Issues with Trussmaker

[wile e coyote genius]

I have a design which has two buildings, one small, one very large. I had never used "Trussmaker" before so I read all about it and how to implement it. So as per the instructions I created a section line and then opened the newly created elevation view which is visible in the picture below. I next created the lines (red) that define the truss which I kept simple. As stated in the picture you will see that the truss created is not the same as the red lines. It is obvious that the design app didn't create what I wanted. My belief was that the Trussmaker function would use the lines as the outer boundry and all of the wood boards would be inside that boundary which is not what is happening here. I also notice some other odd behaviour. When creating the section line an eyeball shows up pointing to the right which is what I selected when creating the truss in the picture. but I really needed to be looking in the opposite direction. So I tried that by creating the section line and dragging the eyeball to the left of the section line. I created the truss in the same manner but the result was the creation of a truss away from where the section line was and was 180 degrees in the wrong direction for the ends. Can anyone explain what is going on? thanks and regards.

[Karl Ottenstein · Accepted solution]

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@wile e coyote genius wrote:

My belief was that the Trussmaker function would use the lines as the outer boundary and all of the wood boards would be inside that boundary which is not what is happening here. 

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As you should have seen when you used the Create Truss command, the wood/timber members are centered on the linework selected prior to the command.  Has always been that way, which is frustrating, but just has to be dealt with.  It unfortunately means that you have to offset your lines according to the desired member sizes so that the lines will be located in what should be the that center (vertical) position.

As far as I know, Trussmaker has not received any functional updates in 20 some years, unfortunately.

[wile e coyote genius]

Hello Karl:

Thanks for your response. I will experiment some more with what you indicated. You stated that fact that there hasn't been any functional updates to Trusssmaker in 20 years or so leads me to think that it is not a function used very much leading to the lack of improvement. It would be better if the user could identify the lines  that make up the periphery  and state what side of the line the member should be and all members should be based on their center lines. That way the truss would be as designed and should provide proper results when analyzed for stress and load bearing capabilities. Maybe that should be a wish list item. Anyway, thanks for the response as it was helpful. Regards

[Karl Ottenstein]

Yes, it would make a good wish item to have a way to define the outer members / top and bottom chords by the outer edges and the web members by their centers.  It seems that they could do this by using a fill to define the area that should contain the truss - giving the outer edges - and lines for the web members.   But, yes, it seems this is a little used function based on the amount of discussion it gets.