Thoughts on making this cornice?

[J_Lewis87]

Revit can make most of this cornice using a profile BUT what is the best way to add the dentils (blocks)?

Any ideas?

[ToanDN]

- Railing with those as balusters (work for straight lines and curves)

- Line base generic model with arrayed components (straight only)

- Adaptive generic family with divided line. (work for stragght lines, 2d curves, 3d curves and everything else)

[barthbradley]

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture-forum/cornice-with-dentil-molding/td-p/9553918

[syman2000]

I would use railing approach. However you can also use Model text and use series of dots to represent the dentils.

[J_Lewis87]

The railing method looks promising but I was able to make a proper raking cornice using Roof: Fascia.  Will I be able to make a raking cornice with a mitered edge with a railing???

Adaptive Generic Family? That's above my pay scale. 😞

[J_Lewis87]

I tried the railing method, which was not easy.  I got to a point where I could apply it to walls but then at corners I got what you see in the image. No amount of working in the dialogue box for balusters (justify, excess fill length, etc) would apply a dentil at the mitre. I even tried end and start post settings to know avail.  Any thoughts?

And when applied to a gable the dentils would not follow the diagonal. I assume there is some constraining I need to do in the family. But I also could not get the rail to mitre at the cornice ends at the bottom of a gable.

[barthbradley]

Did you try the Line-Based Dentil Family I linked you to above?  

[J_Lewis87]

I did not look at line based family option because I wanted a kind of "one and done" solution and I thought the railing solution would be the best. If it can help me on raking cornices, I should probably try it. That said, I don't think Revit LT can create that kind of adaptive family. I reached out to the guy in your link to see if he can give more details about his method.

I'm trying to create this cornice for renderings. In an old forum I saw someone say Revit drawn dentils are too intensive and a waste of time.

[barthbradley]

The Line Based Dentil Family is not an Adaptive Family. LT should be able to create a Line Based Array Family.  My suggestion would be to Array the Dentil, make it a Work Plane-Based Family, then nest it into another Family and host to a Ref Line that you can change the angle of parametrically.  The Angle would equal the angle of the Rake Board on the Gable side of the Roof in the Project - or whatever angle you choose. 

 

[J_Lewis87]

Thanks. I looked at your arrayed family.  It's a bit beyond my current family making skill level. I'll have to play around with it and see if I can better understand the parts.

[barthbradley · Accepted solution]

Open and Examine the "Dentil B" Family in the attached "Dentil_030621.rvt", as well as the "Dentil A" Family nested into the "Dentil B" Family. I think you'll see it is a fairly straight-forward, easy-to-follow assembly.   

[J_Lewis87]

Thank you.  I started my own family and then copied the parameters from the example. It wasn't that easy, but I got it to work nicely.

I now think the arrayed family is a better solution than the rail solution because it works in concert with the way Revit intends wall cornices and raking cornices to work at the top of walls and gables.

[J_Lewis87]

So I thought I'd solved my problems:

And then realized I'd committed Classical heresy. The dentils are supposed to be perpendicular to the ground. Can the array accommodate the gable angle and remain perpendicular to the ground? If not, it's back to the rail command:

[barthbradley]

Like this?

[J_Lewis87]

Not quite, the bottom of the dentils needs to conform to the slope.

I used the railing command to make dentil "balusters," omitting any rails and got this:

[barthbradley]

Easy enough to modify the family I just gave you to do that. Only one sketch line in the extrusion needs to be changed and it's angle driven the same parameter the drives the opposing side's sketch line angle.  

[J_Lewis87]

Quick question for you, though. If you were to put a sloped profile on top of the horizontal cornice, how would you go about doing it, a little roof?  If I put the slope into the profile it would extend beyond the gable.  I'm just trying to identify good practice vs Revit hacks that can work but make a mess of the drawing.

[barthbradley]

Hard to visualize what you are describing.  Got pictures? 

[barthbradley]

[J_Lewis87]

Your arrayed solution is master class level.

Sloped cornice is shown as the shaded part. In my example it would extend from one side to the other.