Ref Planes

[Anonymous]

I have few questions about reference planes within the structural beam & braces family Template. 

when to draw beam conc/steel from,

1. ref plane Left to ref plane right

2. member left to member right

3. stick symbol left to stick symbol right

Thanks in advance

[sureshchotrani]

Its actually the name of the reference plane.

[Anonymous]

hi Suresh,

First thankx for taking time to reply my post,

In the default rft. file the beam is drawn from Member left to member right. So is there any reason to hv another two ref planes in the template file which is Ref plane left and right 

I m not sure why they are in family template file.

 whats the quickest way to find out

Spoiler

[sureshchotrani · Accepted solution]

Reference plane left & right will give you length of beam & membered left & right will probably give cut lenght.

See here

When you join two beams you will have different length & cut lenght value:)

[Anonymous]

Thank you Suresh,

Here is few interesting things I found what they exactly do 

The left and right reference planes determine length of framing and allow connections to other structural members.
So if a column moves the beam attached will stretch automatically.
Member left and member right refer to the physical extents of the geometry.
For instance you could connect a beam to a column with right RP (represented by the blue dot in project).
Then drag member right (represented by the arrows) past the column for a cantilever, so when the column moves the beam will stretch accordingly and the cantilever will remain the same distance from column.
Some more reading in links below for structural framing