Turn off Auto-intersecting for Beams

[TaniavH]

Provide the option to not auto join beams in plan - beams are typically used to model curbs – should they have different heights we need to show a line in plan where the height changes. Current workarounds require either a 2D line or separating the beam ends by a fraction of an inch to mimic this line.

Also problematic when using the Beam tool to model foundations and footings - when footings have different dimensions and elevations and auto-join, there can be very strange results in 3D.

[thesleepofreason]

Also problematic: simple rafters and ridge beams... Not having a hard switch for stopping intersections is a huge time sink leaving just to end up with a suboptimal model.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Could you just create a Layer Combination in which the Layer Intersection Group Number of the Beam's Layer is set to Zero (0) and then no Beam on that Layer will join with any other Beam.

[TaniavH]

in theory yes, but it shouldn't be an all-or-nothing scenario...we still want those beams / footings that are the same to intersect with one another, and would prefer to not have to manage intersecting of different footing and beam sizes using layers. 

[Laszlo Nagy]

So, are you suggesting this to be an instance-level setting?

[TaniavH]

exactly - if there was a setting in the Beam tool to "turn off intersection at junction" (ideally you can check this differently at each end of the beam) it would make these scenarios far easier to manage - we have to "cheat" and stop a beam a fraction of an inch (or mm) short to ensure that it doesn't touch beams we do not want it to intersect with. We want to avoid these results that we get if the plan looks "clean"  

 

[Barry Kelly]

Yes, a per beam intersection control would be nice.

Or they need to be amended to trim more like walls do automatically.

Barry.

[rakurs]

Barry's last example is the reason I want to pull my hair sometimes. Especially for complex profiles. Walls work much nicer, but even they sometimes misbehave.