I totally understand that there are complexities with it. And I don't think anyone expects it to just work perfectly in all situations. That being said, there are objective fundamental shortcomings with the tool. Shortcomings that anyone who knows anything about rebar reinforcement should immediately notice as lacking. If the dev team working on this needs help understanding the importance of this functionality, respectfully, you need some more expertise on that team. And ideally before the tool is released, not after.
Getting feedback from the community is great for some more advanced functionality. But we shouldn't have to essentially start a petition and convince others that tools like this should simply work better from the start. Things like having the clear cover settings be ignored by something simple like adding a slope should never happen. Even in slabs/walls with varying thickness, having the rebar follow the minimum clear cover parameters of the slab as a default shouldn't even be a question.
To answer your questions;
Yes, most of the time the slab, especially exterior slabs, you only need a simple slope via a slope arrow. Currently the rebar will follow that slope but ignores the clear cover at the head and tail ends of the slope arrow. On a diagonal slope, all perimeter clear cover settings are ignored. I can't think of any reason I would want that to happen, and the only solution is to modify the boundary of the area reinforcement which causes additional lines on your plans (unless you hide the boundary).
For varying thickness, or even consistent thickness, a minimum clear cover should always be maintained. If I need the rebar to do something more complex, I can use other tools such as free-form to accomplish this.
- In a simple example of a flat slab with a sub-element modified slope at one edge, or slope to middle (floor drain), the rebar should follow the clear cover settings as best as possible. The top layer and bottom should act somewhat independently where the top bars should simply maintain a clear cover and match the shape of the slab (constraints permitting) and the bottom stays flat. Even just maintaining the clear cover as if it wasn't shape modified at all would be better. Right now when you have this type of shape modified slab the clear cover settings are completely ignored on all faces and you need to manually adjust "additional cover offset" as well as the area boundary.
Walls should work the same way. There may be additional functionality that would be nice for walls but the idea board is a perfect place for things like that.
Fabric sheets I honestly don't use much at all, so I'm probably not the best person to comment on that. But like i mentioned previously, following clear cover settings as a minimum should always be the default.
Openings and voids also don't work well currently. If anything cuts into the surface of the slab, even by 1mm, the rebar acts like the object is cutting completely through and cuts both the top and bottom bars at that point. Again, this is where the top and bottom layers should act independently (as they would like you are actually laying the rebar). And there often is no need to cut anything until the void cuts deep enough to interfere with the rebar. Even an override to remove the cuts in the rebar would help here.
