Openings in Walls. - Revit 2010

It’s quite surprising the amount of different ways you can put an opening in a wall, and they all have slightly different properties in regard to how they behave and how surrounding elements behave. This is my finding with Revit ARCH 2010 original release. Most opening now seems to behave well, but great care need to be taken on openings where copy / monitoring is planned.

Let’s look at all the opening tools and see how they behave differently.

Wall Opening Tool within a project file.

Can only be rectangular in shape.
Can put an opening in a Curtain Wall.
Can only cut one wall at a time.
Is not room bounding if the opening is at the computed height
Height is level based. – Move the level the opening will move.
Stretching the wall boundary inside the opening is acceptable.
Can only be a perpendicular opening to the wall.
Copy / Monitors correctly but needs to be created in file the wall was originally created.

Opening using the Profile Tool

Can be any shape.
Can put an opening in Curtain Walls.
Can only cut one wall at a time.
Is not room bounding if the opening is at the computed height
Height is wall base offset based. – Move the wall base and the opening will move.
Stretching the wall boundary inside the opening will cause the wall to be invalided and it will be deleted.
Can only be a perpendicular opening to the wall.
Copy / Monitors correctly – both ways

Opening using an In-place family opening tool.
Can be any shape
Cannot put an opening in Curtain Walls
Can only cut one wall at a time.
Is room bounding
Height is level based. – Move the level the opening will move.
Stretching the wall boundary inside the opening is acceptable.
Can only be a perpendicular opening to the wall.
Copy / Monitors but needs to be created in file the wall was originally created in. In the copy file it simplifies the shape into a rectangle.

Opening using an In-place family void and cut geometry tool.

Can be any shape
Cannot put openings in Curtain Walls
Can cut multiple walls
Is room bounding
Height is level based. – Move the level the opening will move.
Stretching the wall boundary inside the opening is acceptable.
Can be any shape or direction. Does not need to cut the entire wall.
Copy / Monitors but needs to be created in file the wall was originally created in. In the copy file it simplifies the shape into a rectangle and only cuts the first wall. Shapes that should be partly be cutting the wall will fully cut it.

Opening using an external rfa family file which is wall hosting using the family opening tool.

Can be any shape
Cannot put an opening in a Curtain Wall
Can only cut one wall at a time
Is room bounding
Height is level based. – Move the level the opening will move.
Stretching the wall boundary inside the opening is acceptable.
Can only be a perpendicular opening to the wall.
Copy / Monitors correctly but needs to be created in file the wall was originally created in. In the copy file it simplifies the shape into a rectangle.

Opening using an external rfa family file which is wall hosting using the void and cut geometry tool.
Can be any shape
Cannot put an opening in a Curtain Wall
Can only cut one wall at a time
Is room bounding
Height is level based. – Move the level the opening will move.
Stretching the wall boundary inside the opening is acceptable.
Can be any shape or direction. Does not need to cut entire wall.
Copy / Monitors but needs to be created in file the wall was originally created in. In the copy it file simplifies the shape into a rectangle. Shapes that should be partly cutting the wall will be fully cut it.