The beta release of the RAM to Revit tool has gone well. I have a few people using the tool in practice and have heard some good feedback so far. I am actively trying to maintain this and make it better, so if you have any requests, please reach out. I will try to get your feature added.
Big Update #1 - Calculate X Y and Rotation Function Upgrade
The calculate X Y and rotation function has been greatly improved and does a much better job at trying to guestimate the rotational and offset parameters between your RAM coordinate system and your Revit coordinate system. My error, I had not converted the intersection point of the RAM gridlines into the Revit coordinate system which led to some really bad estimates on X and Y offsets. This has been revised now and should work in a majority of cases.
Update #2 - Mouse Tracking of Coordinate in the Mapping Plane
Should the "Calculate X Y and Rotation" button not do a good job of estimating the X Y and rotation parameters, I have added mouse coordinates in the lower left of the mapping plane. This should allow for easy hand calculations of the X and Y offset parameters should you not be aligned.
Update #3 - Additional Beam Info - RAM Beam #, Camber, LRFD Start and End Reaction
I had a user ask for some additional information the datagrid, RAM beam #, Camber, and beam end shear reactions. Eventually they want to map the start and end reactions into the revit beam for quicker documentation. Side note, I feel sorry for you east coast engineers, sometimes it's just easier to design the simple shear tab connections.
I am working with this user to see how they like to schedule their end reactions and hope to have a way to write the start and end reaction parameter into the Revit beam soon. More to come on this. The reactions that is recorded is an LFRD factored load reaction that only looks at RAM Steel Beam gravity results. It checks both 1.4DL and 1.2DL + 1.6LL and nothing else. Use with caution.
I also have one user with a weird bug that will not allow them to access the RAM structural API.
I am hoping that this new update will give me a little more insight into why it is not working on their computer. I finally learned how to generate a meaningful error message using the "try" "catch" keywords in C Sharp. Hopefully the exception that is thrown is more insightful than my previous error message.
private void getRAMResults_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
if (ramFilePath == null)
{
MessageBox.Show($"You must select a RAM Structural model first, .rss", "Error", MessageBoxButton.OK, MessageBoxImage.Error);
return;
}
//List<string> storyNames = RAMInfo.GET_STORY_NAMES(ramFilePath);
try
{
List<string> storyNames = RAMInfo.GET_STORY_NAMES(ramFilePath);
ramFloorComboBox.ItemsSource = storyNames;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
MessageBox.Show($"An error occurred: {ex.Message}\n\nLikely errors include:\n\n1. RAM Structural is not installed on your computer\n\n2. Your RAM structural file is corrupt, check for .USR file \n\n3. Clear your working file directory, usually located here C:\\ProgramData\\Bentley\\Engineering\\RAM Structural System\\Working" , "Error", MessageBoxButton.OK, MessageBoxImage.Error);
return;
}
}