Create a column capital

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The column capital will have three parameters, controlling the capital width,

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the height and the depth.

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Additionally,

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you will create a visibility parameter to control the visibility of the capital.

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In plan,

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the column and capital will be modeled with an extrusion

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and a blend.

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Let's begin by creating a new family.

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So on the home screen,

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go ahead and select new family

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and in the new family's dialogue box, this time,

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we're going to use a dedicated template for structural columns.

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So you'll see here we have this template structural column dot RFT.

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Let's go ahead and open this

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and you'll notice here as well as having the two center planes that are pinned.

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We also have additional reference planes to

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control the outside geometry of our column.

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Before we start modeling

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on the modify ribbon, we'll go ahead and select family category and parameters.

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And of course,

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here you'll see that the family category is already set to structural columns.

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But what we do need to do here is set the section shape.

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The structural section properties are quite important

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in a steel family.

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This will create the actual shape,

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all of the parameters and dimensions required to define that shape.

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And also it helps the structural connections be

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able to connect to that particular structural shape.

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In our case, this is quite a simple shape. It's just a rectangle.

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So we'll click. OK.

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And that's now set.

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We also setting material for model behavior. This is going to be concrete

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and we'll select OK.

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Again, on the modifier ribbon, you'll note here, we have family types,

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let's select family types.

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And you can now see all of the structural analysis parameters as well as

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the structural section geometry parameters have now

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been created by selecting that section shape.

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So we'll go ahead here and give the width and height some sizes.

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So I'd like to start off with my column being 18 inches square.

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So I can add those values in here

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and we'll click. OK?

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And now we're going to add aligned dimensions to these

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reference planes and then assign that parameter as a label.

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So let's select the annotate ribbon

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and click the aligned dimension tool.

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We place an aligned dimension

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across the vertical planes and across the horizontal planes.

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We'll click, modify to release the aligned dimension command.

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And I'm gonna start here by selecting this dimension

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and then going up to the ribbon and choosing the label pull down.

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So here this will be set to width

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and now I'll select this dimension and again, go to the label pull down

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and this will be height.

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So that's the plan shape of my column defined.

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We'll now go ahead and model the extrusion,

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which is going to define the vertical column

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to do this. We'll go ahead and select the creates ribbon

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and on the create ribbon you'll see here, we have solid extrusion.

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We'll go ahead and select this

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on the draw panel. We'll select rectangle

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and I'm going to just trace off the shape of the reference planes

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and then I must constrain these four lines

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to each of those reference planes.

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And then I can go ahead and click the finish, edit mode

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to see the extrusion in a vertical plane.

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I'm going to open up the front elevation

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and in the front elevation,

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you can see here that we have a lower reference level for the bottom of the column

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and an upper reference level for the top of the column.

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I can now select the extrusion

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and here I can use the shape handles to drag this up

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and constrain it to that upper reference level.

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And also here,

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I'll drag this shape handle down

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and again constrain that to the lower reference level.

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So that's the main part of my geometry created.

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We now need to start thinking about the column capital.

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And while we're in the front elevation,

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we're going to create a reference plane

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which is going to control the capital's depth

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to do this, we'll go to the creates ribbon

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and on the create ribbon, we'll select reference plane,

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I'll create a reference plane about here

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and we now create our parameters to control the capital

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to do this. I'm going to select the family types command

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and here we can create a new parameter.

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So we'll start off with capital depth.

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This is going to be a tight parameter

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and it's a length and it's going to be grouped under dimensions.

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I'm gonna set that initially for 2 ft.

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We'll now create an additional parameter. This one's going to be capital height

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and again, I'll leave all of the default set. So it's a type parameter.

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The discipline is common,

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the type of parameter is length and we're going to group this under dimensions

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and we'll do one more

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and this one's going to be

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capital width.

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And again, all the defaults remain the same.

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And now we can just assign some dimensions to these.

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So we'll have this square and this will be initially 3 ft by 3 ft.

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So we'll go ahead and select OK to the family types dialogue.

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And now I'm going to go to the annotates ribbon,

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then select the aligned dimension tool and

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place a dimension between this reference plane

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to the upper reference level.

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Again, I'll select, modify to release the dimension command,

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I'll select the dimension.

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And now here I'm going to assign this capital depth.

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I now need to define the plan shape of my capital

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to do this. We can go back to the lower reference level.

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And first, I'm going to create some reference planes.

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So we'll select the create ribbon

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on the create ribbon. We'll select reference plane.

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And in the draw panel, I'm going to use pick lines

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initially here, I've just set an offset of 1 ft

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and now you can see I can just offset these planes

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Again, I need to make them equal about the center plane.

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So to do this, we'll go to the annotate ribbon

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and we'll select aligned dimension,

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we'll pick our reference points,

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place the dimensions down

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and click EQ

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and we'll do the same for the

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horizontal planes,

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place them down.

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And again, click EQ

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I can now place in my main dimensions that

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are going to control the geometry of my capital,

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right? So

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again, I'll select modify to release the command.

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I'll select this top dimension here

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and this one's going to be set to capital width

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and this one here

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will be capital height.

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OK? So that's the parametric framework of our capital created.

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The next step is to create a blend to actually create the shape of the capital

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to do this. We'll select the create ribbon

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and on the create ribbon, you'll note here, we have blend.

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When I select blend on the context ribbon,

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you'll notice that we have two profiles to define,

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we have the lower profile and then the top profile

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and then rev it will then blend between those two profiles.

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So let's begin by defining the bottom profile.

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Now the bottom profile is already defined with the column geometry.

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So in this example, here on the draw panel, I'm going to use pick lines.

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Notice on the options bar, I have lock selected,

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this would automatically constrain these lines I pick

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and you'll notice the padlock is now closed

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up on the ribbon. We'll now select edit top

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again, I'm going to use pick lines

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and this time I'm going to pick off the reference planes.

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Well, this is another technique you can use.

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And of course, here, I'm going to need to trim the corners.

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So again, on the modifier panel here I can select trim, extend to corner.

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I'll go ahead and select the pieces I want to keep

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and you can see those corners are trimmed

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and we can now finalize the command by selecting finish, edit mode.

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We'll switch back to the front view

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and here's my capital.

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Again, I can select that blend and I can use the shape handle here

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to drag this to the top

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and again, constrain that

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and then get the bottom shape handle and drag that to my reference plane here.

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And again,

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constrain that.

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And of course, here you can see our capital.

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If I open up the 3D view on the capital,

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you'll notice here that we have geometry in geometry.

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But of course, on the modifier ribbon, I can then join these geometries together.

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And you can now see we have a monolithic structure

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finally, we may not want to see this capital in plan.

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So I'm going to go ahead and select the capital

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and up on the context ribbon. You'll note here, I have visibility settings

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and this is very useful.

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I can control the visibility of this particular solid element.

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And in this case, I don't really want to see that in plan.

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So I've turned that plan off here

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and I'll click. OK?

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And now I'll see this in innovation

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and I'll also see it in the 3d view.

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But when I look down on plan, I will not see that capital.

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So let's now go ahead and save this. So we'll click save.

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And for the family name, we call this one

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column capital

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and click save.