The perks of 3D modeling...

Something about being able to turn a professor's 2D geometry with lots of labels and lots of trig equations into a simple 3D plot makes for a joyful Saturday afternoon homework session.

 Visualization is a critical component of Civil engineering. Being able to work with 3D data is an unspoken requirement in our field along with the ability to manually(and quickly) visualize the scale of dimensions.

With the Revit conceptual mass environment, one can easily play with 3D data and train the eye to better deal with 2D-3D coordination.

The problem itself was rather simple but I didn't have accurate notes so I had to patch up a numerical example to glean the geometric data:

I had a given set of equation and a badly drawn diagram; I had to deduce what angle alpha was referring to to. Given  the equation set below and the geometry below(my revit conceptual mass model), I had to find angle alpha. With the Revit drawing, it became clear what alpha was.( My notes didn't have alpha drawn on the diagram).

 

Fig 1.

Fig. 2

From the diagram it is clear that  Line AP is perpendicular to line OA therefore the length of OP can be found from a two consecutive application of Pythagoras theorem.  Knowing the length of AB and BP, AP can be find and hence angle subtended by OA and OP, alpha, can be found.

All this sounds elementary but bad note-taking had me reeling.