Saturday, December 21, 2013

Railing without a Host

I wrote a post in July 2008 called Railing Over Wall, it was focused on this kind of condition.


This post revisits the same technique with 2014 and a different notion of a host element. The key to doing this is in the properties of the sketched line segments of the railing. This image depicts how three segments were created so they can be altered, each segment numbered 1-3.


These are the segment settings for #1, Slope: Flat and Height Correction: By Type.


These are the segment settings for #2, Slope: Sloped and Height Correction: By Type.


These are the segment settings for #3, Slope: Flat and Height Correction: Custom and 4'-0".


If we don't need a horizontal railing section at the top we can alter the sketch and use different settings for segment #2. If we do that these are the segment settings for #2, Slope: Sloped and Height Correction: Custom and 4'-0".


These are the two different sketch based railings side by side. The lower railing is missing its horizontal starting section. I just made the sketch of the first segment tiny so Revit would know what the starting elevation is. Without it I'd end up with a horizontal railing at 4'-0", aligned with the upper horizontal beam.


The line at the base of the railing is a tiny profile that is needed to host the bottom of the balusters. Without that bottom railing to terminate against they'd go to the lowest elevation of the railing (flat). I could offset the sacrificial railing so that it slips below the surface of the beam but in this case I wasn't worried about it. If you find it distracting this is what doing it looks like, though the balusters not finishing cleanly at the top of the beam may be more distracting.


Btw, the Beam Join tool was used to the get the beams to clean up.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I tried this and my railing is still not sloping at my ada ramp. Can you advise? The flat parts are segmented and correct.

Steve said...

If you've used a ramp then it can host the railing directly without bothering to do what I wrote about.

Hard to say why yours isn't working without more clues, sorry.

Anonymous said...

I've tried using this method on a sloped floor. The top railing follows the slope of the floor, but the balusters and glass all stop, as if they've hit some sort of invisible horizontal line. The error message I get is "top reference is below bottom reference for one or more balusters. These balusters are not created." No changes when I change the type of railing. Any ideas?

Steve said...

There should be no need to use this technique on a sloped floor as they can host a railing directly. 2017 can also host railings with more elements too.