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.
We regularly hear keeping families basic is the way to go with larger projects. An example would be loose office furniture. From a documentation point of view, you don’t need 3d office furniture and creating a furniture family using model lines in plan should suffice.
What you may not know is that when creating call outs of the floor plan, if you end up using a “detail view” rather than a “floor plan” call out, you won’t be able to see your 2d family in the detail view. On moving the mouse over the missing item, you will notice it ghosting. To solve the problem you will need to change the view dept (far clip offset) to plus 1mm or more from what it is set to.
This is actually correct behaviour. For a detail view to display an item, its “far clip offset” needs to physically cut the item and not just touch it (1mm cut is enough). Floor plan views however behave differently. The far clip just needs to touch an item to see it.
If you are creating 2D model families and don’t want to change the far clip offset draw your model lines on a reference plane 1 mm above the “0 Reference level” in the family.
Try this:
Create a room space with 3 enclosing walls (no wall on the forth side).
Create a floor in the room using the “by line” method with the “pencil tool” or “pick line tool”.
Now grab the north wall and move it. Notice how the entire floor follows the wall move.
Try pinning the floor and move the same wall. The floor will still move.
It didn’t expect this kind of behaviour. However if the floor edge is not on the wall centre line or wall edge, you won’t get this behaviour.
We need a way to be able to split sketch plan host elements, like: floor slabs, ceilings and roofs.
It can be for a multitude of reasons for inserting movement joints, to making the sketch area more manageable for editing with in large floor prints, to splitting the elements up into their construction day joints, so the projects manager can plan them in Navisworks.
At the moment breaking one floor into two is very messy, and if you have hosted elements and right pain (I think I'm getting further away from hosted elements). We are going to be getting into providing building with workable models, so a split function for floors, ceilings and roofs would be very helpful.
The first is the ability to export your review warnings to an html file. This allows you view the list of warnings in any text based software, from Microsoft Word, Excel to any web browser. One of the problems when we couldn’t do before this export; was to copy and paste the element I.D.s to atext base software. This resulted in it being very time consuming when going down through a long list of review warnings. You just had to manually hand write down everything.
This new export tool allows someone like me, a BIM manager to review a project file very easly.
The second new feature is a warning button in the options bar. When an element which contains warnings is selected it appears. Click the warning icon and it displays all the warnings just associated with that element. This again can be exported to an html format. One of the great things about this new feature is you can see easily if you actually have resolved an element of not. It also gives users the ability to more easily see and fix problems that are in the file as they do their day to day editing of elements.
These two new features should really assist up in getting trough error reviews that bit quicker.
However I my opinion it is not enough. Unless errors are easy to fix, many users will not be bothered. Also you want all users to be able to fix problems, and not just the very proficient uers. So what do I recommend Autodesk add the following expansions to the existing tools:
All of the above should not be all that difficult to do. If you create a warnings system, please give us the right and best tools to resolve them.
I don't know if this is good or bad!
Going down though the Review Warnings is not an easy task. It takes a lot of in-depth knowledge of how categories, families and elements act. In Revit 2008 there was only two ways of resolving them.
First is fixing it when the error first happens and the warning box comes up. With the amount of clicking users do they have often passed it, before they have even seen it. Out of sight is out of mind. Right! If they did see it flash past, how do they go back to see what it is?
Second is to go to the Review warnings section under Tools. Here you end up with sometimes a very large list. Where do you start to resolve them? How do you resolve them? If you try to view the elements in question, often you can’t see them. Most of the time the only options it gives you it to delete the object. That doesn’t seem to be a solution.
With Revit 2009 there were some improvements in regard to assisting users sort through their warnings. I’ll come to that next post, but let’s address some of the above first.
The first item is the warnings in the first place.
So you are to click happy and you missed the warning message. Don’t ignore it. Go to the undo dropdown icon. If you have just finished a sketch you can undo the finish sketch. If you then click finish sketch you will get the ability to view the warning. In the event you were moving or dragging an element, undo what you just did and redo it. Anticipate the message and heed the warning.
Some other warning errors;
“Highlighted walls are attached to, but miss, the highlighted targets.” You can select Detach Targets or OK. Clicking OK does not resolve the problem. Detaching the target resolves it.
“A structural framing element is attached to a wall whose Structural Usage is set to Non-bearing.” You can Make the wall load baring or click OK. Again OK won’t resolve the problem. Either make the wall load baring or drag the structural framing off the wall.
“Multiple Rooms are in the same enclosed region. The correct area and perimeter will be assigned to one Room and the others will display "Redundant Room." You should separate the regions, delete the extra Rooms, or move them into different regions.” You can click Delete or OK. Again OK won’t resolve the problem. Either you delete the room or subdivide the bigger room into two.
We could go on, but you get the picture.
Going down through the Review warning.
When you are using the show tool in review warnings, if you don’t see any highlighted elements in the view, change the view to wire frame. It’s likely you will see the item.
The highlighted items themselves.
In the review warning if you click on the “Warning” it will highlight it in the dialog box. This also highlights both elements that are causing the problem. Expanding out the warning and clicking on one of the elements will highlight that specific element in the view. Clicking on the other element in the review warnings will obviously highlight the other element. This can greatly assist you in understanding the elements in question. Only tick the box beside the element if you want to delete or unjoin the element.
More on this topic in the next post.
The following elements are bounding elements for room area and volume computations:
NoteFloors and ceilings are always room-bounding. These elements do not have a room-bounding property that you can turn off.
You can indicate whether many elements are room-bounding by changing element properties. For example, you may want to define toilet partitions as non-bounding because they are not usually included in room computations. When you specify that an element is non-bounding, the element is not used when Revit Architecture computes the area or volume of the room or any adjacent rooms that share the non-bounding element.
What is interesting here is that ceiling and floors will allows be room bounding (you can’t make them non-room-bounding). Ceilings are the items that could problematic especially if you are exporting to gbXML. I order to ensure you have a proper gbXML model your rooms will need to go from floor to floor. There is other workarounds (putting rooms in the ceiling space), but they are time consuming.
Maybe this is something that Autodesk can look at, or come up with better gbXML export methods.
When you are using the blend tool (this also works with swept blends) create the base and top. After you complete the top and base sketches, the Vertex connect command becomes enabled on the sketch Design Bar. By editing vertex connections, you control the amount of twist in the blend. You can edit vertex connections in plan or 3D views. By clicking on the blue dots you add or remove the vertex lines.
What’s more these vertex lines are generated from the nodes of the base or top sketch. So if you have a line and split it in the middle, that middle point becomes vertex point. This enables you to create some quite complicated triangulated shapes, using simple base and top shapes.
Here are the details out of the Revit help.
Revit Architecture measures the perimeter of a room at a defined distance above the base level of the room. This distance is the computation height. It is used to compute the room perimeter, area, and volume. By default, the computation height is 4’ or 1200 mm above the base level of the room (the height of the default cut plane).
For buildings with vertical walls, the default computation height usually gives accurate results. However, if a building includes sloped walls or other atypical features, you may need to adjust the computation height to achieve more accurate room areas and volumes.
For example, the following drawing shows a section of a room with a sloped wall. The dotted line across the lower part of the room indicates the current computation height. (This line displays when you select the room.) Revit Architecture uses the perimeter of the room at the computation height when computing the room area and volume.
Changing the computation height affects the room perimeter, and thus the room area and volume. For example, the following drawing shows the same room, but the computation height has been moved lower (indicated by the dashed line). The room tag shows the changed room area and volume.
The computation height is defined as a parameter of a level family. If needed, you can change this parameter. You can also create multiple level families that use different computation heights. For example, you may want to define one level family for stories and another level family for plenums.
Changing the Computation Height
(Optional) Make rooms visible in the section view.
By default, the computation height is 4’ or 1200 mm above the base level of the room (the height of the default cut plane).
If the room includes a sloped wall, consider using a computation height of 0 (zero).
The change in computation height affects all rooms that use this level type family for its base level.
Automatic Computation Height
In most cases, the automatic computation height is 4’ (1200 mm) above the base level of the room. In some situations, however, the automatic computation height is different.
On first glance it’s a bit daunting to try to thing to work out how to do it. Using Revit the answer is actually quite easy.
Start off by setting the work plane to be the face of the surface.
Then in a 3d view create an in-place family using a basic square cube. Note, use the rectangle line tool draw the shape. Finish out of the sketch.
In doing this you have drawn the cube square to the coplanar surface. If you turn on the “work plane visibility” you will notice grid lines of the work plane are square to the plane. (You could have used these to help you draw the shape sketch).
Now go to a plan view. Change the view to wire frame, and draw a reference plane along the bottom on the cube as shown. This angle is the first angle of your setout.
Now create a section parallel to the reference plane as shown above.
In this new section view, again use the bottom of the cube to draw a second reference plane. The shown angle is your second angle for setout.
Now again draw a detail section again as shown above. This new view is not a true section perpendicular to the surface. The two reference planes visible here are the ones you have created in the two previous steps. And this gives you your third and final angle.
Final Result.
Angle of plane is:
52.25º North of East
12.75º off the horizontal
6.35º off the resultant
We have a very large office building, which has now been designed to have raking walls, with shaped panels between windows from floor to floor. All the walls will have a slight rake so the detail needs to be able to turn around the corner. The other thing is the cladding panels will be various colours. Some of these colours are specials, so we need to be able to schedule the panels to make sure we have enough area to justify the special colour fabrication. Because of a panelised system, using Curtain System seems a sensible approach. As the system is more on the complicated side of things, a mock-up is an essential part of ensure the system will work, especially with the scale of the job.
My first mock up looked like this.
The obvious issue that has come up is that Curtain panels don’t wrap very well around corners. However mullions wrap very well around corners.
So in my development I ended up going away from the conventional the resultant shaped panels are actually Mullions with a specified profile. Mullions can act exactly like panels. We can schedule them and know they will view correctly in plan, section and elevation. The actual Revit panels have just be switched for empty panels. The glazing below is standard glazed curtain panels.
This is a direct example about how doing mock-up studies will greatly assist in the long run.
The edge (fascia) cut is determined by the “Rafter Cut” parameter. When you create a new roof by default, the rafter cut will be “Plumb Cut”. Ie, vertical and no trim for a soffit.
Two Cut – Plumb is the next option for the Rafter Cut. This allows you to specify a fascia depth with will determine where your soffit is.
Two Cut – Square is the last option for Rafter Cut. Behaves like Two Cut – Plumb, but the fascia is square to the roof angle.
So this is starting to get close to what we want. By making the fascia dept equal or greater then the roof thickness, we are just about there.
The problem with the rafter cut parameter is it does not influence the upper fascia of a Skillion roof.
The only answer to fix how the fascia of the ridge looks it to actually use a Revit Roof Fascia. I created a profile to achieve this.
The profile is loaded into the project and the profile added to a roof fascia type.
This result will work perfectly for Sketch Design. Now for Design Development (DD) you may want to add to the above and insert your PFC. I’ve done this using an in-place roof family using a Solid Sweep using the “Pick Patch” and assigning a PFC profile. You can put the sweep on the fascia sub-category to help visibility.
However this is not always straight forward with Revit. What I’ll do is go through many of the little items you should know about roofs, which will help you in your understanding.
Roof placement:
It should be worth knowing that if you place a roof by footprint using walls the level of the roof will be different from using lines. By lines the bottom level of the roof will be off the bottom of the facia. By using walls, the level of the room will be determined by where the roof meets the walls.
Roof placed by wall.
Roof placed by line.
Truss or Rafter:
Setting the roof to Truss or Rafter affects how a “By Wall” roof sits in the wall.
By rafter sits the roof on the inside of the wall. By truss sits it on the outside.
By Rafter
By Truss
You now what to add walls, and building elements to the mass. You select, “Wall by Face” and select the mass vertical elements. It will create a wall, but it won’t follow your mass.
This problem, is a general shortfall in all Revit curved walls. The solution is a little bit cumbersome, but it should work in most cases.
Create an in-place family void in the wall category. Before finishing out use the “Cut Geometry” tool. Select the wall and then the void. Finish the family. For every wall you need to shape you will need to create a separate void wall family element.
I’ve also used this method on walls for creating non-square ends to precast concrete walls.
A sample of a Revet Arch. 2008 concrete beam joint in plan.
In Revit Arch. 2009 when you draw two beams that meet at their ends the deeper beams takes precedence and you end up with a butt joint. This is a more correct joint format.
A sample of a Revet Arch. 2009 concrete beam joint in plan.
The problem which seems to happen, is when you upgrade a project file from R2008 to R2009. The beams that were drawn in the 2008 format still mitre, even when you separate the beams and rejoin them. Where as the beams are drawn in R2009, the butt joint works fine.
If anyone has any insight on this, please post it below.
This article (ReThinking BIM) is definitely worth a look at, and ensure you down load the pdf (30MB) of the presentation. I have to say it is very good work and it does a very good job at showing the power of Revit with shapes. It seems it is very easy for us Revit users to say Revit is not very good a drawing complicated shapes. In many ways, drawing complicated shapes in Revit is a lot more difficult in comparison to some other 3d software out there. This is to Revits detriment in some ways but it also makes Revit very powerful in other ways. The thing is, there is a place computer software where the designer does not need the have to think to hard in regard to manipulating shapes and making complex geometry. Then, there is another place for taking that geometry and making it build-able. We can’t expect all our complex designs to be built by Computer Aided Machinery. As the above article shows Revit is very capable of creating complicated geometry, but the difference is the person creating it needs to really understand the shape. By fully understanding a specific shape you can in theory set it out and thus give the builder a change of building it. The challenge for us it to get our head around the geometry the designer has come up with using some warping software and thus don’t fully understand the shape themselves.
