Railing without a Host

Revit OpEd: Railing without a Host. the same technique in 2014 and a different notion of a host element. The key to doing this is in the properties of the sketched line segments of the railing. This image depicts how three segments were created so they can be altered, each segment numbered 1-3.

These are the segment settings for #1, Slope: Flat and Height Correction: By Type.

These are the segment settings for #2, Slope: Sloped and Height Correction: By Type.

These are the segment settings for #3, Slope: Flat and Height Correction: Custom and 4′-0″.

If we don’t need a horizontal railing section at the top we can alter the sketch and use different settings for segment #2. If we do that these are the segment settings for #2, Slope: Sloped andHeight Correction: Custom and 4′-0″.

These are the two different sketch based railings side by side. The lower railing is missing its horizontal starting section. I just made the sketch of the first segment tiny so Revit would know what the starting elevation is. Without it I’d end up with a horizontal railing at 4′-0″, aligned with the upper horizontal beam.

The line at the base of the railing is a tiny profile that is needed to host the bottom of the balusters. Without that bottom railing to terminate against they’d go to the lowest elevation of the railing (flat). I could offset the sacrificial railing so that it slips below the surface of the beam but in this case I wasn’t worried about it. If you find it distracting this is what doing it looks like, though the balusters not finishing cleanly at the top of the beam may be more distracting.

Btw, the Beam Join tool was used to the get the beams to clean up.