placing a 3d steel beam in plan view

[mattryan]

Hello all

Is there a way to place a 3d steel beam in plan view? I have two columns and would like to drop a beam between them, but so far i can only seem to place the beam and see its section and then in 3d view its standing vertically?

Thank you for any and all help

 

[Markvl]

Rotate the beam in an orthogonal view (front).

[mattryan]

Thanks, theres no way to just draw a line between the two columns?

 

[Christiaan]

19 minutes ago, mattryan said:

Thanks, theres no way to just draw a line between the two columns?

 

The new Structural Member tool in the Building Shell toolset works like this (as opposed to the Wide Flange - 3D tool in the Detailing toolset). In fact, even better, it has modes so you can choose beam or column placement.

Edited October 24, 2017 by Christiaan

[Art V]

12 minutes ago, Christiaan said:

 

The new Structural Member tool in the Building Shell toolset works like this (as opposed to the Wide Flange - 3D tool in the Detailing toolset). In fact, even better, it has modes so you can choose beam or column placement.

Unfortunately you need to have VW architecture to have this, which the original poster does probably have depending on VW version. As  a VW Landmark user this is one of the two Architect tools I would like to see being brought over (the other one being the stair tool which is better in Architect than in Landmark.

[Gadzooks]

1 hour ago, Art V said:

........stair tool which is better in Architect than in Landmark.

 

Ha ha. Now I've heard it all. 

 

And we (Architect/Designer) moan about it. We should be grateful.

 

[mattryan]

1 hour ago, Christiaan said:

 

The new Structural Member tool in the Building Shell toolset works like this (as opposed to the Wide Flange - 3D tool in the Detailing toolset). In fact, even better, it has modes so you can choose beam or column placement.

Great thanks Christiaan! thats what i was looking for

[Art V]

41 minutes ago, Gadzooks said:

 

Ha ha. Now I've heard it all. 

 

And we (Architect/Designer) moan about it. We should be grateful.

 

Unless things changed in VW2018 I've always had the impression (and confirmed by local tech support on two occasions in the past) that the "regular"/default stair tool in Architect has more functionality than the Landmark version. The custom stair tool which is now considered obsolete was more or less the same.

 

I just wish that the stair tool could be told to start at elevation A, end at elevation B and have X platforms (absolute or at every Y stairs) and then calculate the stair to be inserted. Ideally I could provide multiple elevations at which a platform should meet a specified level of a structure.  Unlike most buildings which use constant floor heights I deal with structures that have varying heights between levels. Creating stairs for that with the stair tool in Landmark is not really a pleasure to put it mildly.

The structural member tool would be really useful for such structures as well to set out the vertical columns and horizontal beams.

[zoomer]

For the structural members.

For me they will be always drawn on Layer Plane,

no matter what story levels I assigned to them.

Like bottom of structure story above.

 

Does that work for you ?

Should I try from a default workspace ?