Secant Pile Wall - A Method

We get a few enquiries regarding Secant Pile walls, so thought it would be a good topic to cover
This will be broken down into a couple of posts. The first, this one, will cover a basic method to get up and running. The second post will cover a couple of more advanced details.

The method involves creating a Generic Model family, then placing this into an In-place Wall family in the project. This In-place 'container' ensures that the piles display correctly in the project (ie hidden lines shown). I'm not a huge advocate of in-place families in general, but this is one instance where they have a good use.



The first thing to do is to create a diameter driven circular profile family. This isn't covered in the video, but for reference, refer to a previous post here

The next stage is to set up some shared parameters as follows:

'Pile Size Male' - Length
'Pile Size Female' - Length
'Pile Length Male' - Length
'Pile Length Female' - Length
'Pile Crs' - Length

We're now ready to create the family. It consists of a Generic Model 'Female' Pile family nested into the main 'Male' Pile family.

Create a new Generic Model Family and name 'GEN_Secant Female". Add the shared parameters above as follows:

'Pile Size Male' - Type - set initial value to 900
'Pile Size Female' - Type - set initial value to 600
'Pile Length Female' - Instance
'Pile Crs' - Type - set initial value to 600

In addition, add a family parameter 'Pile Return Angle' as an angle parameter - set to Instance
Load in the circular profile family and add the geometry as per the video. Close and save

Next is to create the main family:

• Open the 'GEN_Secant Female' and save as 'GEN_Secant'
• Delete the void elements.
• Add a reference plane as shown
• Keeping the existing parameters, now add the shared parameter 'Pile Length Male'. Set to Instance. Also, create a new family yes/no parameter 'Pile Female'
• Pick the solid and swap the female profile for the male profile. Delete the female profile.
• Change the length dimension from 'Pile Length Female' to 'Pile Length Male'.
• Load 'GEN_Secant Female' into this family. Place an instance of this, lock off to the reference planes and link parameters as shown

Now load the family into the project. Create a new in-place family of type 'Wall' and place instances of secant pile as desired.

On a final note to Nikolajs who contacted us regarding this; I tried to reply to your query, but it was bounced back. Hopefully this will help you out

Rotate a Generic Annotation 360° and Beyond - A Method

The following video outlines a method for rotating a Generic Annotation through 360°. In the example, a north arrow is nested into a drawing sheet. This builds on a previous post here, regarding rotating tags. This method however, solves the problem with the array breaking at 0°/360°. The main points are outlined below:

• Create a Generic Annotation family and load into a drawing sheet
• Insert the annotation
• Now to set up the array. A bit of reverse logic is required here. Firstly, rotate the element by an angle, in this case 120°. Make sure this is from the rotation point you want to use
• Now draw a second element. In this case, I have added an invisible circle. The purpose this serves is to allow all elements, except the one we want to show, to be excluded from the groups formed by the array. If the array group contains only one element, this won't work; Revit will delete the group and the array along with it. The aim is to leave 'empty' group containers
• Pick the annotation and the circle. Pick 'Array'. Ensure 'Group and Associate' is checked and also that the 'Last' radio button is selected. Array through the same angle, with rotation at the same point, as the earlier rotate operation. This should bring the end of the array back to 0°
• With these settings, the array will always rotate leaving the last element in a static position, in this case, back at 0°
• Now exclude all elements from the array groups as shown, leaving only the annotation at the 120° angle in place 
• Hover over the rotation point area and tab. The array looks like a slice of pie
• Add an angular dimension to the array. You may need to tab to ensure you get the correct lines
• Pick the dimension and add an angle parameter
• Load the sheet into a new project and spin the angle to your heart's content

'Date & Time Stamp' for Generic Annotation Families

The following video outlines a method for getting the Date/Time stamp parameter available to Title Block families into Generic Annotation families. The example shown is an update to the status banner that we use on drawing sheets.



The main points are as follows:

• Open the Generic Annotation family you want to edit (or start one from scratch)
• Create a new label. Under 'Family Category & Parameters', change the category to 'Title Blocks'. This will open up the 'Date Time Stamp' parameter. Apply this parameter to the label
• Select all labels in the family and cut to the clipboard
• Under 'Family Category & Parameters', change the category back to 'Generic Annotation'
• Paste the label elements back to the same place
• If working on an existing family, as demonstrated in the video, it will mess up some of the categories and labels. These now need to be corrected. If starting from scratch, do the 'Date Time Stamp' steps above first, to avoid any of this re-work
• Please note that this built-in 'Date Time Stamp' takes its format from the Windows system settings

That's pretty much it. Enjoy