All buildings have roofs and roofs with big spans are not so rare. To cover such roofs, we usually use trusses. They are easy to assemble, require less material and solve problem of big gaps between structural supports.
While engineers work with Autodesk® Revit® they have a possibility to insert Truss families, but this process is not the best thing you can experience in your life. Sample truss families can help you in only very standard situations, but if you need to model different shapes of trusses with different top and bottom chord lines, then you’ll have to work many hours on preparations of new parametric families which will also be a big headache unless you don’t need to do this every day.
That’s why we create special tools for roof framing- to reduce stress and improve efficiency of engineers’ work. In our framing packages for wood and light steel gauge structures, we have BIM solutions Wood Framing Truss+ RT and Metal Framing Truss+ for truss modeling. Our applications support engineers with a pack of tools to automatically create/update roof truss systems, adjust them to the roof shape, cut/cope elements, create assemble drawings etc.
Within our solutions for wood and steel truss modeling we have one powerful tool Truss Builder, which should be discussed separately. Truss Builder lets you create new truss type using model lines and roofs. Procedures are as follows:
- Draw straight or broken model line (usually at the top of a wall) – it will be used for the bottom chord of your new type truss.
Go to the plan view, draw model line
from start point to end point.
If you want to change its shape – use
command
Create Section View From Model Line. After that you will be redirected
to the section view where you can draw model line easily, because work plane is
setup for you automatically.
2. Select the model line and choose command Create Truss Type from Model Lines Lines (this will open Truss Builder):
3. You will be asked to select roof – do that. The roof shape will be used to create truss Top chord. You’ll see Truss Builder window – bottom chord as model line and top chord as roof shape.
4. Add webs simply by drawing lines using snap points, from one node to other. After you finish – click OK.
5. In the new dialog box, enter descriptive information and click OK:
6. That’s it – just a few easy steps and you have a new parametric truss family, new type generated.
Note:
Steel elements have predefined eccentricities in connection points and wooden elements are cut and coped to each other.
Check out the images below to see more possibilities of Truss Builder feature:
Using BIM solutions Wood Framing Truss+ RT and Metal Framing Truss+ you can try to compare Truss Builder possibilities with your current workflow. Hope, you’ll be surprised when you’ll see how much time Truss Builder has saved.
