Steel Truss weight

[Tom_Bionda]

Hi All,

Action: 1. Modeling steel truss in Revit, setting up geometry, fine shaping (notching etc.).

             2. Making truss schedule

Issue: Taking Revit out of the box Structural Truss schedule gives almost equal to zero information for final consumer.

What can be done so that Structural Truss schedule becomes at least populated with information how it is populated in BOM list that comes with Advance steel?

Yes there is work around to achieve wanted through Structural framing schedule and creating some project parameteres. But then why having Structural Truss schedule as a part of Revit package that comes with product (almost like buying a car with 7th gear but that gear doesn't actually work). I know there are people who are sharing this a bit frustrating experience (maybe they know the solution for this issue).

If I am doing something wrong in steps, please tell me.

Kind Regards

[jay_colc · Accepted solution]

I do not think there is a way around this other then manually adding a Mark or other type of Reference to the Elements within the Truss which could then be Filtered in a Structural Framing Schedule.

• If you Window Select the whole Truss from the Properties Palette you can use the Drop down Selector to pick all Webs/Chords and Apply a reference parameter here from the blank parameters available.
• This will allow you to filters the Structural Framing via this reference just for the Truss elements

You could create a Structural Framing Schedule for Structural Usage and use the Chord and Web Parameter's as a filter but if you have lots of trusses this is an issue!

[Tom_Bionda]

Hi @jay_colc ,

Thank you for the response, yes I've done things following your steps by adding mark or other type of ref. to the elements within the truss and then filtered them out using Structural framing schedule. I obtained wanted and provided information in the way that other drawing users can use information. 

Maybe I am mixing apples and pears, but truss is most of the time treated as assembly, meaning work shop guys will use drawing and its information to create that assembly to put later on truck and ship it to buyer.

Advance steel makes it to work that way, than I worked in Revit and found that Revit has out of box Structural Truss schedule which I thought it will provide me with all necessary information just like Advance steel BOM list, at the end it did not. So I am disappointed (but being very enthusiastic at the beginning), sorry, I do want to create constructive post, not just complaining one, but I also think that things need to be communicated.

There is also "Assmeblies" schedule but that schedule also doesn't provide weight parameter, or even other parameters such as Cut length to then make little formula to calculate total or linear weight. 

Overall, since there was the announcement of putting Advance steel in maintenance mode and Revit is going to be improved regarding structural modeling and detailing, I hope things like this will be part of that improvement.

I attached Revit Structural Truss schedule and Structural framing schedule.

Thank you for your time and giving me attention.

Kind Regards 

[jay_colc]

Hi Tom,

No problem, these forums are a good sounding board and I'm sure an Autodesk employee may drop in at some point to check on users issues and sometimes discontent so even more useful 🙂

The Truss as an structural item question has been raised many a time and added to the Revit Ideas also as many times. In my opinion trusses in Revit were for representation purposes only and then would have been worked out in Steel Design/Fabrication software's.  I do not envisage Advanced Steel going away so it is still an more than adequate tool and until you can repeat the same processes in Revit it is still very relevant.  Obviously Autodesk's decision no longer to support it means they have to ensure they can achieve the same goals in Revit.

If this is any help there is a link below that I saw on the Structural Roadmap for Revit which is directly linked to this topic which may be worth a read and hopefully give you a bit more encouragement on this topic.

Revit - Structure Roadmap - AEC Tech Drop (autodesk.com)

https://portal.productboard.com/y7sfay7zn7yb6rpd43kz2uva/c/708-truss-enhancements?&utm_medium=social...

[piotr_pysz]

@Tom_Bionda thank you for your feedback and @jay_colc for chiming in and providing more context!

I added the feedback regarding Trusses and Assemblies functionalities to the Roadmap.