Stair Placement

[visard]

I could use some help with the stair tool regarding placement and visibility. When stairs are placed referencing upper and lower floor levels the lower stair shows on the upper floor. Do you then place the stair of the next level on top of the stair from below which shows on the plan? And how do we deal with stairs on the next level which are different sizes or do not stack? Is it possible to disable the 3D or otherwise alter the visibility?

[lucylou]

Hi

Ive never bothered with the referencing lower and upper floors on the stair tool. I tend to put the stair on the lower floor and specify the height distance. then I create a duplicate of the stair and put it on the upper floor and put it on a separate class called "Plan Only" and simply turn the class off when looking at it in 3d/section but leave it on when looking in plan.

Probably not the way your supposed to do it but it works fine for me!!

[billtheia]

I have found that you need to place stairs on the LOWER level when using referencing to set height. You can then use the stairs' setting dialog to control visibility on upper and lower levels (showing break on lower level.) Done this way, you don't need to do anything on the upper level - the stair just shows up.

[visard]

Hey Bill:

So, I take it that you don't do multistory buildings because if you did you would see that stairs on top of stairs is very unsatisfactory. I'm thinking that we have all gotten used to tools that don't work particularly well and we work around - is it that or am I just impatient this morning?

[billtheia]

Well, visard, technically a two story building is multi-story. But you're right, I haven't done anything more than two stories yet with VW.

However, I just did a quick test to see how I will do it when I need to and it seems do-able.

If you stick with placing stairs based on their bottoms, you can stack them up and use "Show Stair Break" to control how they overlap in plan. Arrows are still funky but you can turn them off and create your own. See attachments.

Don't get me wrong, I think that the stair tool needs A GREAT DEAL OF WORK. I frequently want to kill someone while using it. It's buggy and doesn't give sufficient control.

NNA still needs to fix it in a big way but it is possible to use it in a limited way.

[visard]

Thanks, Bill. I appreciate your work. I'm currently working on a mixed use building which is four stories, the fourth being the roof which will have recreational uses. Floor to floor heights change between the first and second floors. As you have indicated the stairs would stack and be set on the lower level. This presents a problem with visibility in plan when the upper stair is smaller or changes position. The more vexing problem is that there doesn't seem to be a convention regarding stair location as indicated in the OIP. A second floor base stair is identified as residing on the second floor, whereas the same stair at the top is identified as residing on the third floor. Not complicated until you need to identify the stair at the base of any floor and somehow get the upper level of the stair below. Or for some reason the stair below disappears and the operator assumes the visible stair is on the current floor level. My current favorite is when the stair below does not show up for reasons still to be determined. This all is part of the fun of working with VW until you start to think about the amount of time lost with issues of visibility. I conservatively estimate that I lose 100 hours a year, approximately the amount of billable time required to fund my SEP.