Consider the following scenario: You've just designed a concrete stair, yet its edges do not conform to the shape of the walls that make up the stairwell.

Figure 1: The edges of the stairs do not match.

Rather than erasing and redrawing the stair, you can take advantage of a great design tool known as Customize Edge.

The Concept in a Nutshell
A stair's edge can be customized by a number of means, including projecting it to walls, or even polylines. In this example, an outline was drawn using the polyline command (see the red polyline shown in Figure 2) to reflect the desired new edge of the stair.

Figure 2: Draw a polyline that will serve as a guide for the stair

Highlight the stair and right-click to access the stair option known as Customize Edge (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Right-click to access Customize Edge.

After you've selected Customize Edge, you must specify how you'd like the edge to be customized. In this example, the stairs will be customized by adhering to the red polyline that was drawn earlier (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: Select the edge to be projected.

Now, simply select the edge that you'd like to customize and the polyline that you want to use as the basis for the customization. Autodesk Architectural Desktop will then project the edge of the stair to the polyline. You see the result in Figure 5.

Figure 5: The stair with customized edge

But we're not done. The stair looks correct in 3D View, but now we have to "turn off" all of the stair components in the down direction such as stringers, risers, and nosing so that it is displayed properly in Plan View as well.

We can do this easily by changing the stair's Entity Display. To do this, select the stair, right-click, and choose Entity Display, which opens the Entity Display dialog box. Then click on the Display Props tab in the Entity Display dialog box. You should see the following options known as Overrides:

• Stair
• Style
• System

In essence, these Overrides give you a great deal of flexibility to alter the appearance of objects many different levels. Here's a brief explanation of the Overrides and their respective effects:

• Stair - The change will only be reflected in the specific stair selected. Use this option if you want to turn off the stair components in the down direction (stringers, risers and nosing) for this stair and this stair only.
• Style - The change will be reflected in every object of that specific style. Use this option if you want to turn off the stair components in the down direction (stringers, risers and nosing) for every stair of this specific style. If Style is chosen as the Override, every stair whose style is Concrete will no longer display its "down components."
• System - The change will be reflected in every object of the specified type. If System is chosen as the Override, every stair, regardless of style, will no longer display its components (such as stringers, risers and nosing).

Figure 6: Use Entity Display to change the Plan View of the stair

Since we only want to change the appearance of this specific stair, in the Display Props tab of the Entity Display dialog box, let's choose Stair and click on the Edit Display Props button. This opens the Entity Properties dialog box.

Figure 7: Apply the Override to this specific stair's Plan View.

Select the Layer/Color/Linetype tab of the Entity Properties dialog box to access all of the components that comprise the stair. As you can see this stair is comprised of the following components:

• Stringer Up
• Riser Up
• Nosing Up
• Path Up
• Outline Up
• Stringer Down
• Riser Down
• Nosing Down
• Path Down
• Outline Down

Figure 8: Turn off the visibility of all the components of the stair.

Turn off the visibility of all of the components by selecting the bulb on the Visible column, and select OK.

It's as easy as that. Now you have designed a stair that displays itself correctly not only in Plan, but in its 3D View as well. This will come in handy when the time comes to extract sections and elevations from your model.

Figure 9: Accurate stair in both Plan View and 3D View.