Unable to merge stair sections for winder corner

[HarstineSteve]

Hello,

 

I have HD Pro 9.0.  I've been using it for several years off and on.  Three years ago I got my HD Pro house design permitted.  It's framed, dried in and I'm now working on HVAC ducts.  You could call this house a 'bucket list' project.

 

I'm trying to use HD Pro on a different project now -- a remodel, where I need to tuck some basement-to-first story stairs around a corner, using winders instead of a landing at the corner, in order to get enough treads into the available length. 

 

I'm trying to follow the instructions offered at http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-00486/.

The trouble is that I cannot get the stair sections to "merge" as they do in the instructions.  I have no trouble getting sections to merge if I click to create a landing, but I don't want a landing;  I need winders.  HD 9.0 doesn't look exactly like what the instructions show;  when you drag out a stair section it has no round 'handle' at the top as shown in the instructions.  Each end-to-end stair section I create remains separate.  A camera shows that each begins again at the ground level, instead of at the height the previous one ended.  When I open a section I see just the specification dialog for that section, rather than for all of the sections together in the same dialog, numbered 1, 2, ...

 

Is there a trick I need to know?  Or a bug in HD Pro 9.0?  I can paste in some images if the situation isn't clear.

 

  thanks for any suggestions - Steve

[DavidJPotter]

Not a bug, just something that you have to be very precise and plodding with. The key is precise placement of stair objects, one to another in both plan view and in the "Z" axis (relative height). That and practice will help you arrive, there are no tips or tricks other than making sure all settings are correct and that spacial locations are perfect.

 

DJP

[Kbird1]

if the stairs aren't the same width all the way up that sometimes stops them from joining properly , but you should be able to open each section of stair and set the top and bottom heights , ie set the bottom height to the same top height as the previous section working your way up.

 

M.

[HarstineSteve]

Thanks for the advice.  I'm finding one part of it confusing, though.  Both of you, David and Kbird1, have said I need to be careful getting things right in the vertical.  But when stair sections are joined using a landing, and they merge into a single object, HD Pro handles the Z relationships for you -- joining one section to the next and representing them as "Section # 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, ...".

 

It sounds to me like what I'm hearing from you is that there is not an analogous merging if there is no landing.  Instead I must manipulate the vertical position of each section independently myself.  Is this right?  How does one even set the vertical start of a stair section?  I do not find a "Distance from floor" field on the stair dialog, and HD Pro's Transform/Replicate dialog seems to ignore an attempt to shift a stair section with a "Z Delta" move.

 

Thanks again for your help.  Really appreciated.

 

(P.S.  Since this is a tough -- but not uncommon -- thing to need to do in HD Pro, it seems like a good topic for a tutorial video, no?)

[DavidJPotter]

 

 

HD Pro handles the Z relationships for you...

I have never successfully used "Automatic Heights" when working on Winders, NEVER. They must be done using manual height settings. See this You Tube video for more mass (data-reality) please:

 

 

Even though I use X5 for the video, Premier and Pro have identical tools for custom winder stairs.

 

DJP

[Kbird1]

One of the quirks with stairs is the stair and landing must be the same width or you must break the edge of the landing with the "break line " Tool then they will "snap" together , though I am not sure that is your issue with the Winders as the tutorial works fine for me , I just had a play , I am using  Pro 10 and don't see the circle you mention or I see in the Tut. but I actually think that is just the Object snap for centre you are seeing in the Tut. if you have them off in Preferences or toggled off with the icon you may not see them, but grabbing the stair section with the ALT button and curving the 2nd section works fine for me.