New stair tool shortcomings?

[VincentCuclair]

Some nice additions to the new stair tool, what I miss though is an option to show the stair on the top floor (ie. a representation of the last stair in the story above), anyone have some genial workaround for this, perhaps the fastest solution is 2D?

[CipesDesign]

If you use a Floor between the building levels (and heck, what what you do otherwise, float?) and if that floor has a hole in it for the stairwell (without which you just might bump your head) then you can pretty easily create a VP which contains all three layers and see the stair from above just fine. Obviously stair breaks and arrows would need to be annotated in this setup... But otherwise not too bad most of the time.

Or, two identical stairs, one on each level, which align exactly in 2d & 3d space, with their own discreet classes, breaks and arrows. Also not exactly perfect, but workable for the most part...

Do I love either stair tool? No I do not. But it's way better than hand drafting ;-)

[Peter Eichel]

Vincent, as Peter says, duplicate the staircase, ungroup it, move it to the appropiate layer and edit as required (2D method).

[gScott]

or, even better,

what about a PIO that does

it by itself without all

that fuing about?

mmm, kind of like

the old one?

wasn't someone from NNA

going on about "draw it once"?

peter's alternative is pretty

good but could we get there

in, say 47 steps? maybe a

competition for the longest

way around?

i seem to remember a VW8

era stair tool that even

gave you the option of

indicating overhead headroom,

which is actually staggeringly

useful in figuring out the

possibilities for the hole

in the floor above in tight

situations. now we have to

toggle back + forth to section

VP's to check headroom...

you can't always get what you

want, and sometimes not even

what you need....

is RA still about? he could

sort this...

[VincentCuclair]

Thought those were the options available .......

As long as we keep bitching about it improvements are bound to be made in future upgrades.

I don't like referring to other apps. but in ArchiCAD many PIOs have options that govern if and how the Object is shown on any Layer. This is especially useful for stairs and the odd object that lies inbetween floors.

Edited February 2, 2010 by Vincent C

[VincentCuclair]

I happened to see an older tutorial film about cutting holes in floors and there they refered to our old stair tool which (I seem to remember) actually had this option?? You could link the stair to 2 floors and the height was automatically adjusted as well as the stair being visibile in plan view on both floors?? Anyone remember and if so why didn't this option follow into the present version?

[Christiaan]

mmm, kind of like the old one?

No, not like the old one, please. That stair is awful to use in multi-storey buildings. It would have to be much better than the old one. As Vincent points out?and as is often the case?the ArchiCAD team have already designed better interfaces for such matters of multi-storey visibility.

Cadimage Tools stair tool is probably the best stair I've seen overall though: http://www.cadimagetools.com/tools.aspx?id=6

You can create the stairs and railings independently of one another, which makes far more sense in multi-storey buildings (if not two-storey).

I don't like referring to other apps.

Well, it is the 1st commandment after all.

gideon, why do your posts get wrapped to 4-5 words? Are you using a modern browser?

[gScott]

cristiaan

i did a speed reading course a

long time ago> + they maintained

that people can read short lines

more accurately + faster than long

lines, where you can get lost if

you glaze over for a second + have

to try to pick up again where you

lost the plot...

it stuck with me + i

wrap the lines myself

is firefox 3.6 ok?

[D Wood]

Gideon

An interesting theory, but speaking only for myself, not borne out by the experience.

Short sentences may be easier to read and comprehend, but not short lines, no capital letters, and idiosyncratic abbreviations (+ means plus, not and) - I got lost about your 4th line and had to restart.

Sorry to the original poster - I don't want to threadjack.

[jnr]

I mentioned this in another post and will say this again: NNA needs to put both stair tool vendors in a room and lock the door. Maybe then they will produce one tool that combines the functionality of both tools, that is stable, and works in multi level buildings. At this juncture I don't find the new stair tool PIO useful. For the most part, by definition, a stair is between levels (usually levels). To have to go thru a bunch of graphic gymnastics to get the stair to appear on an upper level, renders the tool essentially worthless. The existing PIO we've suffered thru for all these years has become so unstable, glitchy and uncompromising in the current version, its almost worthless as well.

Since architects compromise a major part of the company's revenue base, this needs to be a MAJOR priority in the next release.

FIX IT!

[billtheia]

AMEN!

[Christiaan]

I suspect criticisms of the stair tool may be misplaced. Perhaps the issue isn't so much a problem with the stair tool as it is with Vectorworks in general lacking the ability to control the Layer visibility of objects?

[Ozzie]

I suspect criticisms of the stair tool may be misplaced

which stair tool?

[Henry Finch]

Stair plugins do a lot more than before but seem very lacking for many applications. Of course, since I've only spent about 15 minutes looking at stair and custom stair plugins after upgrading from VW12.5, I'm probably missing something.

For single family residential standard wood stairs (USA) there should be:

- Newel posts, location options, size

- Balusters, number per tread, size

- Exterior stairs with top and bottom rails. The balusters do not usually go to the treads in exterior wood stairs.

In the past I modeled stairs in 3D. Probably have to continue for these most common conditions.

[wildernessbob]

maybe a stupid question, but why multiple stair tools? shouldn't 1 tool do? both tools in 2010 do the same thing more or less. one has more variables. great to have more options that's for sure. if the new stair tool had the option to link to layers it would be almost fine. this is something i just can't figure out. where are their heads? if you have a set of stairs, you obviously have two stories, and if you have two stories you will have two floor plans, and if you have two floor plans, you will see the stairs in both plans. one going up, and one going down. therefore you will need to indicate up or down direction on each plan. this is not some new or novel concept, it's a basic requirement of drawing floor plans with stairs. duh! with each evolution you would think that the tool would get better, or more stable, or have more features. the new stair tool is more flexible it seems, though i haven't had a need to really explore it yet, but the first thing one notices is that the old tool is more usable. come on VW, put some thought into this.

[VincentCuclair]

What's the old stair tool called nowadays, is it the 'Simple Stair'?

[Jonathan Pickup]

custom stair