Delve into the process of using the InPlace family tool to create custom interior geometries, such as a ceiling element, within a building design. Learn how to navigate different views, place elements effectively, and establish working reference points for efficient modeling.
Key Insights
- The InPlace family tool provides the ability to create custom geometries within a building's interior, including ceiling elements, with the design only limited by one's imagination.
- Using interior elevation views and section views can aid in placing these elements in specific areas, like between an open office space and a break room. Modeling in these views allows for precise placement and orientation of the elements.
- Drawing reference planes and giving them specific names can streamline the creation process of in-place families. These named references can provide clarity for other team members working on the model and enhance overall collaboration.
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We're going to shift our attention to the interior of the building now, and we're going to take a look at a way of creating some custom geometry by using the 'In-Place Family' tool. And this will allow us to create a shape which is pretty much just going to be limited by our imagination here. And so what we're going to do is we're going to create a ceiling element.
It's kind of a wall-ceiling combination that is going to sit in this location here to help us divide up the open office space and the break room. And so to do that, first thing I want to do is I want to make sure I have a view that allows me to work in that space. We could use a section or an interior elevation here.
Since we've done a lot of sections in this class, we're going to go ahead and use an elevation. And I'm going to switch my elevation type to interior elevation. And I'm just going to place it somewhere in this area.
I want to make sure it's facing down like you see here. You notice as I move it around, it's going to try and look for different walls to look at, but I want to have it sitting about like this. Now, this elevation is really just going to be a working view that we'll use to create this piece in this location.
So I'm going to go ahead and select that elevation, that triangle portion here, and I'll right-click and say 'Go to View.' Now from here, I'm going to just expand the 'Crop Region' a bit so that I can see what I'm working with. Because we do have a couple constraints.
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We do have a ceiling overhead that we're going to try and maintain at nine feet four inches. And we also have a wall piece that's beyond. So right now we're cutting through the window.
If we go back to our Plan view, you can see that we're actually cutting through the window here. And we'll be drawing it at this location. We can set this up so that our work plane is actually going to be the face of where we want it to start.
And then we can create it an extrusion so that it moves across. So what I would do here is I would go in back to Level One. And I would draw a Reference Plane.
And this is going to be from the Architecture tab, 'Reference Plane, ' or you can use that keyboard shortcut that I keep using RP, which allows you to just draw it on the fly. So I'll draw a Reference Plane at this location. And I'm going to stretch it out so that we can continue to see it a little better.
And this one's important because we want to give it a name so that we can reference back to it as we're creating that in-place family. So it's important to have these things set up before you get into it. So it's easier to create these models down the line.
And so we can call this Feature Wall Work Point. And that'll give us an idea that this is something that's being used. It's also a good idea that if you're going to create reference planes that aren't going to be removed from the model to give them a name, because then somebody else that you're working with will see that this is being used for something.
And now we can go back into our Elevation view and doesn't really change anything that we have in here. But it does give us the ability to model from a certain point in what we would be seeing as the Z-axis or the axis that's coming in and out of our screen here.
