Very raw newbie; stadium design using stairs?

[Anonymous]

Ok. Here's my deal. I'm a University student who is fairly proficient at AutoCAD 2000 and lesser versions, however my school has a copy of ArchiCAD 8 the unversity version and I wish to do a conceptual model in 3d and frankly I hate AutoCAd for 3d modelling.

My first assumption is that this version has nearly all, if not all the functions of the regular version.

So here's the situation:

I'm trying to make a simple hockey arena in archiCAD... So there's a couple things I've had trouble with:

1. Using stairs to make the stands works fine in straight sections, but not in the curved corners.

2. I haven't messed around with this much, but the only solution for the "vomitories" (the tunnels from the concession area to the stands) I've found is to use a landing and stairs again. Is there an easier way?

The first point is my biggest stumbling block.. I basically and looking to get a very simple output that would have some (as many as are easy to make) aspects simlar to the following webpage ArchiCAD output:

http://www.graphisoft.co.uk/community/success_stories/neworleans.html

(look at the bottom picture for what I mean regarding curved stairs for stands at the end sections)...

Any easy solutions?? or am I digging a deep hole for myself and should just go back to trying to do this in AutoCAD??

Any help/response/direction would be greatly appreciated.

Patrick Nolan

[Dwight]

Think laterally - don't use stairs at all - model all the steps with slabs.

Use the seat steps - around 16" each in height first and then add the intermediate slabs for stairs. The trick is to assess what is repeatable using offset and magic wanding.

The quickest way to achieve the different levels will be to draw the outermost seat step edge outline with lines and curves, use the magic wand to assert a set of elements for repetitive offset and place a new outline for each seating tier. [Easier shown than said].

After you establish the seating tier edges with line elements, use the magic wand to place slabs of varied heights, building each tier.

Then add the intermediate stepping slabs thinking in advance how you might flip, stretch and repeat the most typical group to minimise repetition.

That whole arena base area should take about five minutes.

[Anonymous]

Thanks a ton, that seems to be a great solution... something I definitely hadn't thought of because of my unfamiliarity with the software!

[Karl Ottenstein]

icupat wrote:
2. I haven't messed around with this much, but the only solution for the "vomitories" (the tunnels from the concession area to the stands) I've found is to use a landing and stairs again. Is there an easier way?

A quick P.S. to Dwight's excellent suggestions: you will probably want to make the slabs thick enough that you can use solid element ops to get the other effects that you want. For the tunnels, just subtract very fat rafters (you can control the angle of the rafter objects). If the underside of the stands matters and is exposed as a smooth, sloped/curvy surface, use the Profiler add-on (search this forum for more info) to create a swept object with the proper shape and subtract that from the collection of slabs. Railings (non-parametric) can be easily done with Trussmaker.

Have fun,
Karl