Interference? Verify and Analyze This!

Transcription

1 11/30/2005-3:00 pm - 4:30 pm Room:N. Hemispheres (Salon A2) (Dolphin) Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort Orlando, Florida David Butts - CADRE Systems Inc. ME34-1 In Autodesk Building Systems you can get Architectural Desktop functionality and 3D ability including how to draw walls, doors, columns and beams. We'll cover shortcuts, and tips and tricks such as seeing through walls so you can see the entire system you are designing. We'll also see how interference conditions work with structural objects, such as beams and columns. In addition, see how sections and elevations work. Still think you don't need to use Autodesk Building Systems? Come see why you should with every architectural design! About the Speaker: David is the senior application engineer for CADRE Systems Inc. of North Carolina. David has provided AutoCAD/Architectural Desktop/Building Systems technical training, consulting, and programming services for CADRE since He has been employed by major NC design firms as a designer and CAD manager since During this time, he has participated in product support exam writing, beta programs, and gunslinger events for Autodesk. David was awarded Arcadis's Quality in Action Award in 1996 for his work in CAD automation to improve production of digital telecom site drawings. He earned his AAS - Architecture degree from Wake Technical College in davidb@cadresys.com

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3 Introduction For years, CAD use in most A/E firms has revolved around creating 2D geometry (that we ve affectionately referred to as analog CAD ) to create representations of what s going on in the real world. Now, with tools such as Autodesk s Architectural Desktop and Building Systems, you can create working environments that give the user a better idea of what s going on in the building beyond the flat earth that we ve been working on. In this session we re going to review how a building model gets created in Architectural Desktop, and how a Building Systems user can take advantage of this tool to better coordinate and design their portion of the building. Topics: 1 Welcome to Architectural Desktop 2006! - The Rules - Setting the Work Environment - Reviewing the Palettes - Adding Walls, Columns and Beams - Referencing in the Architectural Base 2 Bringing the HVAC Objects into Play - Setting up the Options - Adding Terminals and Duct - Interference Conditions - Haloed Lines 3 The Annotation Tools - Adding a Section Cut and 2D Section - Revising 2D Sections - Enabling Live Sections 2

4 Welcome to Architectural Desktop 2006! The Rules Before we get started, let s set some ground rules. By following these rules (well, they re really more like guidelines) life will be much easier when working with this program. Here are a few critical ones: - Always start from a predefined template that contains your layer key styles, text styles, dimension styles and predefined layers. Architectural users may also want to include property set definitions or material definitions; PME users would also need to include system definitions, preferences and drawing specific options such as interference conditions (which we ll get to later). Create one for architectural base plans and one for the engineering drawings. Use the AEC Model (Imperial CTB).dwt templates for the architectural version, or ABS model (Imperial CTB).dwt for the PME version. - For the quickest way to make changes, pick the object with the left mouse button, then right-click. A context sensitive menu will appear with tools that are specific to changing that object. If more than one object is selected, the popup menu will change to show tools that are common to all of the items. - Read the command line it tells you what s going on with the commands you ve chosen. - Slow Down! Give the system time to let the tooltips appear these messages will give you information about the objects you re hovering over. They re also helpful when using the OTrack tools for finding reference points. - Always use Building System snaps, object snaps, and accurate distances when creating a plan. It s always fun to get a drawing where objects are eyeballed together. The most accurate way to locate items are to place them using direct distance entry, object snaps, or polar snaps. This assures accuracy when doing takeoffs and calculations, and also assures that your systems are connected. - Create the architectural plan as a separate drawing, and then insert it as an xref in the background. This way when the plan changes, the background are always updated. A plan created with Architectural Desktop objects will also lighten itself when inserted into a drawing started from the ABS templates and items like duct work will still detect objects such as columns even when they re in a referenced base file. Setting the Work Environment A typical Building Systems installation can include setting up an Architectural Desktop and AutoCAD profile. If you haven t installed the software yet, make sure you choose this option when prompted. This allows a user to change quickly back and forth between plain AutoCAD, ADT and ABS. The quick way to do this is to right click on the command line and choose options. 3

5 Once the dialogue is displayed, go to the profiles tab, then double click on the Architectural Desktop profile this will set the work environment up to show the architectural tools. Reviewing the Palettes Now that the Architectural environment is current, let s take a look around. The majority of pull down menus and commands are the same since this is built on AutoCAD. Architectural Desktop adds commands that are specific to the physical building, just as Building Systems has tools that are specific to HVAC, piping, electrical and plumbing. Just as in ABS, there are palettes that are organized to help the user find the tools they need in quick fashion. 4

6 Palettes are organized into groups to change the groups, pick on the box in the lower left corner a popup menu will appear and allow you to change between design, document and detailing tools. The trick with using these palettes is to remember this rule after picking a palette tool, look at the properties palette it tells you what s going on with the object you selected the style, size and other information about how that object is going to be created. 5

7 Adding Walls, Columns and Beams Let s add a wall from the Design palette, double click on the Wall tool before picking a point to start from, move the mouse over the properties palette - here s an example of what it will look like: The style determines how the wall is constructed and you can import other types into your drawing from a series of master drawings as well. Cleanup groups help to sort walls into conditions for exterior walls, interior walls, demountable partitions and others, as well as existing and demolition types. Some walls also allow the user to assign a width to the wall and nearly all allow the user to set the height of the wall. You don t have to be a 3D master CAD user to use this tool you just need to know how tall a wall would be built. Once a wall is added, the user can pick and right click on the wall, then choose Properties from the bottom of the pop-up and get this menu to make changes to the wall. 6

8 We ll place a couple of walls to show you how simple the tool is to use. Everything here is drawn actual size meaning if a wall is 20 long, we draw it 20 long the annotation objects are what gets scaled. Now let s add some structural objects. From the design palette you can start by adding a column grid. Grids are vastly improved, as they can use a closed polyline or a space to create a boundary. When adding the grid, from the properties palette, choose the Select Object option next to the boundary prompt then pick the object you ve created to act as the boundary. 7

9 After the grid is placed, you can move or stretch the boundary to get it to fit to the area you want to fill. Another option is to choose a column style to place at the gridline intersections by preselecting a column type, you can go ahead and show columns at every intersection on the grid and they can be easily changed even after they re placed. 8

10 In this example we see a column grid that s missing a few columns. If you want to place a column that s anchored to the grid after the grid has already been placed, just use the Structural Column tool from the palette and then select the grid. Any column that you place close to an intersection will automatically place itself at that intersection, using a node to anchor itself. You can also place a column out in space simply by hitting Enter when prompted to select a grid then you can place the column anywhere you want. One quick item to note (you re working in 3D don t tell anyone) when you place a wall or column and assign it a height, you re adding most of the 3D information you need to make a model. Congratulations you re becoming a 3D expert. To see the 3D model, let s change to an isometric view. 9

11 Cool stuff and the objects only take on 3D snap points when you re in a 3D view. Otherwise, when you re in a plan view, you re always snapping on the 0,0 plane no need to worry about lines with different Z values. It s time to add our columns we ll stay in an isometric view so we can pick the tops of our columns as a reference point. Don t forget to turn the shading back to 2D wire frame tool if you ve turned it on. If there s too much going on across the screen, right mouse click and choose the Isolate Objects option from here you can isolate just your columns and grid, making it easier to see what s going on. 10

12 Now that you ve isolated the grid and columns, let s set our osnap to just choose node points. Right click on the OSNAP button on the status bar at the bottom of the screen, then clear all the snaps but node. Go back to the palette and choose the Structural Beam tool. Remember to check your properties palette before you pick a start point. From here you can tell it what type of beam we want to place. Notice how similar the properties of a beam are to a column this continuity makes it easier to learn how to use these tools. Change the style to a different style while adding beams, and the next one you place will be the new style. 11

13 After placing a couple of beams we find out we need some additional styles. To load up from the master list, go to the Format pull down and choose the structural member catalog. From here you have all of the AISC shapes no need to make a big symbol library, just create it as you need it! 12

14 And concrete shapes timber shapes metric shapes.etc, etc, etc. Choose the Shape designation you want, then (you guessed it) right click choose generate member style, and it s added to your current drawing. We ll add the W12x45. As you start to draw, you can snap to the node at the top of the column pick a start point, then an end point and you can keep right on picking endpoints, creating a continuous series of beams. Once they re placed, you ll see the beams anybody seen a layer being set current yet? 13

15 We ll go ahead and place a few beams so you can see how this works. Once we re finished, we can save this as our building base. Referencing in the Architectural Base One productive feature of Building Systems is that it can comprehend architectural objects even when they re brought into a PME drawing as an xref since they re objects, they ll still act and 14

16 behave as though you have them in the same drawing as your duct and pipe but definitely don t want to work directly in the architects drawing because they like to change things. So let s start a new drawing (remember rule 1!) and we ll bring this file in as a reference file. I use the attach option for all of my reference files, simply because an attached reference will let me drill down several layers to get scheduling data. An overlay xref will only allow you to drill down one layer so the base has to be directly in the file you want to pull scheduling data out for labels, etc. Check it out the background is already lightened up it automatically assigns all of the ADT objects to layer a-anno-scrn which is assigned to print with my light screened pen. That ll save about an hour s worth of work.right? 15

17 Now we re ready to start laying out the duct work. Let s change back to the Building Engineering - US Imperial profile. Right click on the command line, choose options and double click on the profile to set it current and back in the engineering world! 16

18 Bringing the HVAC Objects into Play Setting up the Options Now we can start to add some duct. Wait before we do this. Let s check some settings. Go to the options menu and scroll down to the right, until you get to the Building Systems Layout Rules tab. From this tab we can set up how we want interference conditions (such as Duct through Beam problems) to show up. Right now it s set not to alert us but we re picky and like to know early on when we have a conflict. We ll check the alert box and leave the color set to red so it really shows up. 17

19 Adding Terminals and Duct Now that this is done, we can add a few HVAC objects. Open up the tool palette ad go to the HVAC Equipment tab. We ll start by adding a few air terminals, so choose the Add Air Terminal tool. Notice how the tool opens the Add MvParts dialogue, right to the library of air terminals. We ll add a perforated face diffuser, with a 6 x6 rectangular neck and 24 x24 face. Check the elevation let s make sure we don t put in on the floor, so use 8 for a ceiling height. We ll add a perforated face diffuser, with a 6 x6 rectangular neck and 24 x24 face. Check the elevation let s make sure we don t put in on the floor and use 8 for a ceiling height. Here s a tip check your OSnap settings when you re placing items like air terminals, and you have an ADT ceiling object to work with, turn off all of your snaps but the node snap the intersection of the grid lines contains very convenient node snaps. 18

20 After placing a few of these around the rooms, we ll connect duct work. Switch to the Duct Design tab and choose the Add Duct tool. This will open the Add Duct dialogue. From here we can set items like elevation, system, justification and preferences for fittings, etc. But since we placed a terminal that has a size assigned to it, let s just move over to the terminal and make a connection. Building Systems uses its own type of object snaps these building snaps allow parts and duct to connect to each other and create a system. This allows a user to assign sizes, flow, etc. to a system as well as import and export sizing information from third part applications such as Elite and Trane. To make the connections work smoother, after placing your equipment, turn the OSnaps off they just get in the way of the Building System Snaps, which are turned on by default. 19

21 See how the duct will change it s elevation to match the top of the air terminal. We ll go ahead and connect up the duct. Keep your eye on the model and plan views when we re done we should see where our interference conditions are. 20

22 Interference Conditions An interference condition is created when any ABS object makes contact with another ABS object or with an ADT structural object. Other ADT items (such as walls, doors) will not show an interference condition. As soon as we cross the duct into a structural object, the program shows a red box where the interference has occurred giving us the chance to change our duct elevation to a different height. We can also see in our shaded model view on the right where we have a problem if we change this back to the 2D wireframe shade mode, we ll see the red interference condition. If you didn t go through the options step of turning the interference alert on, you can always turn it on after the fact- the program will go back and highlight every interference condition. 21

23 Haloed Lines Let s take a look at what happens when other ABS objects items cross over each other at different elevations. We ll add a run of duct that s at a different elevation over to one of our unconnected terminals. See how the lower duct is modified to show itself with dashed lines? This is called a haloed line effect no matter where the items cross, the lower items will always show up this way. This is controlled by our ABS display representations the Haloed Line representation set is the default set for the ABS Floor display which is set in the lower right corner of the screen area. Haloed lines are also displayed in the ABS Ceiling display as well without ever having to turn a layer on or off. 22

24 The Annotation Tools Adding a Section Cut We ve gone ahead and created a partially complete model so we can take a look at how we can begin to use some of the annotation tools to give us a better idea of what s going on with the building. To do this need to switch to our annotation tab on our toll palette. Notice that there are already tools on the palette to help us create a section cut on the building. This isn t your good old section cut block that you ve been using for years (although it does strangely resemble a nationally recognizable section cut symbol that s used by nearly every A/E firm on the planet). It s actually a tool called a callout, which can pull its number information from the sheet it s placed on if you re using the project navigator or sheet sets. Let place a section cut and see what we can do with it. 23

25 After picking your points and choosing a view direction, you ll get this dialogue. This will allow you to either place the section cut symbol without any link to the model, or you could create a 2D elevation object right in this drawing let s choose current drawing and place the elevation. The result should wind up something like this: Revising a 2D Section Now you can change the properties of the section and see how it can be displayed pick and right click, then go to properties and see how the view is changed. 24

26 After adding some additional items you ll need to update the section view. Pick the 2D Section object, right click and regenerate the section notice how the section is revised. Additional objects can be added or removed automatically and this is much quicker than drawing sections from scratch! 25

27 Enabling a Live Section Finally, we need to go ahead and take a look through the building and see what s happening at different locations throughout the building. The Live Section gives us a real time cut plane that shows what s happening at a given plane. To generate a live section view, pick and right click on the section cut object that s connected to your symbols, and choose Enable Live Section. After you re done, change to a SW Isometric view. This creates a cutaway view and it can be shaded for additional effects. The section can also be changed by simply moving the section line it s that easy! These are few examples of how Building Systems can help you get a better idea of what s going on in your designs now you re more coordinated than ever! For more information on how Building Systems and Architectural Desktop can help your production process, please call us at or by visiting our website at 26

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