Each Floor Type in the model is stacked using the Story Data command to form a three dimensional description of the structure. If a structure is comprised of more than one floor type, it is imperative that all levels are based on the same coordinate system. This will insure that columns line up as anticipated and that the appropriate column loads are applied to the levels below.

The Layout -Type - Copy command provides a means to copy elements from one Floor Type to another. By copying the columns of the first floor type modeled to all subsequent floor types, it is guaranteed that the coordinates of the columns of each of the levels will be identical. This is the recommended modeling procedure.

It is often faster to copy an entire floor type and delete members from the new floor type than to model the new floor type from scratch.

The Layout -Type - Copy command can only be invoked once per layout type, when there is no data in that new layout type, so it should generally be utilized only upon completion of modeling the entire original Floor Type.