Beam Sections

Creates longitudinal sections through one or more beams, tags the rebar in them, and creates one typical cross section for every group of beams that share the same size and steel.

Select the beams

Everything starts with Select beams, at the top of the window. Pick the beams once: a longitudinal section takes one to three of them, and the typical sections evaluate all of them.

General tab

These settings are shared by every section the add-in creates.

Section type: the section family type of the new views.
View template: optional. A template decides the scale and the detail level of the new views; without one, the add-in uses the Scale 1: value and the Fine detail level.
Side margin (mm): space added at a beam end that connects to no column, and around the beams of the typical cross sections.

Section tab

The left card holds the longitudinal section and the right card the typical sections. The sections are created with the buttons at the bottom of the window.

Longitudinal section

Set Above and below the beam (mm): the space shown above and below the beam, 400 mm by default.
Turn on Trim the crop region to the beam slope if you want the crop region to follow the slope of a single sloped beam. The section plane stays vertical either way; with more than one beam the crop region is always a rectangle.
Turn on View from the other side to look at the beams from the opposite side.
Keep Create the longitudinal section on (Section tab) and press Create at the bottom of the window.

At each end where the beam connects to a column, the crop region widens to show the whole width of the column. The height is never extended: it is always the beam plus the margin above and below.

If the beams are not aligned, the section follows the line between the first and last beam end and the add-in warns you with the deviation, because some beams may be cut obliquely.

Tagging tab

Tag the rebar when the section is created: the tags are placed together with the longitudinal section.
Use rebar shape tags: shows the bar shape and its dimensions. It is available in Revit 2024 and newer when the project has shape tags; otherwise simple tags are used.
Tag type: the tag type to place.
Also tag the stirrups: by default only the longitudinal bars are tagged.
Distance between rows and Tag width (paper mm): tags that would overlap along the beam are moved to the next row.

There is one tag per kind of bar: above the beam for the top bars and below it for the bottom bars. Bars with the same shape, diameter and length at the same place along the beam share one tag.

Typical sections

Set Ends at (% of the length). For example 20 cuts each beam at 20 %, 50 % and 80 % of its length; 10 cuts it at 10 %, 50 % and 90 %.
Set the tolerances: beams whose section size and bar diameters differ by less than these values are treated as equal.
Keep Create the cross sections on (Section tab) and press Create at the bottom of the window. The longitudinal section, the cross sections and the rebar tags are independent: turn off the ones you do not need. With the longitudinal section off and Tag the rebar on, the tags go in the active view, which must be a section along the beams.

Every beam is evaluated at the three stations. Beams with the same section size and the same top and bottom bars at the left end, the center and the right end form a group, and one set of three section views is created for the first beam of each group. The views are named "Typical n - station (k beams)", and the Title on Sheet parameter lists the beams the typical section applies to (their Mark, or their element id when they have none). The message at the end lists the groups.

Beams without longitudinal rebar are left out and counted in the message.

Notes

Only straight beams are supported. Curved and vertical members are ignored.
Stirrups are not compared when grouping beams.
Where bars overlap at a splice, both bars are counted at that station, so beams are only grouped together when they are detailed the same way.
The rebar must be hosted by the beam to be found.