Stair Tool

[eric.rktek]

I have a couple questions/wishlist features regarding the stair tool. I am interesting in showing a stair break for two sets of stairs (one going up and the other going down) that overlap. It seems that the present '2d Stair Break' is designed for only one set of stairs. Secondly, I'd like to be able to control the break as to where it cuts off the stair, and possibly have an option to show a dashed line as to the extent of the stair above past the break line. I'm sure this sounds nit-picky, but it would be nice to be able to do this with the tool instead of having to re-create the stairs as a 2d set of lines and rectangles to get it to look like what I want. It also seems like there is very little documentation on the stair tool in the Architect's section of the User Manual. Have I overlooked any of the above features? Thanks.

[Kristen]

I agree. I'd be happy if you could just set the stair break for "down" as well as "up".

[jnr]

This is one of the least attractive features of the stair tool and it needs to be addressed in a future release. I feel your pain....

[CipesDesign]

I agree. We ought to have user-definable stair breaks, both up and down and at any particular tread.

Peter

[Robert Anderson]

Kristen, I have a question. Wouldn't standard drafting practice dictate that you would always draw a complete stair if you were looking down and a partial stair only where the stair (approximately) penetrated the "cut plane" of the floor plan?

[Kristen]

Well, sort of. There are quite a few exceptions to that standard. Probably the most common time I'd want a "down" stair break is what Eric mentioned -- when you have a stairwell with a flight of stairs going up over a flight of stairs going down. You need to show both, and the graphic convention is to have each flight broken.

Also, there are times when the floor you're drawing is over the bottom landing of the stair. I would rather have a stair break than fake it with a stair that's shorter than the "real" stair would be.

Peter's suggestion to allow the user to specify the location of the stair break would be really useful in both those instances.

I feel like I didn't explain this very well. If you want, I could email you copies of files where I've ungrouped the stairs so I can modify them to show these breaks.

[jnr]

Kristen:

This was exactly my problem a year ago. Its a pain not to be able to control where the break happens, especially on short runs. I eventually had to blow up the stair (ungroup), edit to where I needed it, and then re-insert it as a group. All PIO info is lost, which is FRUSTRATING. NNA should go look at Archicad for how to control a stair. Its pretty good--lots of options.