Horizontal Truss?

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to model the top and bottom portions of a pipe bridge. A truss family for the sides worked great! But i'm struggling finding any smart way to do the beams and horizontal braces in plan. I've messed around with the 'Structural Framing - Complex and Trusses' template, but couldn't get anything usable. One problem I had was when I bring in Beams, like in the truss family, they don't snap to anything. And I need to create my own coarse linework. What template should I start with and what is a good workflow? Thanks. 

[dzanta]

Hi Bthatcher,

if you can send me an image of what you are trying to build, I can help you figure it out or just build it for you.

Dzan

[Anonymous]

I have hidden the sides as the truss family handles them well. In the image I actually don't even need the continuous members as they are actually the top and bottom chord of the truss.

An example would be great, my preference is to learn how to do this. Thank you for your time.

[dzanta]

You mean like this....?  I also attached the revit file too.

[dzanta]

you can also model each individual structural member as beams (horizontal and vertical) and make sure they connect properly.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your reply! I haven't installed 2017 so I haven't checked out your example. But from your image it looks like you rotated a truss 90 degrees. I experimented with that also. But since you cant adjust the top and bottom chord member justification locating it in the correct place was difficult. Not to mention the cleanup with the trusses i'm using on the sides.

Can the Beams and Braces or Complex and Trusses family templates be used to model this? Thanks.

[dzanta]

Yes.  You can use any of the default structural template files to start the creation of a custom beam/truss/etc. for use with your design.  Thinking about your request yesterday, I think the best approach would be for you to either create each member and assemble it like a lego structure or you can use the Revit Extensions and within the extensions, there is a Frame Generator.  You can use this to create a basic starting frame and then modify each member to your liking.

[Joe.Charpentier · Accepted solution]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thank you for your reply! I haven't installed 2017 so I haven't checked out your example. But from your image it looks like you rotated a truss 90 degrees. I experimented with that also. But since you cant adjust the top and bottom chord member justification locating it in the correct place was difficult. ....

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It is possible to modify the Justification, Rotation, and Location parameters so that the Truss chords can be placed where you want in relation to the Truss sketch.  This will allow you to set the overall height of the truss.

Hover over the element that you want to change, then press the tab key until the element (not the truss) is prehighlighted, and click to select it. ("Tab-Select")

While the beam element is selected, a Pin icon is visible.  Click on the Pin icon, and the Truss chord's positioning parameters will become active.

You can modify the Z-Direction justification of the chord beams so that the Truss's "height" parameter now represents the overall height of the truss, not the center-to-center height.

In addition, you can select the truss elements and uncheck "Create Top Chord" or "Create Bottom Chord", then align your truss sketches for your horizontal trusses with your vertical trusses, and use a horizontal truss to drive your horizontal elements.

Joe

[Anonymous]

This is useless if you intend to document the truss on plan because all you would see is a line denoting the bottom chord.