Structural Sections & Steel Framing

[willofmaine]

I have two questions...

I am trying to create structural and non-structural groups in the advanced properties of a section viewport, but where the beams are within the floor slab, only the floor slab will show up. If the beam is moved up, it's portion above the floor shows up no problem. Am I missing something? Presumably, structural elements that coincide with other elements can be made to be visible...

Also, there seem to be lots of tools for creating wood framing, but what about steel? Other than the 2d steel shapes (WF, etc) and some steel joists, there seems no way to create sloped steel shapes, or use them for columns.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[P Retondo]

Will, you are probably using the "merged cross sections" option. Try also checking the "create structural and non-structural groups" option in the Advanced Properties -> Attributes dialog box. For framing members that works, but not sure about steel beams.

[P Retondo]

Just checked it out - it doesn't work in floor slabs for either wood or steel framing members. There are some situations where this option does help, but apparently not in yours.

I always make my floor slab the actual thickness of the floor sheathing and finish, so I don't run into this problem. I think the section viewport object has a ways to go before it's firing on all cylinders.

You can convert a steel beam (joist) to a 3d object, then rotate it and play with it. The conversion is to 3d polys, so boolean operations can be a bit cumbersome. I've always taken the cross section and extruded it in order to model things. Like with a lot of other PIO's, I wish that they would become more useful objects when converted.

[willofmaine]

Hi Pete,

Thanks for your responses.

"I always make my floor slab the actual thickness of the floor sheathing and finish, so I don't run into this problem." I'm not sure how that relates to my problem... basically, in a building section (such as 1/4", where only pairs of lines represent walls, floors, roofs and so on) I'd like to also show at least primary beams. "Merged Cross Sections" does a wonderful job of joining all touching objects at the cut plane into one continuous shape (free of joint lines). I'd hoped that "Create Structural and Non-Structural Groups" would make it possible to avoid having the structural elements merged with everything else, but it seems to make no difference as far as merging goes. "Separate Cross Sections" goes too far... not only does it 'un-merge' the beams, but nothing at all is merged.

A 'work-around' that seems like it might work is simply to duplicate the viewport and turn on only the structural classes, as an overlay on the main viewport.

"I think the section viewport object has a ways to go before it's firing on all cylinders"... I agree!

Isn't there quite a discrepancy between VW's ability to automatically model a wood framed roof, and its inability to model a building's steel frame?...

Thanks again!

[P Retondo]

"I always make my floor slab the actual thickness of the floor sheathing and finish, so I don't run into this problem." I'm not sure how that relates to my problem...

My joists all show up in section because I have a floor that is 1.5" thick (for example) and a separate object, usually an extrude, to model the ceiling. That way, the space between elements isn't (usually!) joined into a single white space.

Structural elements in a floor should be visible when the proper options in a Section Viewport are select, and I hope that this is fixed - particularly as I hope that some time in the future we will have an integrated floor/ceiling assembly object that could have components, similar to a wall.

[Robert Anderson]

The "create joists from poly" command will create structural joists (in various configurations of steel or wood, it's a user-settable property). So draw your floor plate as a poly, then make a deck-thickness slab from it, then use it to make joists.

[P Retondo]

The "create joists from poly" command will create structural joists (in various configurations of steel or wood, it's a user-settable property). So draw your floor plate as a poly, then make a deck-thickness slab from it, then use it to make joists.

Robert, right, that's the system I use.

The original question had to do with a slab that is the thickness of the entire floor/ceiling assembly. Joists in that situation are not rendered visible in a Section Viewport unless the user has checked "separate cross sections." The request was to make them visible with "merged cross sections/create structural and nonstructural groups" when the slab encompasses the joist objects.