Dynamo Script to Check if Beams/Columns are Aligned To Grid?

[BigPicture045]

I am working on a project where many of the structural elements were not aligned / snapped to the columns / grid. As a result, many of the hundreds of elements (beams and columns) are out of alignment. Is there a way to develop a list of elements which are not snapped or aligned to a grid? 

Examples:

This would be a useful tool to check modeling in other projects as well. 

[vitorbortoncello]

The Copy/Monitor tool helps ensure that elements, such as grids, remain correctly aligned by detecting any changes or shifts in their position.

[barthbradley]

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@BigPicture045 wrote:

...many of the hundreds of elements (beams and columns) are out of alignment...

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How the heck did hundreds get out of whack in the first place?  Maybe an answer to that question will help you correct the misalignment as a whole.  I mean, it's probably unlikely that someone misaligned hundreds of instances hundreds of times; right?  

[BigPicture045]

I am guessing they were not drawn in correctly and the grids shifted a little probably. 

Is there anything that I can use to make a schedule/list of the beams and then identify what the end points are connected to? Grid associate, start/end cutback distance. This would be helpful as a method to identify if these elements are tied to the "skeleton" of the grids and columns. 

[RLY_15]

Not a workflow I get into but the parts I know:

• I don't believe constraint state (locking/snapping) is accessible in basic Dynamo Nodes. Maybe it's accessible via API? That's waaaay outside my wheelhouse.
• Grids are stored as Line geometry with Z-value 0.
• Columns are (weirdly) stored in two methods: if it's a vertical column it's stored as a point with Z-value 0 (even if at a different elevation) - this means that you'd have to pull the Base Level + Offset and Top Level + Offset parameters to actually compare locations. Columns with a Slanted style are stored as Lines whose points accurately match their true location in space (based on the origin point of the section shape)
• Beams are stored as lines, with locations based on true location, again with reference to the construction of the section/profile)

What does this ultimately mean? For grid alignment check, you could project the list of start/end points 'down' to the gridlines and see if there is geometry intersection. If the points miss you know they're not aligned to the grid. This should work well for something like checking a beam parallel to grid for alignment.

I tried doing a cursory check of the dynamobim forums to see if anyone had a similar problem - unfortunately most of the column/grid related topics discuss initial generation of the columns and not post-design checks. You're better off researching workflows on clash detection (or the opposite, in this case), and modifying what you find based on the element location storage method used for structural elements.

[RLY_15 · Accepted solution]

Here's a conceptual setup for the above - there's likely corner cases that you'll need to account for, but generally speaking: if the clash count on the endpoints is non-zero, you know it's aligned to 'some' grid on the project. The exceptions might be along the lines of 'somehow the endpoints line up to grids but the beam itself is angled non-orthogonally'....hopefully your model issue is something simple like a draftsman error that displaced a bank of grids a few increments off and not badly angled beams.