A few months back I looked at how to create a helix in Revit 2010 without the need of any heavy math. Zach Krone and BIM troublemaker did similar examples on there blogs with varying degrees of complexity.
So I figured the other day that there must be a smarter way to do this in Revit 2011 with the new adaptive component tool. Take a look at the youtube Video for more info.
With a bit of messing around you can end up with something like this. :-)
Following two great blog posts on creating helix’s; one from Buildz blog and the other from BIM troublemaker, I thought I’d run through my solution to this problem. I have been experimenting with this for a few weeks now; not being great at math, I wanted to see if I could create a helix without the need for heavy formula.
Hopefully these two videos will explain my approach; I’ve had to split the the how-to video into two parts, due the 11 minute YouTube limits! They include all the normal mistakes, so don’t expect a super slick video. :-)
If you interested, you can also download the family from here.
This post comes from experimenting with hosted points on lines and arcs and attempting to create a helical form in the massing environment similar to Zach Kron’s recent post. I guessed that you could do something similar using lines connected to hosted points on circles.
So let go back to basics. Points can be hosted to lines, arcs, splines, circles and ellipses (either reference line or lines). Just draw a line or reference line then choose the point tool and place the point on the line. It will snap to the line and you will notice it will change in size and will now include a work plane.
If you select the point and choose properties, you will discover that there is now a hosted parameter. This parameter drives the position of the point and it goes from 0 to 1. “0” being one end and “1” the other end. If you wanted to place the point half way along the line, plug in 0.5, voila the point is position half way along the line.
So lines are straight forward, what about circles or even ellipses? Hmmmmm Ok, go ahead do the same thing, but this time draw a circle as a line or reference line and place a point on the circle. Go check the properties of the Hosted Parameter…. No 0 to 1???? some other weird combination of figures????!!!
So what’s going on here? Well I’m no mathematician, so after a bit of investigation I discovered that points are managed differently on closed elements such as circles. You need to go back to do some math…
So the hosted parameter value for a circle is 2pi
(where pi is 3.1415926535897932384626433832795)
therefore 2 x 3.141593 is equal to 6.283186 radians
So the hosted point can have a value between 0 to 6.28318 depending on where it is on the circle.
So to split the circle into degrees
1 degree=2pi/360=0.017453 radians
With this logic in mind try this, create a circle in the massing environment and host a point on the circle. Go the the hosted parameters, then plug in the following figures and watch the position of the points change.
This opens up to interesting opportunities and allowed me to create the helix using points and lines along with nested families. I’ll show you how I did this in another post……
Many of you will know that I am very passionate about Revit and you will have noticed over the last 9 months, since the release of 2010, I have been a big fan of the new conceptual massing tools. However, these new tools are not without their challenges! I have watched long term Revit users in our office try to grapple with the new concepts; some have been successful, others have failed. In most cases the overriding complaint is the lack of sketch mode. Long term Revit users fell in love with this approach; the ability to create a sketch and then extrude, with the added bonus of going back to the sketch to change it when required…it became the fundamental to the way you worked with Revit. Now the in 2010 we have lines or reference lines, whilst reference lines go some way to match the sketch mode process, they still fall short. Lets hope Autodesk see fit to reintroduce this powerful approach in a future release.
So if you to hunger for the “old” sketch mode in 2010, what to do in the meantime?
One possible solution is to create a series of mass families in 2009 and then use these in 2010. This will retain the sketch mode facility but editing will have to be done in the family editor and then the family reloaded back into the project. This can be problematic when trying to align buildings with site context.
An alternative solution is to start in Revit 2009, create a series of inplace masses. Then migrate the project over to Revit 2010. Copy these masses around and you will find that you can edit the sketch in 2010 as you would have done in Revit 2009.
A more complicated solution if you have already started your project in Revit 2010 is to do the following; start another project in Revit 2009 create a series of inplace masses and then save the project. Then migrate this project up to Revit 2010. Next link this upgraded project into the project you originally started. Then bind the linked file, which will turn the link into a group; ungroup the bound masses and then you will be able to use the inplace masses in your project where you will once again be able to use the sketch mode on these masses.
Please don’t think that I am criticising this new way of working, far from it. I have always consider these new tools a first step and it will take a couple of releases before we get them working exactly how we need them to……over to you Autodesk. :-)
My thanks goes to Zach Kron at Buildz blog for running the inaugural pumpkin modelling competition! My modelling effort managed me a first in the “good” category and my collegue William managed a first in the “mostest parametric” category, with his stunning Grasshopper Rhino pumpkin, a big UP for the HOK boys!
It was certainly a good laugh, but for me its actually a great learning exercise, because you can push the tools of your trade in a direction which you wouldn’t normally get a chance to do. This will reap benefits when you come to have to create something on a real project, not that you will see many pumpkins in my projects! :-)
I had to jump through a few hoops to get to the end solution, but I applied a bit of Revit purist approach to solving the problem, which you can view in this video. Enjoy and I hope it inspires.
