Tag: structural column

Vertical Column Splitter for Revit

Luke Johnson

It’s very simple right now: it will split all selected structural columns at a level elevation specified by the user (beta developed by Ken Marsh)

Download:
http://tiny.cc/ColumnSplitterBeta

Read post:
http://marshapi.com/1/post/2014/01/vertical-column-splitter-beta.html

Read previous related post (including dialog on bugs related to slanted columns and masking):
http://revitoped.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/split-column-wish.html

Showing Structural Column Cut Pattern from a Linked Revit File through Walls in a Host

Luke Johnson

Painfully, Architectural Walls in a Host model often occlude the Cut Pattern settings for Structural Columns in a Linked Model.  You may be able to see the edges of the Structural Columns, but any View overrides to the Revit Links tab, and even Filters, do not show the Structural Column cut pattern.

Essentially, the Walls in the host model are hiding them (like taking view order precedence or something).  Structural Columns should have Cut Dominance, but this does not seem to work where links are involved.

So, here is how to fix it – just override the Transparency of Walls to 1:

The Cut Pattern, including any overrides, instantly display:

Obviously, you can do this in a View Template for easy application to multiple views.

Helping search index:
structural column in revit link cut pattern

How to make a Structural Column Room Bounding

Luke Johnson

In almost every case, I prefer Structural Columns over architectural Columns in Revit.  However, the architectural versions can easily be made Room Bounding.  How do we do this for Structural Columns?

Change the “Material for Model Behaviour” property in Family Category and Parameters to be Concrete or Precast Concrete.

Strangely enough, changing back to Other after reloading this Family had no effect – I could not make it non-Room Bounding again…

EDIT: In the comments, Chris describes the behaviour of Structural Columns in the Project – “Deleting the columns and placing new columns with the material as “other” will make the space non-room bounding again.”

See image:

Tagging Architectural Columns

Luke Johnson

Steve posted a few interesting things about Tags recently, including:
These categories are immune to Rotate with Component:
Foundations, Floors, Ceilings, Roofs, Furniture, Furniture Systems, Casework, Generic Models, Structural Columns, Detail Components, Massing, Mass Floors, Curtain Panels, and Specialty Equipment.
and
Architectural Columns, Shaft Openings remain immune to tagging at all.

Now, in the first instance, this proves again why some holistic Category Definition document is urgently needed.  I have called for this a few times before, but I haven’t seen one yet.  In relation to Steve’s post, the Category Definition document would have to further describe how the Tags of each Category operate…

Secondly, I’m assuming that Steve means you can’t Tag by Category on Architectural Columns.  Because you can use a Multi-Category Tag on Architectural Columns without any issue.  Obviously, this is an annoyance.  A couple of ideas on how to get around this:

  1. Don’t use Architectural Columns, use Structural Columns instead (these can be tagged by category).  In a BIM silo, you shouldn’t have a problem…
  2. Nest a shared Architectural Column into a Generic Model family and constrain to suit.  Link some parameters through if you want.  Now you can tag the Generic Model, while the Architectural Column will still Schedule and it will even automatically join with adjacent / touching walls.  You will obviously lose some abilities native to Architectural Columns, like Attach / Detach.
  3. Use Multi-Category Tags on your Architectural Columns
  4. Use Structural Columns instead 🙂

Read more:
Revit OpEd: Rotate with Component