topic Re: railings - are they worth it? in Modeling

railings - are they worth it?

Patrick M — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 19:28:58 GMT

are the railings ever going to develop to be a solution instead of a problem?

Re: railings - are they worth it?

Lingwisyer — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 01:31:56 GMT

Use a Handrail instead of a Toprail then use the Connect Handrails end setting to wrap it back? Though given your reference line starts to slope again at the bottom, it might not work...

Re: railings - are they worth it?

Barry Kelly — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 02:02:27 GMT

This is done with a top rail, but the curved reference line at the bottom is all at the same level of the bottom tread.

Barry.

Re: railings - are they worth it?

Barry Kelly — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 02:09:49 GMT

Looks like I changed the post at the bottom of the flight to the same size as the balusters.

I did this back in version 22 and have never done it since.

Barry.

Re: railings - are they worth it?

Patrick M — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 19:43:09 GMT

doesn't work with any rail type

Re: railings - are they worth it?

Patrick M — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 19:48:23 GMT

the issue is curves that also need to be sloping the connections never work. you end up adding flat sections before the curving slope, and usually end up with goose necks; like the goose neck at your landing. What I needed was (based on your example image) for the railing to hit the last tread, and as it followed the tread nosing around, for the rail hight to continue consistent to ground level; so that at it's lowest it is 36" above the floor, 36"+riser at the nosing, and 36" above each nosing above that.

Believe me, I know how to make the railing look clean. But it is a constant struggle to make it look the way I need it to. I ONLY use the railing when "close enough" is all that I need from it. Some of my work is low level spec/tract home projects that thrive on close enough. Most of my work is very high end, where the words "close enough" are never spoken... and thus the railing is almost never used.

What we need is the ability to turn off all "connection rules" and end conditions, and just have an extrusion that follows a path. Obviously, if you need a railing to goose neck, which is definitely more common, we need the transition/connection rules and options, but we ought to be able to just follow the vector without getting a clustered mess.

Re: railings - are they worth it?

Lingwisyer — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 07:07:51 GMT

You can select the connection piece in Edit Mode and delete it or just set the connection type to Direct Connection.

Though in your image you are ending two risers down in a single tread length?

Re: railings - are they worth it?

Patrick M — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 01:18:04 GMT

they only end there aesthetically... unless you can walk through balusters

Re: railings - are they worth it?

Patrick M — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 01:18:36 GMT

can you share the "direct connection" option... not seeing that anywhere

Re: railings - are they worth it?

Lingwisyer — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 02:55:10 GMT

The issue with the height change is the amount of distortion you will get on your inside radius. The intent is for the railing to flatten out at the last tread, then wrap around and downwards?

Re: railings - are they worth it?

Patrick M — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 15:49:06 GMT

oh, I never took note of the terminology for the connection type. yeah; does not clean it up to be gooseneck or direct connect; just varying degrees of unacceptably messy

Re: railings - are they worth it?

Steve Jepson — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 22:53:42 GMT

In my opinion, no. The railing and stair tools are almost never useful to me because they never do exactly what I need them to do. That - and I probably already have a very similar stair in some other project that just needs a little editing for a new situation.

To me, all the Tools for Stairs, Railings, Wall Framing.... are pretty much useless for the same reasons. You can copy and paste these things into a new project and then just tweak it a little for the new situation - much faster, and in much better detail than the Tools can do it. And the Interactive Schedules can be automatically populated as you work.

As with everything you use ArchiCAD for, how you model it depends entirely on what you are going to do with it. If you are not generating Shop Drawings or Interactive Schedules, and all you need is something to represent a Stair with its fundamental parameters, then perhaps the Tools are just what you want. But considering all the things I need to do with the Virtual Building Models I am making; I honestly don't have much use for the Stair or Railing Tools.