Column rundowns, read from the analysis output
Column rundowns read straight from a RAM export, with the design-strip rules applied automatically.
The problem
Column rundowns are methodical, manual work. For every column on every floor, an engineer reads the moment off the analysis output, checks whether there is post-tension, applies the design-strip rules, and records the result. The data is all in RAM, the rules are known, and the process is identical every time. But there is no built-in way to automate it, so on a tall building with dozens of columns a floor, it just eats hours.
What I built
I built a Grasshopper workflow that works from a RAM DWG export. The only manual step is the export itself. From there, the workflow reads the drawing, identifies the columns, floors and moment diagrams, detects where post-tension is present, applies the design-strip rules, and outputs structured column-rundown data.
It started as a quick proof of concept, just to see whether it was possible. It has since grown into a tool the client uses for real.
What makes this work
Give it a DWG export and it interprets the moment diagrams directly, with no clean data feed required, working out where the post-tension is, then applying the same design-strip rules an engineer would, consistently, across every column on every floor. It is the engineer's judgement, encoded, run at the scale of a whole building.
What changed
The rundown that took a manual floor-by-floor pass is generated from the export, so tall buildings stop being the bottleneck. Because the rules are encoded, the same logic applies to every column rather than drifting with fatigue.
Notes on maintainability
The design-strip rules are encoded, so the same logic applies consistently across every floor and column.