I may have missed something and they might do this automatically? But let’s say I’m tracing a PDF and find it easier to draw multiple sections at once. Thereafter adjust the elevations of some sections. Is there a way to merge the slabs? So far I think I would just explode the slabs, booleanUnion them, and then somehow 'IFC them back into a slab (haven’t figured out the last part yet).
Please let me know if there is a better workflow.
Cheers,
Keith
Hi Keith, there is no command to merge slabs. We plan to add an option for that, but it will only work with slabs that are properly aligned, and one will take the properties of another (style, thickness, material, etc…)
As a workaround, you can run this simple GH definition:
Slab join.gh (5.6 KB)
Do without Grasshopper:
You can also run Silhouette and then CurveBoolean to get the curve.
Btw: the Silhoutte command creates ALL edges of an object (e.g. a box would result in 12 edges), so to get the outline you need, only select the top (or bottom) surface after exploding.
You can run silhouette without exploding the slab. Then I run the CurveBoolean command with Delete=All + AllRegions
Thanks everyone!
I’m fairly okay with adjusting the geometry. I just can’t turn it back to an IFC Slab type object. For what I’m actually planning to do with Rhino this doesn’t actually matter much however - Using the slab tool to draw slabs and then just exploding them, and doing some sort of union afterwards will work perfectly fine. I might revisit this when I’m at a higher skill level however.
Grasshopper is neat but I have no idea what the hell I’m doing 
.
Btw. Slabs can of course be edited by turning on their control points, but what’s missing is some kind of InsertPoint command (deleting points works). This would often be quicker than using vaSlabAdd.
Have wished for this already. Just mentioning it here again.
Thanks!
@eugen, @keithscadservices, @rheinason We have developed a command to join slabs that is included in the VisualARQ labs plug-in: Labs - VisualARQ
You need VisualARQ 2.13 to use it.
Hi @keithscadservices I guess you have seen this already, but this is a reminder that in VisualARQ 3 slab intersections are calculated automatically:
What I would need is the ability the ability to control the distance between the “slab” step and the “soffit” step:
It’s actually so easy to model stuff like this in Rhino and time intensive in almost every BIM program. That’s why so many models for concrete buildings are messed up really badly. You’d think a basic square concrete office tower would be the perfect project for Revit…
In reality I need something that works in multiple situations, for example I would need to model something like this quite often:
Note that the wall on the left shouldn’t/wouldn’t be attached/boolean’d. If I could just click the polysurface representing my slab and tell it that it belongs to a specific concrete slab style that I created, meaning its section properties would behave the same as a vaSlab, and I would be able to schedule it, that would perfectly suite me. Obviously, given that I’m the only one that has ever requested something like that (and it could be really hard to program) I don’t think it’s in the cards.
Hi @keithscadservices you can control that distance by drawing 2 slabs that are overlapping according to that distance. Then, you can create an intermedium slab that joins the two others, or make the top slab thicker, and subtract a solid:
If the wall has the same section attributes than the slab, the intersection line will hide:
In the case you needed to craete a slab with a polysurface (if the slab gets very detailed), you can also schedule it, since the table report panel lets you show lists that combine different object types:
Hello!
I can’t manage to get automatic slab joining to work, meaning the intersection line is not hidden:
Both slabs are on the same layer, which has a custom section style.
In Slab Styles, the section attribute is set to ‘by layer’.
What am I doing wrong?
This will work most of the time and it beats the pants off Revit.
Sloped slabs are also a thing in VA3 right?
The workflow I mentioned above would greatly benefit myself but also as mentioned I’m the only person asking for it. It’s only like 1 out of 10 slabs but when you encounter it… it’s nice to model the slab as it should be. Quite honestly I think I would just model the concrete using Basic Rhino then other stuff like steel stud walls, CMU (block) walls, Glazing, etc… could be vaWalls.
Revit technicians can’t/won’t/don’t do this (model their slopes properly) and it ends up being costly. You can model drain slopes in Revit but it’s a little slow (on more complex slabs like penthouses). Architects frequently underestimate the slopes required for good drainage and then commit to the placement of their elements based on that under-estimation.
Well, you could already create sloped slabs in VisualARQ 2. You just need to create them from planar boundaries that are tilted. Or you can also rise the control points of a horizontal slab, as long as the resulting slab is still planar.
In VisualARQ you can create a slab, and subtract a solid from it that gives you the slopes of the top surface.
