Terrible trouble with stairs in HD Interiors 2018

[AndrewEW]

Folks,

I'm not sure if this is a deliberate limitation of HDI 2018 or a lack of understanding on my part but I can't seem to set the riser height manually.

 

I have a set of stairs with a straight run, 3 winders (90 degree turn), landing then a straight run to the second floor for a total turn of 180 degrees.

 

What I'm struggling with is the straight runs. I have full control over the winders and landings in that you can set the top heights, depths etc. The stairs on the other hand seem to be "over automated". Unless the stairs reach the second floor you can't adjust the rider height. Technically you can't adjust the riser height even then but you can adjust the run, and by setting the number of treads you, essentilly get a reverse engineered alteration to the riser.

 

The problem is winders aren't supported either. I did look at some of the answers when "hand made" winders are made from a series of adjusted landings, but the way I'm going it looks like I'm going to have to make the entire staircase out of landings. BTW you can't join two landings such that they act as part of a complete stair case.

 

So two questions. Does HDI 2018 have support for winders and more granular control over stairs risers? Is my manual approach using landings wrong?  

 

BTW here's the typical HDI 2018 stairs dialog.

 

[solver]

What does the documentation say?

 

If your stairs are correctly connected, you should see something similar to this, I think, although this is from Chief, so I'm sure interiors will look different.

 

[Jo_Ann]

I think you are going about this in the wrong drawing order.
Yes, you have to manually draw the winders and landing. It is what it is.

Set their dimensions and height correctly, and connect them to each other.

Draw the 1st straight stair section separate from the winders.  Open the dialog and lock in the # of treads.  Now carefully move it into position to automatically connect with the 1st winder.  If you have set the height of the winders and landing correctly, the straight stair risers should reflect this.
Draw in the upper stair section from the top landing to the 2nd floor.

You can now drag the straight stair sections to elongate or shorten them, if you want the tread depth to increase or decrease.

[AndrewEW]

8 hours ago, solver said:

What does the documentation say?

Thanks Eric, I believe that's my problem. Many years ago I had access to a version of CA and this was a somewhat trivial exercise.

 

The issue I'm having is the HDI documentation is extremely light on these details and my expectation has been set by my experience in CA so that's the source of my frustration. Expecting a feature to be these when it's not.

 

Jo_Ann, thank you for your input. I did read a number of your posts to glean some of the details but wasn't able to apply it to my challenge other than to understand the winders are custom landings. I did not consider the straight runs could be connected to the isolated landings and adjustments made accordingly.

I guess I'll have to get the calculator out and do this old school. Thanks for the guidance.

 

regards

Andrew