In this
video, we're going to create a freestanding railing.
So up until now, the railings that we've seen have been attached to
stairs and railings are somewhat unique in the sense that you can create them
either hosted to a stair in which the stair determines the shape of the railing,
or you can draw them yourself freestanding for guardrails,
handrails, that sort of thing.
So in this video, we're going to look at a guardrail example.
And I'm going to zoom in here.
I mean, the second floor plan and I want the guardrail to follow this balcony
that we have up here on the second floor, this floor element here.
So to do that, we're going to go to the railing tool
and you'll see that there's two options sketch path or place on stair and ramp.
We're actually going to look at both of these in this video.
I've removed the railings from the stair so that we can try both tools.
But let's start with the sketch path tool
and we'll sketch a freestanding guardrail first.
So we could just simply start drawing the path of the railing.
But I think it'll be easier if we use this pick lines tool right here.
And the reason for that is because we can just touch
the edges of other geometry, like the edges of the floor.
Now, the only trouble with that is if I just click the edge, it's
putting it right on that edge. And I think it would be nicer
if it was offset away from that just a little bit.
So I'm going to do Control Z one time to undo that.
And then up here on the options bar, I have an offset parameter
and in the imperial file, I'm going to use an offset of two inches.
If you're working in the metric file, use 50 millimeters and now you'll see
that I can either offset to either side of the line.
So I just want to offset to the inside where the floor slab is click.
I'll do this little short line here, click and this long one
right there, I'll click the Modify tool to cancel.
If we zoom in at this end, everything looks pretty good.
If we go to the other end, you'll see that the sketch line is just
a little bit too long and it penetrates into this column right here.
So easy enough to fix that.
Just select the sketch line, use the little grip control at the end here,
and we're just going to drag that back some distance, like so
then you're going to see some temporary dimensions appear here and there's
a witness line grip right here, which is referencing this reference line.
I'm going to click and drag that dot
to snap it to the column, face.
And now I can edit this dimension value and put it in the offset that I'd like.
I'm going to use four inches for Imperial or 100 millimeters in metric.
So that is the sketched path for my railing.
I'll click anywhere to deselect, let's click the finished tool
and you can see the railing appear here in the floorplan.
But I think it'll be a little bit easier
to understand what we've created if we go to 3D.
So I'm going to scroll down here on the project
browser and locate the 3D stair view.
This is a view that we used in earlier videos and you can see that
railing right there up along the balcony.
Now I'm going to hold the shift key down and orbit the wheel to kind of spin around
to a different vantage point so that we can see it maybe a little more clearly.
So you can see it stops here right at the top of the stairs.
And then right there you can see the little four inch or 100
millimeter gap that we placed at the end.
Now, if you're satisfied with this railing type, you can leave it alone.
But I've got some other railing types here in the file,
which might be a little bit nicer in this scenario.
So in earlier videos we were using the IBC pipe rail type.
Now that type is right here.
This is the one that was built
into the template file that we use to start this project.
So it's IBC, pipe rail, stringer extension, top and bottom.
If you watched the previous video, then you saw that
railings can have extensions at the top or bottom.
Now this railing is not on a stair, so top or
bottom would be like left and right if you want to think of it that way.
So if I use that railing type for this guardrail,
you can see that the extensions don't really work for us in this scenario
because now it's penetrating past and kind of projecting over the stair.
And then this one, you have to hover over it
to see it's actually now penetrating into the column geometry.
So what I've done in this file to to kind of save us a little bit of time
is I duplicated this railing type a couple of times and removed
the extensions for the different scenarios that we're going to have here.
So this one here that says no extension is a copy of the same railing,
just with the extensions removed on both ends.
So I'm going to choose that one.
And you can see now that we've got the railing freestanding
over here and freestanding over here, and I think that looks a little bit better.
So to finish this up, I'm going to spin this around
in 3D here so that we can see the staircase now.
And I've removed the railings from the stairs in the exercise file.
So let's add them back again.
Now, that was that other tool
on the dropdown for the railing tool that we saw at the beginning here.
So all you need to do to add the railings back to
the stair is choose place on stair or ramp,
and then you can touch the stair and it will add those railings.
Now before I do that though, I always forget to check this.
So let me point that out to you and see
if I can save you the trouble of making that mistake, just like we saw
when we were placing the railing inside the stair.
You can choose whether or not the railing should reference the treads
or the stringers.
I think it'll be nicer if we reference the stringers.
So I'm going to choose that button before I click it.
And then when I do, you'll see it'll create a railing on both sides.
Now I'm going to click the Modify tool to cancel out.
And of course, it's using that default handrail rectangular again.
So now what I'm going to do is swap out each one of those
with the appropriate types from the ones I showed you a moment ago.
When you're using the pick stair tool to add railings,
it automatically uses the same railing on both sides of the stair.
You don't have control over that,
so you're always going to need to come back later and change out the railing.
Type to whatever you want after you've placed it.
So for the internal railing here,
I've created one that has the extension only at the bottom
so you can see appear at the top where it meets the other handrail.
I don't want to have an extension.
I just want those to come together nice and cleanly.
But down at the bottom I do want to extend out.
So that's what this railing is for right here.
And you'll see that it will connect to this one and it will extend out here.
Now, we've got a little bit of an overlap
there that we'll deal with in just a moment.
But let's come back to this one now,
and we're going to choose the original type for that one with the extension
at both the top and the bottom, since it's freestanding over here and here.
Now I'm going to go back to the Level two floorplan
and you can see that I've got a slight overlap and
that my offset is a little bit off there.
So you can easily go back to the railing choose edit path.
It looks as though the offset of two inches
should have probably been maybe one inch now.
I still like two inches for this segment and the other segment.
So what I'm going to do is just take this segment here,
move it down one inch or 25 millimeters
if you're working in metric to get it in the center of this other one.
And then I'll just take this little grip here and pull it back to right there
so that it snaps to the end of the railing.
There it is.
And I'll click, finish
and now you can see that touches more cleanly.
And when we go back to 3D, that looks a lot better.
So that is how you can create custom railings,
both for handrail conditions, guardrails,
and also to place them on stairs or ramps that don't already have them.