Brace alignment problem

[bjur]

This situation comes up on many of our projects.  We have a braced frame located on the exterior of a building.  The beam at the floor is offset from the center of the grid so that the beam flange doesn't extend past the exterior of the building.  The columns that are part of the frame must be hidden in the wall below and do not line up with the center of the beam.  The braces that get drawn only attach to the centerlines of the beam and column, thus they stick out of the wall.  This is driving us nuts.  There has to be a way to model this correctly.  I can use the analytical tools to get the analytical model to work perfect.

I have a model that is 1.8 mb but can't attach it here.

[AJA14]

Hi. You could try drawing it as a beam using 3D snapping and then use lateral justification or manually align the beam to a reference plane to get the alignment you need.

[bjur]

If I don't use a revit "Brace", then the bracing symbol doesn't show.  Either I have to model it incorrect and get the brace symbol, or model it correct and manually draw in a brace symbol, which won't update if the model ever changes...which it will.  I guess I'm forced to model correcctly and manually "draft" in the symbol.  Dear factory, please fix braces so we can actually use them in real world situations.

[AJA14]

Hi. You're definitely right about that but here's an idea. Create a new family that looks like the brace symbol but starting from the connection family. Then go to the structural settings, and add a new connection symbol called brace which can then be applied to any beam or column. You would need in this case to be careful to the orientation of your brace symbol to be able to show if the bracing is above or below. Hope this helps.

[bjur · Accepted solution]

What I ended up doing was the following:
1. Stopped using braces. They don't work right.
2. Created different brace to beam/column connections that include the brace symbol when viewed in coarse from above.
3. Only use framing members for braces. Set them to other instead if girder...etc.

[Anonymous]

Could you draw a reference plane that is equal to your column centerline, set that plane to be your work plane, draw your brace (I did it in a 3-D view) from bottom of column to approximately the mid-span of the beam, then cut an elevation / section to adjust the vertical and horizontal work points (end points) of the bracing? It'll be in the plane of the column centerline because you set that as the work plane, and it'll go to the beam mid-span and mid-depth with your adjustments in the elevation view. Does this work better for you? The end-grips for the bracing can be a little of a bear to work with / control, but at least it'll be aligned with your column centerline, and it'll be extending to the centerline of the beam to the naked eye.

[bjur]

It doesn't work because the Revit Brace object will snap the the centerline of the nearest framing element.  Can't figure out how to turn this "Feature" off.  It's super anoying.  Trying to align the brace with a referance plane will only produce an error message and then put the brace back in the wrong place.  

[Anonymous]

for the brace at the base of the column, that works just fine because you want it to come from the column centerline. up at the beam, that's where the reference plane comes in handy... the reference plane will keep the brace on column centerline, but you would have to place the end of the brace as close to the beam midspan as possible. that's where the elevation view comes into play in that you can use that view to do the finishing touches to adjust the height and horizontal location of the end of the brace. in lieu of aligning the brace to the reference plane, i set the reference plane as the work plane before i place the brace.

in the ribbon menu, turn off 3-D snapping and it won't snap to those end points and intersections, BUT, when you click a point in space, it may get a little squirrelly as to where in 3-D space your point actually ends up being.

[brencass22]

You could of done something along the following:-

1 - Creating a new family you should of just added a parameter to structural framing.

Add a new parameter -> Create the filters as you require - > put the text in new parameter for the beam in question - > then the beam will show up as per overrides in filter.

Look at the attached image should probably help direct you a bit better and would get you away from creating new families just because the line doesnt show correctly.

2 - Other option is to add another line that is offset from origanal line and is only visible from above and when a tick box is clicked for that member.

[Anonymous]

i see how that works well for plan visibility of the bracing, but i thought the meat of this discussion string was trying to get bracing to work when the beam was offset from the column. as noted, with the 3-D snapping on, the bracing would want to autosnap to the column ends, but to the offset beam as well. doing this would put the bracing at a skew and not keep it hidden within the wall cavity. that was my understanding of the issue at hand...

[brencass22]

I was trying to explain another way he could of got a beam symbol to show instead of doing his solution(extract below) 

"2. Created different brace to beam/column connections that include the brace symbol when viewed in coarse from abov"

Sorry probably should of explained this in origanal post that it was just a expansion of his number 2 of the solution.

*wishful thinking time* A plan offset for beams would be a great addition to revit if it was included/developed into new revit

[brencass22]

I have actually just remember something while at work today of a possible correction that will help you over come this full issue as a proper work around.

Within the family you will need to create a new reference plane in the elevations view(as per plate + offset image).

Of course you will need to redo all dimensions to new reference plane and attached them back to correct parameters.

Make the offset dimension a instance parameter and then they can be controlled independantly as per plan and section images

[Anonymous]

That work around works well to offset the brace if the start and end points are in the same plane (i.e.: column and beam). But in this instance where the beam is offset from the column, it seems like either your start point or your end point will have nothing to snap to. For example, if you start at the column end, then there will be nothing to snap to when you extend it to the offset beam. Or, if you start at the offset beam, you will have nothing to snap to when you are extending to the column.