OPENINGS IN BEAMS INVISIBLE IN PLAN

[Jeff Galbraith]

It appears that openings made in beams (at least beams made from complex profiles) are invisible in plan. Has anyone else had this problem? I'm able to use the beam 'Holes' tool and those show up in plan so long as beam centerlines are turned on in the model view options but there is little to no control over visibility of these hole elements and they cannot be tagged / labeled. I was hoping to be able to label and control graphic display of beam penetrations in dedicated framing layout plans to make the openings clearly identifiable and labeled with information like opening dimensions, opening type (square vs round) and elevation offset of the opening in reference either to the top of beam or the home story.

Any other ways of accomplishing this?

[Laszlo Nagy]

Try using the Opening Tool introduced in AC23 to accomplish it.
Openings are definitely displayed in Floor Plans, you can set their 2D representation (which is a GDL Library Part) and you can also Label them, Schedule them, and select them with Find & Select.

[Jeff Galbraith]

After doing more testing it appears that openings will only show up if they area ABOVE the cut plane. When located below the cut plane they invisible.

Is this a setting that can be customized? If not then this seems like a bug.

[Jeff Galbraith]

...To be a bit more precise, the opening has to be ON THE STORY of the view. So, even if you set your view depth to the floor below, and even if the beam below to the same story as the view, you won't be able to see an opening if it's located within the elevation range corresponding to the story below. Is there any way around this?

If not then this means you cannot show beam penetrations (using the opening tool) in a framing plan that is cut from above. We would be forced to draw framing plans cut at the floor below....which has other problems as you can imagine...

[Laszlo Nagy]

I created a little matrix that shows how Beam Holes and Openings placed into simple rectangular Beams and Profiled Beams are displayed on the Floor Plan when they are placed above the Floor Plan Cut Plane (FPCP), cut by the (FPCP), or are below the (FPCP), with Projection set to "Symbolic" or "Projected".
In the lower half of the image, one Opening in the same Beam uses an "X" floor plan symbol, there other has no floor plan symbol.

 

It seems to me that if you place an Opening into the Beam, you can achieve the exact Floor Plan representation you want, and you can also Label it.
Also, the MVO Dialog has separate settings using which you can control the display of the Opening's Symbol, Axis, and Marker.