topic Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan in Modeling

Railing tool - profiled post on plan

Piotr — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 11:12:33 GMT

Hi all

Is there any way to display profiled post properly on plan? Don't see any option for this in railing or in MVO settings.

AC23

Regards
Piotr

Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan

Barry Kelly — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 10:10:42 GMT

Not that I know of.
Posts (and balusters) have only the 8 symbolic 'types' as shown in your image.
All you can do is make them a custom size.

Barry.

Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan

Piotr — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 10:44:44 GMT

Thanks Barry

Finally I achieved what I needed modifying Built-in Post script.
I added offset option. Luckily I required simple shape, I hoped there was some faster way to do it.

Regards
Piotr

Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan

Gerry Leonor — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 22:54:39 GMT

so, i'm guessing no chance of having even a simple PFC profile for an end post/inner post?
i didn't have enough time to play around using even a modified rectangle instead of the actual profile.

Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan

Barry Kelly — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 00:42:14 GMT

Gerard wrote:
so, i'm guessing no chance of having even a simple PFC profile for an end post/inner post?
i didn't have enough time to play around using even a modified rectangle instead of the actual profile.

Not that I am aware of.
The 2D view of a railing is completely symbolic in representation.
There are problems with connections not showing in the correct position and there was a problem where the bottom rail, if it was bigger, would cover the top rail (say a top rail on top off a brick or concrete wall) - not sure if that has been fixed yet.

It would be nice if we could have a true 3D top view for some (or all) parts and maybe a display order as well.

Barry.

Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan

runxel — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 09:58:30 GMT

In theory it is as simple as dropping a "project2 3, 270, 1" into the 2D script of the rail post.

However, one caveat: "project2" is one of the most computation demanding commands in GDL. That's why GS has decided not to implement that.
But if you don't have hundreds of railings you should be fine, I guess. As a workaround it's better than nothing or even patching.

Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan

Barry Kelly — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 00:53:30 GMT

runxel wrote:
In theory it is as simple as dropping a "project2 3, 270, 1" into the 2D script of the rail post.

This does indeed work if you save your own custom post object.

The standard profile posts that come with the default library do not have the option for the projected 2D symbol.
You could try doing a 'Save As' on the 'Profiled Post' object, then also doing a 'Save As' on the macro it calls in 2D script.
Then amend that macro to show "project2 3, 270, 1", change the CALL in your new post to call the new macro name.
Then you should have a post that can use profiles and displays the true 2D plan.

Or instead of using the 'Profiled Post', just save your own custom posts and add "project2 3, 270, 1" to the 2D script.

Barry.

Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan

PLVT — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 02:00:52 GMT

Hi @Barry Kelly , for those of us just getting familiar with macros, at which point would you place the "project2 3, 270, 1" into the macro script? I've tried following along, making a duplicate macro and post but it doesn't seem to show, unless there's a display setting i'm missing in the railing itself to switch back from 2d profiles to true 3d?

Many thanks for any feedback.

Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan

Barry Kelly — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 13:33:55 GMT

If your railing is set to use the Model View Option for floor plan display, then make sure the MVO is set to show the posts.

If not using MVO then the railing needs to be set to show posts in the floor plan display.

As for the PROJECT2 in the macro.

You opened the profiled post and have done a 'save as' to create a new object with a new name.

Then open the macro that is calls in the 2D script 'save as' that macro as a new macro with a new name.

All that should be in the 2D script is the PROJECT2 command.

Then make sure the new post object CALLs the new macro name.

I was a while ago that I replied to the original post, but I think that was it.

Barry.

Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan

PLVT — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 06:03:26 GMT

Hi @Barry , thank you so much for the follow up. Unfortunately I haven't had any luck with that but I appreciate this post was from a while ago. I figured this being quite a sought after result it would be good to get to the bottom of it (for instance we have a fluted series of tiles we are trying to show).

MVO overrides are disabled to try keep things simple.

I have duplicated the default profiled post, changing it's name. In the 2D script I called to a duplicate of the macro which only had the project2 command you had listed

These were the only things I changed, but did you think there are other check boxes or parameters to enable/disable? When checking the script it says it is functional but on the plan the railing shows no symbols at all.

Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan

Barry Kelly — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 06:49:03 GMT

I just gave it a quick try and it doesn't seem to work.

Even forgetting the macro call and just changing the post script to PROJECT2 doesn't work.

But oddly if I script a CIRCLE2 it does show a circle.

So it will draw what you want it to draw.

It is just finding out how to get the custom profile shape.

Maybe there is no PROJECT2 view of a custom profile?

Maybe it will be a case of REQUESTing the profile geometry and then reconstructing it with a polygon?

I don't have time to explore this at the moment though.

Barry.

Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan

PLVT — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 06:52:56 GMT

Thanks for looking into it @Barry Kelly

Definitely something to explore further because I doubt I'm the only one that would love to see this as a possibility. Perhaps they need to be done as morph's as per your original test rather than complex profiles? I do wonder if this would limit the vertical flexibility however.

The application to show profiled steel members would also be really helpful.

TBC

Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan

Erik Bjornhage — Tue, 09 May 2023 09:09:58 GMT

I'll jump on this thread with a related issue. I'm trying to create a solution for hedging using the railing tool - i.e. using Inner Posts as plants of different sizes and spcifying planting distance. This should then be able to be quantified simply by counting inner and outer posts.

The problem:

The 2D symbol always defaults to a size that fits into a 1000mmx1000mm bounding box - no matter which size the symbol is drawn.

I have "plants" that are 800mm diameter and 2000mm dia - all show up as 1000 "symbol"

Screenshot attached with all different options. To the left is the original symbol - to the right is the railing.

Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan

Lingwisyer — Wed, 10 May 2023 02:17:09 GMT

Is there a MUL2 at the start of your plant scripts? My guess is that it is scaling it to a unit size so that it can be correlated to A and B. That is what occurs when you save something out of the floorplan.

Ling.

Re: Railing tool - profiled post on plan

Erik Bjornhage — Fri, 12 May 2023 11:09:05 GMT

Thanks Ling,

I will have a look.

I have gone the easy route and just saved 3D and 2D from work space - so have not double checked the script.