Drafting line tool shortfalls.

I have always felt the Revit drafting line tools were short by two tools.

The first being “Chamfer”.
I know this tool may not be used much, but if you are detailing a lot of Precast Concrete Wall Panels or Joinery (Casework) you will want these tools.

The second is “Spline through points”
I really hate using the current spline tool. You have to guess where the points have to go and you have no way of really setting it out. At least with spline through points you know where your spline is going and I would hope it could have the functionality to dimension to the node points. Considering organic lines are highly sought after by Designers these days, a Spline through points in the drafting tools is a must. This tool is now in the Massing section, we can only hope it will propagate throughout.

Revisions clouds and Duplicate with Detail

I user made me aware an item to watch out for when using the Revit revision system. A view which already contains a revision cloud on it was duplicated with detail. As the revision cloud was an older drawing issue the cloud was set to show none; and thus the users was not aware the revision cloud was also copied. When the view was put on a sheet, it was on its first revision before the drawing had been issued.

If this does happen, change the revision to show and delete the cloud in the copied view. Then change the older revision back to show none.

Personally I don’t think Revision clouds should be part of the duplicate with detail but I do understand why is happens.

Copy / Monitor – Wall location

If you are not aware, there is a limitation in using the copy / monitor on walls. The problem is when you copy / monitor a wall; the copied wall will be located to the centre of the original wall and not the centre of the original walls core.

I really would have thought this bug would have been fixed in Revit 2010. But no.

Where are these Model Lines with the error?

You have been giving a Revit error warning yet you can’t find the element and Revit doesn’t give you the option of showing them.
It’s worth remembering that you can draw area boundary lines in an Area plan view. Delete the Area plan view and the Area boundary lines still remain (you just can’t see them). Revit considers Area Boundary lines as a type of model lines, but yet they are only visible in the specific type of Area plan they were created in.

You could try recreating the area plan views but the easiest solution is just to delete them form the Warnings dialogue box.

On a side note: For some reason when you export the warnings of Area Boundary lines to the html file the export only calls them model lines, eg Model Lines : id 116854. Some bug in the export, as the warning dialogue box clearly calls them area boundary : model lines.

Elements have changed category. Tags for these elements are now of the wrong category and will be deleted.

Another Error warning.

This is one of the few errors where Revit does not let you delete the element to fix the problem.

The error occurs when a curtain panel element which has been tagged; then is changed to a different category of panel. i.e. Door, Panel or Wall category panel. The common situation would be a tagged Door changed to a glazed panel.

Switching the panel back to what it was previously won’t fix the error. There is a few possible ways to fix the error but the following will solve the error every time even if the panel is in a curtain system.

In plan change the panel to a system panel. Select it and edit it. Select the panel again and delete it. The following error will appear: “Missing Curtain Panels will be replaced with System Panels to complete command.” Select “Replace Panel”. The new panel now won’t have any errors in it and you can now change it back to whatever panel it was before you started.

Slightly off axis and may cause inaccuracies

More on error warnings.

The slightly off axis is a warning that mystifies most users. What does it exactly mean and how do you fix it.

The error message is there to warn you when you may think something is drawn; horizontal, vertical or diagonal but really it’s not. In fact what you have drawn is 0.2 or less decimal degrees off horizontal, vertical or diagonal.

To fix it, make the element exact to the horizontal, vertical or diagonal axis or 0.201 degrees or greater off he horizontal, vertical or diagonal axis. Over a 100 meter distance this could be up to a maximum of 175mm out from what was originally drawn. (The line being rotated 0.1 degrees from the its start point.)

It’s up to you to determine what you believe can be “slightly off axis” in your project. In my experience 99% of the time this warning comes up, it can be corrected. For the time, you believe it is necessary to be “slightly off axis” you really should advise your team members. As I said in the previous post, when you have one element slightly off axis, it’s likely to lead to others, unless care is taken.

3500 warnings down to 2

We recently had one of our Revit projects go in for planning, and as it is likely to go on and be a Architecture / Structure Revit coordinated project in Design Development, I thought it would be worth doing an in-house File audit.

It’s a high rise apartment building in one of the trendy parts of town. The building it-self is relatively simple and the file is also relatively young, being only about 2 months old.

To my surprise there were 3500 warnings in the file. It made me aware very quickly that I need to spend some time with the users to educate them on how to fix warnings and the benefits of doing so.

I was determined to get the warnings down, as I don’t see how well our coordination with the Engineers would work, if the file at this early stage had so many error warnings.

It took me about 16 hours to get the 3500 warnings down to 2 warnings (It’s very satisfying to say that). For those interested the file size was 52MB before I started and at the end it was 5.5MB smaller. It sounds a lot but it was 3500 errors, so really the file size is not hugely affected by warnings unless you have several thousand of them. However the processing time is. The model seems to work very well now.

This is really a statement that you can eliminate 99% of error warnings, and it really doesn’t take too much time and effort (have a read of some of my posts on warnings posted in the past few weeks). Your model will work so much better, walls will join and trim properly, rooms will bound properly, you won’t have clashes with doors and walls, Ramps and Stairs will be the right length, Tags will work properly, Rooms, areas and doors won’t have duplicate numbers, Elements won’t be at odd angles to the axis planes, walls won’t clash and you won’t have two elements in the same place.

To me, that’s just the type of building we all want to build.

Let the warnings work for you, and not against you.

Some additional finds:

A group, filled region and masked region with an error won’t indicate the warning symbol in the options bar when selected. You need to be in the elements edit mode and select the sketch to see the warning symbol.

Use groups cleverly. Don’t create groups out of lines when they should have been a detail component in the first place. Ensure model groups are independent (ie you are not relying on elements outside the group to make elements in the group work). Disallow wall joins of walls in the group to walls outside the group. Review the warnings in the group before finishing the group mode.

Fix items that are slightly off axis straight away. As soon as you have one off axis, Revit will snap to it and soon you may find the first one is now joined by another 20 items slightly off axis.

Two elements were not automatically joined.

Have you ever got the following error message in your review warnings?

“Two elements were not automatically joined because one or both is not editable.”
The expanded message may read something like the following:
Workset1 : Walls : Basic Wall : Generic 300 : id 1918731
Workset1 : Walls : Basic Wall : Generic 200 : id 2103012

This kind of error massage will only occur on work-shared projects and I tend to see it involving walls. It can happen when you edit an element and in doing so affect another element but as you have not borrowed the affected element, Revit cannot figure out, if it can join to it or not. It’s a bit of a silly warning, but if you want to be thorough with your warnings, here is how you can get rid of them.

Like always export your warnings to an html file and open it in your Internet browser.
Go to a model 3d view.
Use the “Select by IE” tool by copying and pasting the element ID numbers from the html file. Put a coma and space between the ID;s. (example : 1918731, 2103012) Press OK.
Expand “Temporary Hide/Isolate” and then select “Isolate Element”

The two elements in question should be the only items in the 3d View. The two elements may not even being touching and may be on different floor levels.

Select both elements and make them both editable. Now select one element at a time. Review its element properties to see which level it is drawn on. Go to the appropriate level. Then drag the wall end back off the walls trimming it. Now, trim or drag it back to the trimming walls. If the warning still persists; follow the same wall end dragging the trimming with the second wall.

This should eliminate the error warning.

Windows Vista and Memory usage

I’m sure you have all seen how Windows Vista on a standard install will be using about 1.2GB of RAM after start-up. Typically Windows XP RAM was less then 300 MB. Some of Vista’s huge RAM usage comes from its interface graphic effects. By turning the frills off you can reduce the RAM usage down to about 950MB of RAM. If you are running low on RAM with a large Revit file every bit of RAM available is great.

To optimise the graphic settings go to: – Start / Control Panel / Performance Information and Tools / Adjust Visual Effects and set the Visual Effects to “Adjust for best performance”

Worksets and linked files

When you link another Revit file into your current Revit file you can specify which worksets of the linked file to open or close. On large files opening only the relevant worksets will help ensure you have minimum lag with unnecessary processing and memory usage. To specify which worksets to open of the linked file, when you are in the “Import Link Revit” dialogue box use the drop down menu beside the open button.

If afterwards you need to change which worksets to open or closed you can do so, using the “Reload From” tool in Manage Links. Again use the drop down menu beside the Open button.

Another tip, if your file has worksets; set up a separate workset just for linked files. This allows users to close this workset easily without causing any other users difficulties.

Select by ID

One little tip I figured out today to assist in review warning. If you are trying to solve warnings that involve vertical elements that are clashing (eg walls) you can use the “Select by ID” tool to select more than one item at a time. Just insert a comma (or simicolon) and a space between the ID numbers. (its funny, this is noted in the dialouge box, but I never noticed it before).

Thus, if you are in a 3D view and you select by ID (inserting both ID numbers), you can then use “Temporary isolate element” and you will clearly see how the two items are clashing.

I also find it easier to go through Review Warnings plan by plan. Start with the ground floor plan view. Select everything in the view and go to the “Show Related Warnings” Icon in the options bar. Export the warnings list to an html file. Open the html file. Copy and past the ID numbers form the html file into the “Select by ID” tool and you will see and resolve the problems relatively quickly.

If you have warnings with area boundary or room boundary lines you are better off going to the view with the lines in it. For area boundary lines isolate the area boundary line category. For Room boundary lines and wall warnings isolate these two categories. After you do this using the select by ID will really speedup your warning resolution. Area lines over lapping has been some of our biggest culprit for generating warnings.

The key is to try to avoid asking Revit to show the warning. If it’s not easy to see it in the view you have open, its very slow to give you a new view, and most of the time the new view won’t help you much.

Also make sure you have you have a short cut for “Select by ID”

Floor Bug Fixed in R2010

There was bug in Revit 2009 mentioned here Parametric when you don’t know it that has been fixed in Revit 2010. If you had a floor bounded by 3 walls and you moved the middle wall the opposite floor boundary would also move.
Now it doesn't as you would expect it not to. However still remember if a floor is tight up to a wall and you move the wall, it will still stretch the floor, as if it was locked to the wall.

Coordination – Linking – Copy / Monitor

If you haven’t yet done some coordination between the Architect and Structural engineer in Revit here are some tips.

You can only copy monitor:

• Levels
• Grids
• Walls
• Floors
• Columns

Copy / Monitor is a two way process. One of the parties will do the original creation of the category elements and the other will copping. Example: The Architect controls and creates the Levels and Grids, and the Engineer creates the structural walls, floors and columns.
The monitoring will work both ways, but there is slightly different privileges the users will have, depending on if they are the original creator or copier of the element. I say privileges in regard to work correctly within the copy / monitor workflow.

Original creator privileges:

• Change type and element properties
• Modify the Profile or Sketch
• Move Element
• Add and edit Openings

Copy / Monitor Element user privileges:

• Change type and element properties
• Modify the Profile or Sketch
• Move Element
• Edit openings but cannot add openings using the opening tool. The only way to addopenings is to edit its profile or sketch.

So what does this mean?
Let’s say the Engineer creates a structural floor and the Architect copy / monitors it.
The Engineer can draw the floor, create openings in it using the shaft tool, change the type properties, and edit it’s sketch.
After copy / monitoring the floor the Architect can change it’s type, edit it’s sketch shape, move it, even edit the shaft openings the engineer has created, but if the Architect is to put an opening in the floor (using the shaft opening tool), it will not transfer correctly to the Engineers drawing.

Just remember you only copy monitor items both parties need to track. For a typical building I would suggest the following, but remember, you need to review this in detail before every project. All projects will be a little bit different.

Levels – Architect creates them – Structural Engineer Copy / Monitors them.
Grids - Architect creates them – Structural Engineer Copy / Monitors them.
Walls - Architect creates them – Structural Engineer Copy / Monitors them.
Floors – Structural Engineer creates them –Architect Copy / Monitors them.
Columns – Structural Engineer creates them –Architect Copy / Monitors them.

Now it is taken that in the original Architectural model they will draw the floors and columns, but when the Engineer comes on board they are deleted and the copy / monitored from the engineers model.

Copy / Monitoring does take up a lot of processing power and memory so only copy / monitor what is really necessary, Share the process between both parties, Ensure your worksets are set up so the other party can unload the irrelevant categories using worksets, and lastly make sure your model not bogged down by bad maintenance of Review warnings.