VisualARQ for structure

Hi everyone,
I’m a student majoring structure.

I want to make steel structure model including the detail of connection such as gusset plate and bolt.

I guess VA can do it, but I don’t know how to modify VA settings…

Does anyone know how to do it?

Here attached is image of model.

Best,
Shimpei

example

Hi Shimpei, you can create these connectors and plates with Rhino geometry. You can create blocks out of them and assign them to create VisualARQ “Element” styles (vaElementStyles). If you want to create them as parametric objects, you can use a Grasshopper style on the VisualARQ “Element” object.

1 Like

Hi fslla,
Thank you for replying me.

I’ll try the method you suggested.

Best
Shimpei

1 Like

Hi, I will use the example to express my suggestion for further VA development.
Would be nice if we could in VA GH styles reference other objects (including VA objects) existing in the scene. For example - make GH style of “element” that would allow (or even require - ask for picking after insertion) to reference two beams and after that it would create parametric connection adjusted to beams location, type etc.
That would be great for example for creating walls toppings, perimeter beams around slabs and many many more. But for it to work even better, it would be great if VA objects could store some kind of “custom geometrical attributes” - which could work similar as walls storing construction curves, windows storing profiles, slabs storing their region etc, but would be customizable. For example I make my GH styled roof and I want to expose data like the curves where gutters or snow fences should be placed, which could be accessed by referencing the object and extracting custom geometrical attributes. Please, consider that to be a big wish :slight_smile:

Thank you in advance!

1 Like

You can already reference VisualARQ object styles (including GH styles) inside definitions for new GH styles, but you cannot select VisualARQ objects in the model as inputs for inserting new styles, as you explain in your examples. We can work on this feature for the future versions.

Hello, I have pretty the same question:

are there any tools so I can efficiently draw such details with bolts and welds and then make full documentation (material lists / assembly drawings)? Drawing bolts in rhino sounds pretty time-consuming. Do you have any examples of steel details / drawings in VisualARQ? It would be perfect tool if I could use it also as a structure designer.

Best regards :slight_smile:

Hi @w.radaczynski
VisualARQ can help you with these requests:

Bolts and Welds:
As mentioned above (in the first reply to shimpei of this thread) you can create these structural elements as Rhino geometry objects, or as VisualARQ elements (created from blocks or from GH definitions, if you want them to be parametric).

Assembly drawings:
VisualARQ provides the Hidden display mode that lets you print the 3D model (in plan view, sectionv view or 3D view) to vector output. (This video shows it: https://youtu.be/1qdNB5v_fwE).

On the other hand there are the vaPlanView and vaSectionView command that let you generate 2D drawings of plan and section views respectively.

In both cases, the level of detail VisualARQ provides relies on the level of detail of the 3D geometry (and also on the absolute tolerance of your document units).

Material lists:
Either if you create the different parts of the model as Rhino blocks, solids or VisualARQ Element objects, you can assign custom parameters to them and list them in tables. In this video you can see how it works (in that case, with openings): https://youtu.be/rdX7I79qTTI

1 Like