Z field of the OIP? I like the idea of hanging positions, and their ability to streamline the drawing and improve paperwork, but not being able to see accurate trim height at a glance is a major issue.

A lot of the paperwork functionality of a hanging position can now be done with normal trusses,
As long as you give the truss a position name then anything hung from the truss will display that it is attched in its position field.

If you are using Braceworks it will provide the weight calculations

The trim height issue is that the objects inside a hanging position are no longer visible to the OIP as they are no longer the top level object.

Additionally the trusses and pipes can be moved inside the hanging postion without changing the hanging positions own trim height.
 

20 hours ago, Wood said:

Is it still verboten to drag-adjust the Z in a front view instead of using the adjust trim height button?

it really depends on your objective and where you are in your workflow.

selecting and dragging a hanging position up and down on the z-axis is fine as long but when you move it this way you will likely disconnect any attached rigging like bridles or hoists.
Also it is possible to accidentally move the geometry inside the hanging position which then means the hanging positions Z coordinate is no longer accurate. Another issue is that you can create a hanging position from several objects (2 truss lines for example) with differeing trim heights, but only the hanging positions own trim height will be displayed, which will be based on the lower of the lowest geometry in the position.

The change trim height command is designed to enable you to adjust trim heights while keeping any connected rigging correctly attached and configured. 
 

[Wood]

Thanks Jesse

[Brent.A]

So many questions in this thread, but this one is what I am after:

 

"I don't care about influence lines or any of the advanced BW calculations for the venue steel. I do want total load for any given beam/structural member, particularly the downforce"

 

Did that get answered and I missed it? I simply need to draw a line and assign it a capacity: .5 kip, 1 kip, 2 kip...yada

Is that a thing?

[jcogdell]

13 hours ago, Brent.A said:

"I don't care about influence lines or any of the advanced BW calculations for the venue steel. I do want total load for any given beam/structural member, particularly the downforce"

Currently structural memebers are not Braceworks enabled objects which means there is no way to do this automatically.  It can be done but requires a specific workflow to correctly set up.

Hoists and bridles that connect to structural members will auto create hanging point objects for each connection point.
To find the total force or load acting on a particular structural member you will need to name them.
After the Braceworks calcualtion group select all of the hanging points associated with each beam and give them ID's that are related, so they are easy to identify (for example A1 thru A15 are on the first structural member).
Aftrer this you can create reports for each structural member by setting up the Advanced criteria to look for the ID range and use this to then calculate the load on each.
You can repeat this for each structural member by duplicating the original report and udating the ID range, and then append the second report onto the first.
Once you have the final report created and are happy with it it can be reused in future projects as long as you make sure to maintain a standardised naming system for the hanging point ID's.

[Martijn Wingelaar]

Hello Wood.

I'm a Dutch rigger and I'm having a lot of mail contact with jcogdell.

All you're problems you've got I also discovered a few years a go.

But I figured a lot of ways to work around the issues.

 

First.. And this is how I see it.

The auto bridle tool doesn't work.

If you take structural members the snap point are never exact where you want your bridle.

I prefer to draw a line "for a 2 leg" over the hoist crossing the beams and then draw a bridle.

If you need a 3 leg bridle 🤔 how does vw knows from where you want to connect the legs.

It always chooses the closest knots or snap points.

 

For this part..

I don't care about influence lines or any of the advanced BW calculations for the venue steel.

You can turn the influence lines off in your classes.

But those calculations are really important.

You can maker on a 5m or 16ft beam 20 3 way bridles and a 3 way can be quit flat "if you know your rigging"

So the forces in X and Y can run up extremely fast while the Z forces stay the same.

 

This..

Why aren't baskets being generated with the 'Assign parts automatically' button?

Is in my opinion the worst tool in the BW plug-in.

A 4 way bridle is retarded but the auto parts does not work at all.

It just throws in steels at random blah blah blah.

I discovered this this week.

Make your plot create all your bridles make sure everything is good.

Take the Select Similar Tool "magic wand".

Select all bridles go to the Bridle Configuration.

Delete for all legs all steel Leg 1,2,3 and Down leg.

Then add the basket and Basket Dimensions for just one bridle if you got 3 way bridles select one of those.

Then when you exit the Bridle Configuration.

All fields are empty and every bridle has a basket and basket demensions.

 

I do a lot of +200 hoist shows and adding steel for a bridle is just a ty job.

But you have to do it.

I created a simple data-tag just for steels.

I add that to every leg in my drawing "that takes max 20 min".

So when I add steels I can see what bridle I already did and when I print a bridle plot for the markout.

I've got all steel length for every bridle "Shot 1"

 

You can configure your hoist also through the Spotlight - Spotlight Numbering menu.

You can tweak a lot of things there.

 

Finally I think you should not try to skip steps in the rigging design procedure.

Designing a rigging plot takes skill and time.

All the automated tools I think are a nice extra.

But if you start to trust BW to do all work and calculations for you......  nahhh I don't know.

I wouldn't blindly trust it.

 

Greetings Martijn.