Multistorey stairs and handrails (again)

[Keith_Wilkinson]

Has anyone got a good solution to the issues surrounding multistorey stairs and handrails?  I can appreciate that this is not an easy tool to create but the issues that exist just don't seem to be getting dealt with.

The main problems I've come across are :

1. Warnings regarding overlapping lines
2. Handrails disassociating from hosts causing the 'horizontal handrail' issue
3. balusters on handrails extending beyond the last tread cutting through floor slabs
4. Handrails just generally breaking when you try to get returns to work as you want...

I'm sure there are probably others.

The best I've seen on this is the post by RevitCat which deals with a number of these issues in a slightly round about manner (http://revitcat.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/revit-multistorey-railings-story-2.html) however IMO this tool is a long way off working correctly.

So I guess the point of this post is to start a discussion on what tips, tricks and solutions, if any, people have to deal with these problems (if you haven't experienced them then don't worry trying to answer - I know I'm being quite vague) and also to ask if Autodesk have anything in the pipeline that might make this tool work more efficently and effectively (I know I won't get an answer to that but hey, you gotta try ...  ;o) ).

I've attached two images showing handrails that don't behave correctly at returns - trying to adjust the path in sketch mode tends to  just breaks things further... with patience and time you can get there but it real trial and error which eats up a lot of valuable time.

[alan.quinn]

Stairs and Railings are complex and while the tool is not perfect it does a good job. Development is continuing to improve Revit and I'm sure this and many other features will change in the future. In the meantime the link you found to RevitCat is a great option. In my production years I also utilized these same approachs and a few others. I always say that drawing stairs and railing in Revit is still way ahead of drawing then 2D! 

In any event beyond that I'm not sure I can offer anything. Hopefully other forums members will chime in and suggest a few alternatives. Thanks for posting.

[Keith_Wilkinson]

Thanks Alan.

I'd agree the stair tool is good it could just do with a bit more work. Hopefully a few more workaround might come to light.

cheers

K.

[Keith_Wilkinson]

Actually, best be clear - the stair tool is great - its the handrail tool that isn't.

I can't help but feel the issue with this is the fact the handail path is 2D. If we could simply draw the path in 3D how we want it (or edit it from auto generated handrail) then life would be much easier - Revit it just trying to make too many assumptions and 50% of the time the assumptions it makes are wrong, frustratingly.

[Keith_Wilkinson]

Here is a case in point.  I'm working on following RevitCat's approach of adding in a short additional flight to generate the top landing.  Now I'm trying to follow the suggestion of modifying the handrail path before deleting the additional flight to prevent the handrail screwing up.  However if I try to do anything to the last segment of the handrail path it returns an error and won't let me complete the change.

I know I can split it down into separate stairs but it would be handy to have it work like this by just deleting that last segment.

Can anyone get this to work, and if you can, can you tell me how you did it?

Cheers

K.

[ennujozlagam]

Hi , i have a stair sample that i did in one of my project.You can use this as a reference if you want to? hope it helps. thanks

[Keith_Wilkinson]

Thanks, very kind.

I've been working through this fairly extensively over the last few days and making good progress. The RevitCat stuff is definitely the best starting point, it's just trying to understand the implications of each bit and wrap your head around what you need to do to correct the issues that Revit creates.

All very promising though - I'll post some stuff when I'm done.