Ceiling and spiral stair problem

[Gayle Sanders]

CEILING. Having trouble getting a ceiling over an open area in deck to display in 3D. There is a half circle cut out at the edge of deck for a tightly curved stairway going down. The roof covers the hole in the deck (and most of the stairway), but I cannot get a ceiling to display over the cutout area. I tried covering the hole in the ceiling with a polyline solid (made a rectangle - maybe I should make a half circle that just fits), but it disappears when I raise it to match the height of the ceiling (can see it when it is just below the ceiling height). I tried using invisible walls and open below to make a room out of the cutout area and trick Chief into making the ceiling for me, but I lost the stairs and white ceiling planes displayed above the roof. I tried ceiling planes with 0 pitch and that failed. Should one of these methods work?

SPIRAL. Is it possible to make a circular stairway into a spiral with a center pole? It would open the possibility of having a fabricated metal stair. The diameter is about 8' and wraps wraps 270 degrees. The two spirals in the library do not work. I want the treads and rail wood with the pole and balusters metal. I cannot envision how I owuld build the railing.

Thanks,
Gayle

[Allen42acj]

Hi Gale
Yes you can curve the stairs around.
In 10 Ctrl in X1 it's the Alt key to drag it.
Might be easier with 2 sets joined..

Is ceiling checked it the structure tab?

There are a few threads on spiral stairs,might be a symbol or 2 posted..

[Gayle Sanders]

Allen:

Ceiling is checked in structure tab so ceiling builds ok for most of deck, but thre is no "room" defined under that portion of roof/ceiling (due to cut out for curved stair, see thumbnail). I tried 2 fixes - making the cutout area a room, calling it open below and making railing walls invisible, but it created problems. I tried covering the hole with a polyline solid, but it disappears when it I raise it to ceiling height. I can avoid showing that portion of ceiling in the 3D views.

The curved stairs work fine, but I want to resize my stairs shrinking the inside circle to the diameter of a pole. When I shrink the inside circle, I loose treads. I think it is because of the max tread contraction (winders) is set to 2" on the staircase spec. style tab. I have tried changing that number to 1/2" but have not been able to get the 14 treads needed. I will look for spiral staircase threads.

There are 2 other things I am having trouble with on this plan. I cannot find where to change material for underside of the deck (used wall railings to allow 2 different materials for rail and balusters, no room is defined below) and I am having trouble placing a beam under roof in the area of the cutout. Any ideas?

Many thanks,
Gayle

[Allen42acj]

Hi Gail
I just did this quick,so not perfect..
Try using 2 sections of curved stairs,,
Either connect the room to an outside wall for open below or try the auto stair well.
I can not see it that well with your picture,,

[Gayle Sanders]

Thanks Allen. Will try both suggestions - forgot about connecting open below wall to outside wall, never used auto stairwell.

[Curtis Johnson]

Gayle:

It looks to me like you need one more roof plane ... from the outer right corner or your deck back to the inside corner over the stairs area. If you look on the opposite side (left) of your deck, you'll see the roof plane I am referring to. I would think that you should quickly be able to manually insert that roof plane as needed which should give you your ceiling .... in the event the autobuild roofs is what messed you up. If this doesn't work you might zip the plan so someone can take a look at it for you.

[Gayle Sanders]

Thanks Curt. The roof plane is missing, but I removed it to expose the ceiling hole. Fortunately roof planes are working for me. It is just the ceiling over the stairs that is the problem. The ceiling does not generate because there is no room defined under it. An open below room did not work for me even when I connected the invisible railing wall to an exterior wall.

[Curtis Johnson]

Here are some .jpg's of my attempt to do what I think you are doing ... and all seemed to work out just fine. The only thing I can think of as to why you are having problems is you are lacking room definition for the "open below" room. When you click on that room (1/2 circle) you should see the color change to match the rooms shape. If you don't have room definitions, then you need to make sure all the corners are connected.

[Gayle Sanders]

Curt:

That is exactly what I am trying to do. I did define the semi-circle room as open below and checked ceiling on the structures tab, but the ceiling came through the roof (must have had ceiling height wrong). I will try building it in a separate plan before I try it in my plan again.

Do you know how to control the material at the edge of the semicircle? I want it to match the deck edge.

Thanks,
Gayle

[Curtis Johnson]

If you select a wall and then materials you should see an item called "platform edge" - you can change the materials properties by either going into the Library materials or via the Plan Materials.

[Gayle Sanders]

Thanks Curt. I should have spotted that "platform edge" myself. Now I see that I can avoid getting a hole in ceiling by using an "open below" room (connected by a non-railing wall to an exterior wall) with invisible walls as needed and platform edge the same material as the platform edge for the "deck" room.

That started me wondering how to change the platform edge of a hole in the ceiling? I made an open below interior room and realized that you can change the material of platform edge of the ceiling hole only if the 2nd floor walls are railing walls (using materials tab for 2nd floor walls). So if the walls are to be invisible, you can make them railing walls and choose the material. If the walls are not invisible and not railing, then the edge is the same material as the wall. Using the eye dropper had a variety of results. Error msg saying that you cannot change the platform edge with eye dropper, try changing walls above or below. Some success with eye dropper changing the edge material, but sometimes it changed both the edge material and some of the railing material. So I would avoid the eye dropper for platform edges.

[Curtis Johnson]

Gayle:

I use the eyedropper for some things but using them on walls can give you all kinds of grief, sooner or later. Glad to see you are getting some of those issues cleared up.