Pattern-Based Curtain Panel Roof Tile

There are many interesting ways to use Revit's pattern-based curtain walls and panels, and this is one that must have occurred to many users when the capability was introduced in version 2010.

My recent work on smaller scale residential buildings provided the opportunity to develop the technique.

Traditionally in Revit roofing tiles have been represented by a "roof object" with a surface pattern and thickness. The line-based families I had previously created for hip, ridge and rake tiles are great for enhancing 3D views and also elevations to some degree, but these views were still very "flat" - resulting from the imported surface pattern (displayed at an angle) and the lack of definition of the foremost edge of the roof material.

Pattern-based curtain panels are capable of stretching and deforming over complex surfaces. In addition, panels are automatically trimmed along angular edges, which is essential for accurately depicting the hips and valleys of these roof types.

Starting with the Curtain Panel Pattern Based.rfa template set to a 12" x 12" grid  two coincident profiles are blended into a tapered 'S' tile with a 2 inch overlap on the bottom edge.



In the building model roof structure and plywood  are separate objects. The roof tiles are hosted by an in-place mass family. With the workplane set to the surface of the plywood, a boundary line is drawn offset by a few inches from the edge of plywood. The purpose of the offset is to eliminate overlapping tiles. Use 2 inches at hips and edges, 3 inches at hips and valleys.


Selecting the closed boundary, the in-place mass is extruded from the plywood surface. A divided surface is applied to the bottom of this extruded form, with a fixed distance of 12 inches in both directions. The tapered S-tile panel family is applied to the grid. Component flip places the tiles above the plywood. Other settings allow fine tuning of the panel layout.

 

Go to the Files & Families tab above to download sample files. (Edit: directly upgradable from Version 2013.)

Slab Depression - Part 3

Revit facilitates an iterative process in which the output is constantly being improved. For many Revit is the antithesis to CAD, where, due to the complexity of the system, the goal of quality is often perceived to be an effect of consistency, which is pursued through standardization.

With Revit quality is seen to be an effect of innovation, within a modular system that supports and facilitates innovation. Once every year a new version brings new tools and functionality, to be implemented as needed, but in practice the improvements are incremental and continuous.

Soon after I deployed the Slab Depression families I received a request to slope the depressed surface to enable tagging with spot slopes. It was a fairly easy task to enhance the original void extrusion with a blend tapering from the outer boundary to a three inch square bottom surface representing the drain location. 


The depth of the depression, however, had to be set manually in order to achieve the desired slope, more or less by trial and error. 
The required depth for any slope is determined by the longest distance from the perimeter to the drain. 
An Internet search on "Revit conditional formula" led to this discovery on Autodesk WikiHelp:


if(A > D, if(A > C, if(A > B, A, B), if(B > C, B, C)), if(B > D, if(B > C, B, C), if(A > D, if(A > C, if(A > B, A, B), if(B > C, B, C)), if(B > D, if(B > C, B, C), if(C > D, C, D)))))


This is a conditional formula which by comparison returns the largest of four different values  originally posted  by 'ekkonap', a Revit user in the Netherlands, on www.revitforum.org.

The formula variables were equated to the four distances, and the depth calculated as a percentage (0.25/12). This slope factor could also assigned to a parameter.

The faces of the depression may be painted with floor materials, or for simplicity a level floor may be placed into the recess. As a serendipitous effect of this modeling strategy, the slope lines are now edges which can be transformed to hidden lines with the linework tool. 


Go to the Files and Families tab above to download "GEN_Slab Depression w Slope.zip

Ridge & Rake Tile Families

Line Based Tile Families -
When using Revit on small scale residential or commercial buildings, while we do not model individual roofing tiles, a more realistic appearance can be achieved by adding ridge, rake, and hip tiles to the model.

These families are derived from some very familiar ones which have been around for several years, their origin now obscure. The individual tiles are created using the geometry 'swept blend' with external profile families. This choice allows the profiles to be mirrored parametrically.
The tiles are nested into a line-based generic family and arrayed with constraints to the beginning and end. The tile spacing is variable 


I modeled a Revit roof for each roof pitch that we normally encounter, then used sections and detail views to determine the appropriate angle for each hip and ridge type.

Families are placed by drawing on a selected roof face, or by selecting a roof edge using the 'pick line' tool. (In some cases the families install opposite of the intended direction with this method.)

As the line-based family may be hosted to either face, a yes/no parameter is included to reverse the profile.


The roof tile material may be assigned in Object Styles > Generic Models > Roofing Tile.


With line based families, the Trim, extend and align tools are active and facilitate placement, as depicted in this short video...

The families may be downloaded from the 'Files and Families' tab above.

Slab Depression - Part 2

I stated that using Revit leads to expansive thinking. Often when I re-visit a recently-constructed family I add to it, enhance it or improve it in some way. When I began the previous post the drain annotation was not nested with equality constraints. That was an on-the-spot improvement. This is another example.

For the same project I also needed an L-shaped slab depression. Starting with the previous family, I added a second reference plane in each direction, and created additional instance parameters for each.

I added the slope lines and constrained their end points to the planes. That was fine as long as the floor drain was placed separately, but I realized that automatically locating it at the intersection of the slope lines was a challenge. 


After some deliberation, it occurred to me that the drain location could be established parametrically, and if the slope lines could be constrained to the corners of the object, I might also be able to lock them to the drain annotation object. This was accomplished by placing two grouped reference lines and constraining the slope line end-points to their intersection. 



New 'Offset' instance parameters were established to control the location. The drain annotation was aligned and locked to the reference lines.




I assigned the slope lines to a new subcategory 'Slab Depression Slope Lines' to allow view-specific visibility control.







When the object is highlighted in the model triangular grips appear for all parameters. I have also revised the original rectangular slab depression, incorporating these improvements.



Revit is expansive. 
For all three families download GEN_Slab-Depression.zip from the Files and Families tab above .

Quick Slab Depression

I'm working on a building that has several areas where the concrete floor slab must be depressed for ceramic tile finish and sloped for drainage. It would be easy to place a couple of hidden lines on the floor plan, drop in a 2D floor drain, and be done with it. That's what I did on the first pass. I soon realized that the slab depressions would also need to be shown on several other drawings: Slab Plan, Export Plan, Enlarged Plan, etc.

The general guideline for Revit is that if an object or feature appears in more than one view...

Model it!

I created a floor-based generic model containing a void extrusion with instance parameters to control the length, width and depth. I used symbolic lines for the hidden "slope to drain" lines as I prefer them to appear in plan only. I copied the generic annotation from the Floor Drain family and used equality constraints to locate it in the center of the family. Yes/no visibility parameters (Show Drain; Show Lines) allow the appearance of these to be controlled in the model.

As with all basic Revit families, this is just a starting point. The possibility for further development is apparent. 

• Multiple floor drains. 
• Sloped slab using a void blend below the extrusion.

Download 'GEN_Slab Depression.rfa from the Files and Families tab above.

~

Like architecture, great software doesn't just happen, it is designed. 

Revit is designed to be expansive. Operations are consistent, logical and intuitive. Learning is incremental and the curve is steep - which means users achieve high productivity in a relatively short time.