In this session, I’m going to show you how to use the “Floor” tool to create a parking ramp. This parking ramp is created from the basement to the first floor. Because the start point of the ramp is on the B1 floor, we will first open the “B1” floor plan view in the “Project Browser” and start drawing the ramp on this view. However, the ramp’s CAD boundary line on the underlay is not complete and clear enough. It only shows part of the ramp’s boundary. To get the whole view of the ramp, we need to import another CAD file, that is the first floor CAD drawing. While importing the CAD file, remember to check the “Current View Only” checkbox and select the correct unit. Choose “Auto - Center to Center” in the “Positioning” dropbox, and then click on “OK.” Use the “Align” tool to align the first floor CAD with the existing basement CAD to ensure the correct positioning. Now, we can see the complete view of the ramp. This can help us in creating it correctly. We can divide the ramp into three parts according to the ramp path. The first and the third parts of the ramp are straight paths, while the second one is a curved path. We should create this three portions one by one and follow the lines on the underlay to draw the ramp’s boundary. Because the ramp wall is placed sitting on the ramp, the width of the ramp must include the thickness of the wall, not just the width of the driveway. Let me demonstrate this. Same as creating the structural elements in the building, we use the “Floor” tool to create the driveway. Select “Floor: Structural” under the “Structure” tab. Choose “Reinforced Concrete 25 cm” in the “Properties” palette. Under the “Modify|Create Floor Boundary” tab, choose the “Rectangle” tool to sketch a rectangle boundary matching the first part of the ramp. Click on the green check icon to finish edit mode. Repeat the procedure to create the curved path. This time, we choose the “Pick Lines” tool to pick the two boundaries on the end of the path and use the “Start-End-Radius Arc” tool to draw the two curved boundaries. Remember to click on the green check icon to finish the edit mode. For the last part of the ramp, we can simply use the “Pick Lines” tool and the “Move” tool to draw all of its boundaries. After creating the ramp on the B1 plan view, open the 3D view, and we can see all of the ramps are lying horizontally. Next, we need to adjust the elevations of the points on the ramps. These elevations are calculated based on the slope computed by the centerline of the driveway and the floor height, and they are usually floating point numbers with lots of digits. Because the slope annotations on CAD drawings are always presented as the nearest fractions, like ⅕ or ⅙, and so on, we should only take these annotations as references, or we’ll get an unsmooth ramp. Now, select the first part of the ramp. Then on the “Modify” tab, choose the “Modify Sub Elements” tool. Let us change the elevations of the two endpoints to 44.33 cm. Then, press the “Esc” button to exit the edit mode. Then, move on to change the elevations of the points on the second part of the ramp. The elevations of the two start points are the same as the endpoints of the first part of the ramp, which is 44.33 cm. And the elevations of the endpoints on the second part of the ramp should be 215.45 cm. Again, press the “Esc” button to exit the edit mode. Then, for the last part of the ramp, the elevations for the points connecting with the second part of the ramp are 215.45 cm. And the elevations of the endpoints are 295 cm. Press the “Esc” button to exit the edit mode. Let us examine if we build the ramp correctly in the 3D view. Now, let us proceed to place the beams under the ramp. Because the geometry of these beam elements is a little bit complicated, we have prepared and loaded the family types of the beam in this project so that we can use them directly. Go to the “Structure” tab and select the “Beam” tool. Choose the “RTW outside ramp beam” type in the “Properties” palette and click on the beam’s CAD line on the underlay. Also, use the “Align” tool to move the beam to the correct position. Then, change the “Start Level Offset” and “End Level Offset” both to be 295 cm. Repeat the same process for the “RTW inside ramp beam.” Let me quickly demonstrate the process. After placing the beams, we should open the 3D view to check whether the beams are properly placed. Furthermore, we need to create the ramp walls. To create a ram wall, select the “Wall: Structural” tool on the “Structure” tab and choose “Concrete wall 20 cm” on the “Properties” palette. Modify the “Base Constraint” to “B1,” “Top Constraint” to “1F,” “Base Offset” to “0” and “Top Offset” to “0”. Next, we can create the ramp wall by picking the wall CAD lines on the underlay. After all of the walls are created, open the 3D view to check whether the walls are properly created. Here we find that the walls protrude the driveway, so we need to modify the profiles of the ramp walls. Select a wall and on the “Modify Wall” panel, choose the “Attach Top/Base” tool. On the “Modify|Walls” options bar, select “Base.” Then select the driveway to which this wall would be attached. Repeat the same procedure for the other walls. To create the ramp roof, open the “GL” plan view in the “Project Browser.” On the “Structure” tab, select “Floor: Structural,” and in the “Properties” palette, choose “Reinforced Concrete 25 cm.” Use the “Rectangle” tool to sketch the boundary of the roof. Lastly, we need to create the parapet walls. Open the 1F plan view in the “Project Browser.” On the “Structure” tab, select the “Wall: Structural” tool and on the “Properties” palette, choose “Concrete wall 10 cm.” Modify the “Base Constraint” to “B1,” “Top Constraint” to “GL,” “Base Offset” to “0” and “Top Offset” to “100.” Then, use the “Pick Lines” tool to sketch the wall paths. Pick all the parapet wall CAD lines to create the parapet walls. Now, open the 3D view to see the finished parking ramp.
