About Structural Grids

The app supports two types of structural grids:

• Building Grid - Automatically displays on story primary slabs and, optionally, on your selected output reference planes. The building grid is aware of the building.
• Reference Plane Grid - Displays on your selected output reference planes and can create a gridlines from solid or surface body input. The reference plane grid is unaware of the building.

You can create both types of structural grids based on a sketch that can contain any set of lines and curves, including those with orthogonal or radial patterns.

A prime purpose for the both structural grids is to plan the placement of structural elements such as columns, beams, footings, piles.

When creating a building grid, the Building Grid function:

• Starts with and input sketch in Shell and Core.
• Copies the input sketch geometry to primary slab elevations, user-specified reference planes, and user-selected slabs. The primary slab elevations are specified by the starting story and the number of the stories in the dialog box controls.
  Note: When you start the Building Grid command, the starting story defaults to either the active story or the ground story.
• Has options to automatically include gridlines for slab perimeters and slab openings. Once you include these, the building grid is aware of any changes that affect the slab perimeter or slab openings. For example, the structural grid automatically accommodates a change in the building shape or size as well as the addition or removal of elevators, shafts, stairs, or stairwells.
• Allows you to include or exclude grid segments at a default roof elevation when the building grid reaches the top story.
• Allows you to control whether to use all or some lines in the grid sketch.
• Allows you to define multiple grids for the same building project.

Even without a building model, you can use Building Grid or Reference Plane Grid features. In such cases, the Building Grid and the Reference Plane Grid functions automatically create the building. With Building Grid, the system uses your entry for the number of stories in the grid as the number of stories in the building.

The same project can also have a combination of building and reference grids. Once you create the grids, they all appear in the tree, in Shell and Core.