Planarize Examples

In the first example below, a frame is planarized in order to resolve a validation issue. The same example then goes on to demonstrate the use of the Limit to Grid Extent property.

In the second example, slopes are planarized in order to align beam flanges to a sloping roof, and also to facilitate the removal of surplus intermediate levels.

Planarize Frame Example

Consider the model shown below.

When the model is validated an error is displayed.

The error indicates that the roof panel is not being supported as intended by the edge beams.

The roof panel should be supported along the edges defined by grids D and A. To confirm if this is the case both of these planes can be checked in turn using Planarize

The process for doing this is as follows:

By hovering the cursor over grid line D, then right clicking, Planarize FRM D can be selected from the context menu.

All of the edge members that should exist in the plane of grid line D are colored gray to indicate they are ‘defined in plane’ - this is correct.
By clicking ‘Attached to plane’ in the Properties Window, the roof panel and transverse roof are displayed in brown - again this is correct.
When the above process is repeated for grid line A a different result is obtained because this is where the modeling error exists.

Neither of the columns or the beam that should have been colored gray to indicate they are in the plane of frame A are shown at all. The reason for this is that they were incorrectly placed using an adjacent parallel construction line (which isn't shown in the above view).

The view below shows the error in more detail - the beam and the two columns that should be referenced to grid line A are instead currently referenced to construction line #15 which runs almost but not quite parallel to grid line A.

Note: The beam and the two columns referenced to construction line #15 are not initially displayed at all (in any color) when FRM A is planarized. This is because they lie just outside the current tolerance setting of 25mm.
If the tolerance is increased to 50mm, the entities referenced by #15 are now shown.
Hovering the cursor over the two columns and then the beam in turn, the tooltips reveal how far away the entity nodes are from the target plane.
Because they now lie within the tolerance they are near enough to be moved into the plane of FRM A. They can all be selected in one operation by dragging a box from right to left around them.
Once selected, the nodes defining each of the three members are moved into the plane of FRM A.

The model can now be validated, analyzed and designed without any further issues.

Limit to Grid Extent

As long as the Limit to Grid Extent property is selected, Planarize will look for entity nodes within the specified tolerance to either side of the target grid line, but is restricted to look no further than the two ends of the grid line.

When grid line A is planarized, by default Limit to Grid Extent is selected.

Consequently the potential zone in which entity nodes can be located is indicated by the green shaded box shown below.

If Limit to Grid Extent is unselected, the zone is allowed to extend to the model extents as shown below.

As a result other entities might potentially be identified that can also be moved into the target plane.

In this case a column and beam on grid line 3 have nodes that now lie within the shaded zone.

When these are selected they move so that they are now defined in the (projected) plane of grid line A.

Planarize Slope Example

Consider the model shown below, in which the horizontal roof beams are shown as selected.

Because of the particular way in which the structure has been modeled, separate levels (which aren't actually required) have been created for these beams.

In the properties for each beam, the level is shown as the plane associated with the beam.

Because of this the beam flanges are associated with, and aligned to, the level rather than the roof slope.

By planarizing to the roof slope the beams and their flanges become associated with and aligned to the slope instead of the level.

The process for doing this is as follows:

In the Project Workspace, expand the Slopes branch In the Structure tree.
Right click on the first roof slope and select Planarize IP 1

The Planarize command prompts you to select the entities to move to the plane.
Select the 4 horizontal beams at the intermediate levels to have them defined by the plane. The selected beams become realigned to the plane of the roof slope and are colored gray to indicate they are ‘Defined in plane’.
Select the 3 sloping beams that are aligned with the plane (but not in any plane) to have them also defined by the plane. These also become shown as ‘Defined in plane’.
Repeat the same process for the second roof slope.
Because the beams have been realigned to the plane of the roof slope their flanges are now shown parallel to the slope.
As there are no longer any members associated with the intermediate level planes, they can be removed by selecting Rationalize from the Edit ribbon.

This results in the two intermediate levels being removed from the Levels tree.