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Structural columns can also be slanted if you choose to place a slanted column type.
In order to be able to do this, it's always best to be inside of your First Floor plan
or whatever floor plan you want to start with, then come up underneath the Structure tab
and select on Column.
From here, we can look over here and we can see that there's two different options.
The one we probably would have placed in the past would have been a vertical column, but
if want to be able to slant or tilt, we have to use the slanted column.
So just go ahead and select on Slanted Column right here.
Next, you want to be able to draw the slanted column from the first floor up to the second
floor.
And right now we can see here on the Options bar, this says 1st Click, and it has top of
foundation.
If you're says something different that's okay, but what we're going to do is going
to change this to be First Floor.
If we try to do this right now, it might generate an error, and the error message is going to
say the first click elevation cannot equal the second click of elevation.
What that means is that it was going to have a column that was going to have absolutely
zero height to it and it didn't like that.
So usually if you're going to be placing some like a slanted column, I usually like to adjust
it where it has 2nd click first.
In other words, change this up to second floor, and now change this, where it has top of footing,
to be first floor.
Now, since this one and this one are not the same, that means that the column is going
to have a height, so it's no longer going to generate that error message whenever we
try to first place that slanted column.
Now that we've actually adjusted these settings, another thing we'll need to do is make sure
the 3D snap is currently not on.
3D snap if you're inside of a 3D view works really well, if we're going to be placing
the slanted column.
But since we're in a two- dimensional view we really don't need it, and frankly it can
kind of get in the way.
So just make sure that box is cleared out, and now we're going to place a slanted column
over here to the right-hand side on the grid of 6 and B.
Now, it's going to ask us to do two clicks.
Technically this first one is going to be for the very first, or the very bottom of
this column; and now it's going to want us to do a second one.
And I like to usually just do my second click pretty much in the exact same spot as the
first.
You may get an error message.
Don't worry about it; we're going to make adjustments to it anyway.
Now let's go ahead and take a look at this inside of an Elevation view.
So we'll move down in a Project browser, we'll open up the South Elevation.
And now, this is the column that we just placed, and like we specified in the Options bar,
it's between the first and second floor.
Now if want this to be slanted, all we have to do is select on it, click on the little
grip that shows up, hold down your mouse button, and just sort of drag it in the direction
you want it to slant.
If you know the exact angle of it, we can always tell it what angle we want it to be
at.
In this case though, I just know what the distance should be away from our building.
Now, I know that the base is in the right location, because that's why I put it on the
structural grid.
In this case, it happens to be 8-foot-6 off the center of this column, but I want the
top of this to be 12-foot-6 away from the center of this column.
So in order for me to do that, we're really going to have to place a dimension in here.
Now this is easy enough to do.
All you have to do is come up here to the Annotate tab, and pick on this button right
here that says Linear.
And that's just going to create a dimension that goes straight, sort of like the dimensions
that you see here in the preview.
Next--and this might be the hardest part to do because it almost looks like you're clicking
blind--but just move your mouse until you have this spot right here.
And you might even see a blue dot on your screen, depending on the resolution; and you
can just click once, move over, and then pick the center point of this beam or of this column.
Then move straight up and just click again; and then click somewhere out here in space.
Now just the place a dimension in for us and that'll be a reference dimension for everything
else we're getting ready to do.
Now the next thing we'll do is, we'll go ahead and we'll select back on the column.
And you can see how this is telling this is a 14 feet and 1/8th of an inch.
Now, as I'm looking at this, I'm seeing that this might not be exactly on center, so we're
just going to zoom in just a little bit and make sure if it's on center or not.
It looks like it just slightly off for this dimension, because it is.
If yours is fine, then you don't have to do this; but I'm selecting on my dimension, clicking
on this little circular shape right up here that says Move Witness Line.
And I'm just going to click and hold my mouse button down and just sort of drag it out until
it's lined up with that line.
So now I know that I could have that dimension, have it just sort to be right and have it
snap to the right location.
Let me see if I can do this with the bottom one here.
Pull it up, pull it back; there we go.
One of those things about moving witness lines is sometimes they don't always like to snap
just right where you want them to go.
So if that ever happens, you just click on it and drag it way out here, and just pull
it straight back, and then it will just sort of grab onto the spot that you want it to
grab onto.
Now, once you finally have that dimension in place, it gets to be really easy.
All you have to do is select on your column, tell it what you want this dimension to be--
In this case, 12-foot-6 inches--and zoom out.
You'll see that the bottom of it is moved, but now it's easy; you just click and drag
that over by selecting on this little circular shape here.
And now your column is in the right spot and has the right distance or slope associated
with it.
So, in conclusion, creating a slanted column actually takes some practice, and sometimes
it takes a creative use of views.
But with dimensions as your guide, you'll have the greatest level of success in creating
that slanted column and making it be as accurate as possible.