How do you model railings with glass panels?

[Prvoime]

I'm trying to create this type of railing, with glass panels and clamps. But none of my solutions work.

First I tried the rail family that comes in German library with Revit.
The issue is that they made glass panels as balusters, so they're fixed width. If they don't fit to your particular case, it's pretty much useless (as far as I can tell).

Then I thought I'd create it as a curtain wall.
This sorta works on leveled railings. The issue with this one is that handrails don't clean up at joins, there is A LOT of manual work (setting grids, setting panels to empty ones, setting posts...), and most importantly it doesn't work on stairs. At all.

Then I thought I'd go the other way from the first solution. I created posts with clamps, and glass panels just as a profile.
The issues with this one is that glass panel is continuous, breaking the illusion on renders (oh well, I could live with this one). Corner posts due to the clamps sometimes work, sometimes don't, depending on the direction in which you draw the railing. And most importantly, it doesn't work on stairs. Panel protrudes up and post from run to landing is perceived as a "corner post" again resulting in clamps facing the wrong way.

How would you create this so that it works both on stairs and balconies, and so it doesn't take as long to model it as it would to actually build it in real life.

Attaching images of my attempts and a file with them.

Thanks in advance!

[barthbradley]

Excellent tutorial here:

https://www.autodesk.com/autodesk-university/es/forge-content/au_class-urn%3Aadsk.content%3Acontent%...

[Prvoime]

Tutorial is nice, but the solution is beyond terrible. It also use "posts as panels" approach which means different types of everything and do everything manually. Different types of railings for different runs, different types of panels for different railings, manually calculate their number, manually measure them, manually place every single one, for every single run... It's insane. It's actually comical to watch the tutorial, how many times he says "you just go and change...". 40 minutes to model a single run railing.

Just when I think I'm finally on board with it, Revit finds a way to kick me down and turn a 15 minutes AutoCAD job into a whole day Revit ordeal.

Even the most basic one that comes with Revit doesn't actually work! How we just accepts this sort of things on a software that costs this much, I.. I... I just...

[mhiserZFHXS]

Yea so just go back to AutoCAD and have fun documenting everything... and have fun when you make changes to this stair and have to make those changes in every single elevation, section, and plan.

Revit isn't perfect, and it has a steep learning curve. But its shortcomings are far outweighed by the efficiency it brings.

[Prvoime]

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@mhiserZFHXS wrote:

have fun when you make changes to this stair and have to make those changes in every single elevation, section, and plan.

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Considering how many hoops you have to jump through to get this type of railing to work, I honestly doubt there is any time savings at all.

[mhiserZFHXS]

Yep... because modeling a stair is the only thing you do in Revit...

If you are really so upset about the stair, you could just put a generic stair in plan, and use a detail drawing to draw the elevation showing the rails. I obviously wouldn't recommend this because it goes against everything BIM, but if this is really going to throw you over the edge and convince you to throw all of the benefits of Revit out the window, then its better than going back to AutoCAD.

[ToanDN]

Curtain wall can work on stair. You need to edit profile to make the shape. You can also mix railing with curtain wall or in place model: railing for the most parts and curtain wall or in place model for parts where railing can't do.

[barthbradley]

I don't know what you think AutoCAD can do that Revit can't, but regardless of the software, you still need to plan it.  Planning was pretty much at the crux of modeling those stairs in that tutorial I provided above.  

....my #1 advice is to model it in Revit the way it will be built in the real world.   Following that advice will get you through most any modeling challenge.   FWIW.  

[Prvoime]

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@barthbradley wrote:

you still need to plan it.  Planning was pretty much at the crux of modeling those stairs in that tutorial I provided above.  

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Tried it. Followed the tutorial and it worked, but just as long as I didn't try to change anything. In the tutorial posts are exactly at the risers. But that doesn't work for me, my posts need to go on the threads.

So I thought I'd just shift the whole thing by 10cm, make the landing panel shorter. Wrong.

Posts are where they need to be, but the first panel ends up "skewed" (gets closer to the top rail). And the second panel refused to be sloped. I tried changing the sketch line Slope property to "sloped", but even that didn't help.

Any idea where I'm messing up (attached file)?

[barthbradley · Accepted solution]

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@Prvoime wrote:

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Any idea where I'm messing up (attached file)?

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Where do you want me to start?  

For one thing it is an odd design.  Not saying it isn't buildable - just odd and perhaps non-compliant.   See my Red Lines.  

But #1 is the Panel Family.  It's built poorly and include parameters you don't need, such as inset. Inset is something you define in the Baluster Pattern.  Use the stock Panel-Glass.rfa that's in the OOTB Content Library. No need to reinvent the wheel.  However, if you intend to go with that odd Top Rail slope, you WILL need a custom Panel Family.  I'll leave that to you to figure out.  Anyways, inspect the OOTB Panel and see how it is built.  Note where the Origin Ref. Plane is and how the panel "grows" outward from this Origin.  

Inspect the Baluster Pattern in this screenshot and try it yourself with the OOTB Panel.  Note: Distance from Previous = distance from the insertion point of the baluster.  Insertion point = the intersection of the x,y Origin Ref. Plane in the baluster family .  

[Prvoime]

@barthbradley 

For one thing it is an odd design. Not saying it isn't buildable - just odd and perhaps non-compliant.

It's actually a very common design in my country. When you have to put posts on treads you have to place them roughly in the middle of it, can't screw it on the very edge of the tread.

And yes, it absolutely must be the same height for the whole run.

I figured the change in height/slope is because I didn't start the sketch at the beginning of the stair, I moved it in for those 10cm. Solved that one by drawing the sketch from the beginning and using "Space" for the Start post.

But #1 is the Panel Family. It's built poorly and include parameters you don't need, such as inset.

I built it exactly the same way as in the tutorial you suggested 😄

There is a sound logic behind his approach. When built that way you don't have to fiddle with calculating halves of panels and where what starts and what ends. Distance from previous for panels is always exactly the same as panel width, and Distance from previous for posts is always zero.

But, as shown here, works only in certain situations.

Use the stock Panel-Glass.rfa that's in the OOTB Content Library. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Here's the result using the stock panel, so... Solved, I guess.

Well, it's a solution anyway, the same approach as in tutorial, measure everything, create different types... Terrible solution, but there it is. Why Autodesk couldn't give us the same approach for this as for curtain walls.

I have a small project and I'll have to create 6 types of railings and I don't even know how many types of panels (all the same just different widths). How people manage this on big projects is beyond me.

Btw. if anyone stumbles on this thread, when placing first panel, for "Distance from previous" you have to use distance from the beginning of the sketch, Revit disregards the "Space" value you enter for first post (52 on the screenshot).

Thanks for helping!

[ToanDN]

It would be much easier to model railing without panels, only rails and balusters, so that you can choose to place balusters precisely where you want. Then fill in the panels using edited profile walls.

[Prvoime]

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@ToanDN wrote:

It would be much easier to model railing without panels, only rails and balusters, so that you can choose to place balusters precisely where you want. Then fill in the panels using edited profile walls.

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Yup, figured this one on my first real run in the project. Separated posts in one railing, panels in another. But still with railings, if you look the image in my first post, curtain wall breaks when I edit it in such extreme way so it would fit the stairs (middle solution in that image).

For balconies it would probably work.

[weijing_lulu_wang]

cool