AB400-1 In this session, students will learn how to create families for posts,
balusters, panels, railings, and stair nosing. Focusing on design for high-end commercial
and residential projects, this class will dive directly into the use of the family Editor to
physically build the components needed. Once the families are established, the class will
move to Assembly in the project to expose the difficulties designers face. The commercial
portion of the class will cover extruded steel with glass panels; the residential portion will
cover custom handrails and raised panels. You’ll also learn how to design winding and
spiral staircases, as well as to create custom materials with wood hatching that you can
apply to the stair components to give the stairs and railings your personal touch.
Let’s start with a tread. We want a bull nose on the face of the tread with a cove below. This is a very
common profile. We need to make a family.
Apply the settings illustrated below. The most important part is the profile we have loaded.
Landings
Design Challenge:
Any “custom” staircase needs a landing.
Not a bottom step with round ends, but a landing.
There is really nothing built into the Revit stair modeling
tool to address this. Therefore, a family needs to
be developed. Once it is developed you have full control over
its functionality independent of the actual stairs.
Open Baluster.rft
Notice that many of the tricky reference planes are already established. Feel lucky here, because we
will not be so fortunate when we try to add a post to the ends of the railings. There will be much sadness.
Add the ref planes as shown below and dimension them accordingly.
Note: Spindles are inherently much smaller in scale than we are used to in
Revit. I have changed my scale to 1:1.
Add additional ref planes above the top, and below the bottom.
Dimension them
Draw a profile. Mine may be different from yours. Remember that the profile needs to form a closed
loop.
If you have multiple flutes and arcs, remember that it is a good idea to lock them to the ref planes.
Finish Sketch
Call it Left.
Using the pick lines Outline the angle and the other reference planes.
For the extrusion end, click on the small button at the right of the row.
Select thickness
Rail Panels
Design Challenge: If there is a need for panels.
No, not that glass panel that Revit gives us, but panels man!
Raised panels? Mission style panels? These are families.
Open: Baluster-Panel.rft
EQ the dimensions
Dimension it
Offset the second rail distance ref plane ¾” (19) to either side.
Dimension it
Add the stile rail width parameter to the 1-1/2” (38) dimension.
Solid Form > Solid Extrusion
Using the pick option, pick the ref planes that comprise the outline of the mission style panel. Be sure
to have no gaps or overlapping lines. Revit will become angry. And we all know what happens when Revit
becomes angry!
For the Extrusion end, select the little button to the right of the row.
Select thickness
On the materials and Finishes group, there is a Material row. You will notice the same little button to
the right of the dialog. Pick it.
We have not created a material parameter yet, so this next dialog will be empty. There is, however,
an Add Parameter… button which will allow us to create the parameter “on the fly”.
Call it material
Baluster Post.rfa
Ref. Plane
Dimension it.
Add a parameter called base height. This is grouped under dimensions, and is a type parameter.
Dimension the top two ref planes.
Draw a rectangle based on the ref planes defining the base. If you wish, you can add radial
corners.
When prompted for a reference plane, this time you need to select the left / right plane.
Once the lines are drawn in, dimension and lock them.
Open the railing family we did last week (or any railing that you want to use).
Select the left half of the lines and copy them to the clipboard.
Finish Sketch
Dimension
Ref Plane
Dimension it
Ref Plane
Offset this reference plane 3” (76) from the gooseneck drop offset line.
Dimension it
Reference lines
Draw an angled reference line from the gooseneck extension into stair to gooseneck drop offset.
See the illustration which takes up the next page. I have check marked the new reference planes as
well. Be sure you have the same.
Align and lock the end points of the angled reference line.
Go to Family Types…
Flex anything you can think of. At this point you really need to try to see if you can break this thing.
Reference Lines…
Draw reference lines tracing over the ref planes we have set up which define the gooseneck.