This article describes how the Vertical Clearance rule type works and how you can configure the rule.

The article covers the following topics:

• Description of the Vertical Clearance Rule Type
• Vertical Clearance Rule Logic
• Vertical Clearance Rule Requirements
• Vertical Clearance Rule Results in Plugin

Description of the Vertical Clearance Rule Type

When designing a building, ensuring the safety of its users is paramount. The last thing any designer wants is for their design to put people at risk of injury. That's why it's crucial to identify potential weak points in the planning process and proactively address them.

With the Vertical Clearance rule type, you can verify that the circulation spaces in the building are safe to use by ensuring that no components protrude into these areas. A circulation space is a space mainly used as a means of access between a room and an exit from the building or compartment. You can use the Vertical Clearance rule type to check that the required minimum vertical height for any circulation area is sufficient and that no elements protrude into the space.

Vertical Clearance Rule Logic

The rule will check that the selected walkable areas have the required minimum vertical height. This rule type only applies to walkable areas, but not to specific components such as stairs or ramps.

Vertical Clearance Rule Requirements

You can define the following requirements for a Vertical Clearance rule:

• Walkable areas to be checked: Determine the circulation area(s) to be checked by selecting the target component(s). The walkable areas can be derived from either the IfcSpace or IfcSlab components:
  
• Obstacles: Define which components should be classified as potential obstacles. Note that a target can only be considered as an obstacle if it actually exists and is made of a physical material.
• Minimum required vertical height: Define the minimum total height required (in meters). Typically, the average human height + some space above the head compose the total height required for sufficient vertical clearance. Based on this value, the base area of the space or the slab component is measured vertically upwards to ensure that there is no component in this area that is not allowed to be there. Note that the decimal separator is a dot (.)
• Error message: The error message will be shown to Plugin users when they run a check that contains this rule and it doesn't match the specified requirements. The default error message is: “The vertical clearance requirement of [total height] m is not fulfilled by [walkable area target component]”.
• Error description (optional): The error description ****will be shown together with Error message. You can use this field to help the Plugin users of your organization to fix the issue.

Vertical Clearance Rule Results in Plugin

The rule reports an error if any of the obstacle components violate the clearance by protruding into it geometrically.