The wish list for stairs

[Gene Davis]

Lew, I knew when I wrote my post earlier, that someone would step up and point out how manually building stairs is best for doing a lot of as-built work.

And so it was you! Thanks for responding, and making it clear why you need this feature.

Can we continue this discussion as a back-n-forth dialog here in this thread? Because if we can, I'll begin by asking one question, with sort of a setup qualifier as a preamble:

Presuming you wish your 3D stair model to be quite exact and match reality, to what degree of accuracy are you able to get finish-to-finish elevation change, floor to floor, in most jobs? In other words, the total stair rise.

[GordC]

I agree with Lew. For me being able to add code parameters for risers, treads, landings, and winders would be great. For some, code doesn’t apply, but for me, it is everything. Almost all my work is additions and most involve existing stairs.

When I checked out the trial version of Chief, the stair tool was the biggest disappointment.

If stairs are a pain in Chief, imagine the royal pain they are in Pro 8.

(Warning: have the Aspirin ready if you start reading the attachment)

[sherpa_jones]

Gord, that is almost identical to the codes in BC, but I guess they are both based on the National Building Code of Canada.

[Gene Davis]

I'm going to throw in another commentary on stairs and the rendering thereof, but first I'll tell you about another software package I use, or more precisely, used to use.

eCabinets is a free and downloadable software program developed and supported by Thermwood, a maker of CNC router equipment. eCabinets is a very powerful package that allows the user to build virtually any type of cabinet, using the parametric feature based modeling aspect of the software. The software outputs code directly readable by its CNC routers, so that jobs or batches of cabinet parts are readily cut, quickly and accurately.

I used it when doing kitchen and bath cabinetry. Measure for a job, model it up in eCabs, email the jobfile off to my CNC cutter shop, and have the entire batch of parts direct-shipped to the jobsite. Did a lot of very profitable cab work that way.

eCabs produces those jobfiles that tell the CNC what to do, but it also produces 3D renderings of your "room" compositions. Renderings can help some users present and sell their jobs to clients. I never used the rendering capability of eCabinets. A pic is attached here showing an eCabs render.

Like Chief, eCabs has a forum site that is devoted to Q&A about the software and its use, and from my perusal of the eCabs forum, about half of the discussions relate to rendering, with the rest being about what I call the "production" side of things. Fifty percent "selling," and fifty percent "production."

I could never really get into the fifty percent of all those eCabs discussions about how to get exactly the right lampshade in your model, or precisely that granite countertop texture, or that Enkeboll carving, the dentils under the crown, yadda, yadda, yadda. Did the clients really care that much?

Which brings me back to the stairs thing. How much of what we want from Chief in a future release, as it relates to stairs, is about rendering (and thus "selling") and how much is about construction docs (or getting stuff built)?

Are we guilty of the same "user overboard about rendering" thing I saw at eCabinets?

If you are doing a remodeling scheme for a client, how important is it for the client to see, in your 3D renderings, the existing stairs in a building, done up with all the details? If the stairs aren't even in the scope of the new work, what is the point of doing the work to render them accurately?

If, in the remodel, there are to be NEW stairs, won't those stairs have the kind of repetitive rise-run sequences that all good stairs should have? Won't we be able to accurately model those stairs just knowing the basic spatial specs . . . total rise, total runs, landing geometry, etc. . . . so that Chief can figure the rest?

Help me understand. You want to model a staircase produced by an idiot who committed all the errors in building it. Uneven tread widths. Uneven riser heights. Stuff not-to-code everywhere. If the rise-runs are uneven, how do you arrive at the average of things so as to define your balustrade?

What's the point of all this? There has got to be something I am missing, because when it actually comes to producing revenue using Chief, I am a rank beginner.

[Doug Park]

Keep complaining.

Stairs are an area that we recognize as needing improvement.

I believe everything that has been posted so far an much more has been logged into our database. However, some of the observations that are being made are good in that they help us to find a balance between absolute precision and good enough.

One thing to keep in mind is that when working with a 3D model on a computer a very small discrepancy can result in a very visible artifact in the final rendering.

[lbuttery]

Presuming you wish your 3D stair model to be quite exact and match reality, to what degree of accuracy are you able to get finish-to-finish elevation change, floor to floor, in most jobs? In other words, the total stair rise.



Gene:

you are correct that in most remodel jobs we do an approximation of the stairs and call it "good enough".

But sometimes we do need to get a bit more "precise" and try and match the existing conditions. I don't think we have ever tried to get the stairs "perfect"

Maybe with better tools we could ???

Lew

[Allen42acj]

If stairs are a pain in Chief, imagine the royal pain they are in Pro 8.

Gord
I think they have the same tool..

[Allen42acj]

I would like to be able to select what side of the stair changes when resizing the width in the dbx..

Unless I'm missing something it is a pain now.
Stairs with a platform, open and set to 42" and never know what side will change or if they will disconnect from the landing..

[GordC]

Allen,

You are 99% correct.

As for the proper way to use the stair tool and landings, I am going find today during my first training session with David J.

[Allen42acj]

Gord
I see.
You have no choice on the railings unless the plan already has the defaults..

Training should be interesting..

[Bradley Boltz]

I agree with Lew. For me being able to add code parameters for risers, treads, landings, and winders would be great. For some, code doesn’t apply, but for me, it is everything. Almost all my work is additions and most involve existing stairs.

When I checked out the trial version of Chief, the stair tool was the biggest disappointment.

If stairs are a pain in Chief, imagine the royal pain they are in Pro 8.

(Warning: have the Aspirin ready if you start reading the attachment)

I can't imagine the stair tool being anymore "Micky-Mouse" and ill behaving than they currently are in X2 (maybe a few "greyed-out" radio buttons?). Actually there are some minor improvements in X2 but instead of bringing out a new "plug-in hybrid" they modified an old "Gremlin" by adding a cd player and cupholders.

Once again, the key issues are: USER CONTROL, USER CONTROL, USER CONTROL.

Regards,
Bradley D. Boltz

[ebdesign]

To me, the biggest fault w/ the stair tool is the limited railings. I can usually get what I want as far as the risers & treads; but, I have to do my own rail systems w/ molding polylines, etc. just about every time; particularly where the stair railing joins w/ a balcony railing.
Jim

[Bradley Boltz]

[quote=Gene Davis]

Which brings me back to the stairs thing. How much of what we want from Chief in a future release, as it relates to stairs, is about rendering (and thus "selling") and how much is about construction docs (or getting stuff built)?

Gene, the current way stairs are depicted or displayed in Chief is inadequate for creating a decent set of construction documents. Try detailing a stair for a " real" architectural design or a commercial set of stairs. The stairs don't currently display apppropriately in plan view for a standard builder house. They are really only adequate for those plan book type displays where no detail is necessary. If Chief were only a realtor tool, then the current state of stairs would probably be good enough.

Are we guilty of the same "user overboard about rendering" thing I saw at eCabinets?

Since Chief is supposed to be a parametric 3d program, any 3d views should be BIM accurate . An accurate 3d model can convey a lot of info to a builder or tradesman. An accurate and easy to produce rendering can save hours of screwing around with making a pretty picture to wow a client. The eCab program has different priorities regarding renderings, it's obviously most critical in how accurately the model info is inputed into the cnc machine. However, if the program is doubling as a presentation tool (a natural bi-product of already having an accurate model, is render-ready 3d) then the rendering discussion is also important to a large number of its users.

If you are doing a remodeling scheme for a client, how important is it for the client to see, in your 3D renderings, the existing stairs in a building, done up with all the details? If the stairs aren't even in the scope of the new work, what is the point of doing the work to render them accurately?

It depends on the context of the remodel and where the existing stairs are in the scheme. Maybe an existing set of stairs is key feature in a design.

If, in the remodel, there are to be NEW stairs, won't those stairs have the kind of repetitive rise-run sequences that all good stairs should have? Won't we be able to accurately model those stairs just knowing the basic spatial specs . . . total rise, total runs, landing geometry, etc. . . . so that Chief can figure the rest?

When I used to hand draft, I had the ability to to be much more accurate and could show the railing and newels exactly where I wanted them when necessary. With the power of the computer it seems silly to settle for less.

Help me understand. You want to model a staircase produced by an idiot who committed all the errors in building it. Uneven tread widths. Uneven riser heights. Stuff not-to-code everywhere. If the rise-runs are uneven, how do you arrive at the average of things so as to define your balustrade?

The ability to model a staircase produced by an idiot might be important if that "idiot" is an architect/client who needs a really funky set of stairs detailed and has contracted me to draft his con docs. The key here is user control of what you draw, not what or why you are drawing it (if Lew wants to accurately depict an exist set of stairs, that's his pergotive).

What's the point of all this? There has got to be something I am missing, because when it actually comes to producing revenue using Chief, I am a rank beginner.

All the more reason to have a better, more intuitive and accurate stair creation tool. Simple to use right out of the box with the ability to access advanced user tools for customization without workarounds.

Gene, from what I'm gathering about the way you design and draft and the increasing demands (from other threads) you are placing on V10, there's no mystery to me as to how much you would benefit from a better stair tool and an upgrade to X2.

Regards,
Bradley D. Boltz

[jimmypader]

When I used to hand draft, I had the ability to to be much more accurate and could show the railing and newels exactly where I wanted them when necessary. With the power of the computer it seems silly to settle for less.

Just to add some thoughts.

to create a computer model of some horrible, misaligned stairs would require the same amount of input as a hand drawing: one line at a time. no program can replicate something that changes at every step

it would be nice to be able to use the stair tool to create a stair, then individually edit each tread/rise section.

i was dismayed by the post that showed that, for all it's precision, CA doesn't account for finish flooring in the stair calculation. seems that should be an easy fix...

[Gene Davis]

Chief does not allow for finished flooring thicknesses at bottom and top of stairs, simply because it does not do finished floor thicknesses anywhere.

Everyone knows this, but I'll say it anyhow. Chief's floor finishes are simply patterns (vector views) and textures (rendered views) "painted" on your subfloor. thickness is zero.

The truly anal will slab the whole floor and paint it with a texture, if they so wish, but then their stairs are "buried" a little.

I gotta ask. If you have 3/4" hardwood on floor 1, and carpet on padding at the top of stairs on floor 2, what value is there in inputting a "start" and "finish" floor thickness adjustment, in modeling your staircase? Do you think that the guys and gals that will build the staircase want you to give them the riser heights?

I'm not being snide. Really. I have not done all that many con docs, so I just don't know.

Here's a wish of mine. I've got a staircase in a plan, and the pics here show what Chief gives me, and what I did in Sketchup to work out the geometry so that the whole thing meets IRC. All I want from Chief is a way to square the inside corners so I can build those under-walls the way I want.

I can probably work my butt off with p'lines and make "landings" for each of the "kite" treads, but to what end is that all done? I can just do the plan as-is, and paste in some details from Sketchup, in less time.

But maybe in some future release, Chief will handle it the way I would like.