1. Select the snow load property to be assigned by clicking the desired property in the Snow Load Property list box. When a Constant snow load property is selected, the Whole Floor button is enabled.
2. If assigning the snow load property to the entire floor slab, click the Whole Floor button. The Snow Load Layout Mode dialog box will disappear, the new snow load assignment will be shown as a hatched pattern, and the RAM Modeler will enter Snow Load Add Layout Mode.
3. If assigning the snow load property to a portion of the floor slab, click the Add button. The Snow Load Layout Mode dialog box will disappear, and the RAM Modeler will enter the Snow Load Add Layout Mode.
4. While in Snow Load Add Layout Mode, you can add a snow load assignment by defining a polygon (or polygons) that define areas for the snow load assignment. This is done by clicking the mouse to define each vertex point and moving the mouse to define each line in the polygon. Polygon lines must be entered consecutively, and must define a proper polygon. To define the first polygon line, point the mouse to the beginning coordinate of the line, click the left mouse button, move the mouse button to the ending coordinate of the line, and click the button again. For each subsequent polygon line move the mouse to the next vertex and click again to define the next polygon line. Repeat until the polygon is closed. Load polygon lines need not fall precisely on beam and wall lines. Beyond the slab edges, the polygon vertices can be placed at any convenient node. As an alternative to clicking on a node, coordinates can be entered directly using the Keyboard Mode Coordinate Entry command. This is convenient when there is no existing node at the location where the surface load polygon vertex is to be placed.
5. If a Drift snow load property was selected for this snow load, the Set Drift Magnitude Points dialog appears once the polygon is closed. Select 3 vertices of the snow load polygon to correspond to the 3 magnitude points.

When the polygon definition is complete, the new snow load assignment will be made inside the defined polygon.

When the Whole Floor command is selected, a rectangular snow load polygon is created 5 feet beyond the outermost model entities on each side. If subsequent modeling changes extend the floor framing beyond these grid lines, it will be necessary to assign surface loads to these new areas.

The Whole Floor command does not delete any previously defined snow load polygons. It "covers" them up with a new polygon that takes precedence. Unwanted polygons should first be deleted, not just "covered up", so that processing speed during analysis is not adversely impacted.