By Dennis Collin
Revit is an excellent tool for modelling buildings, however when modelling certain bespoke site elements, many users struggle to achieve what they want to build. In a previous post in Part 1, I highlighted how railings could be used to show features such as coping stones for walls, especially when walls have chamfers applied to their vertical profiles.
Recently Revit introduced walls that could be slanted, coupled with being curved and angled, creates additional issues that the railing tool cannot solve. However, a useful alternative option can be employed by using Revit’s structural beam tool. Like a railing, beams can be defined by a 2D profile family and then be assigned to a sweep within a structural framing component.
Once the profile is assigned to the sweep, materials and other properties can be set with the beam then loaded into the relevant project/template.
Once the bespoke beam is loaded, the beam can be placed by the ‘Pick Edge’ function as per the image below. Beams have many options to place with height and lateral offset adjustments for minor corrections.
Unlike railings the beam is not hosted to the wall, so it will not move with the wall. However, this issue could be overcome just by grouping the individual components.