Revit Fix

BIM Fix

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 11:44:00 +0000

In the past few weeks I have started a new Blog on the topic of Building Information Modelling here: - BIM Fix This Revit Blog is now retired, but you may find the blog links very useful. Thanks for Reading Brian Renehan

Creating an elliptical room

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:23:00 +0000

We had to draw up a kiosk stall which happened to be elliptical in shape. I was very surprised to see when using the wall tool there is no option of elliptical or spline wall. I know drawing an elliptical or spline based wall is going to be rare, but it came up in one of our projects it is obviously needed.

However there are to workarounds.

Create an in-place wall using an extrusion.
Create an elliptical mass and apply a wall by face.

Anyway - being able to create an elliptical wall using the Wall Tool is now on my wish list.

Using the Scale Parameter with-in a Family

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 10:02:00 +0000

I’m sure many of you have always wanted to get a Scale Parameter working in some Families. A good example would be a detail component family of a 2D tree (plan or elevation). You may want to insert several instances of the same tree but at slightly different sizes. You would think it should be easy to do.
If you have ever inserted a .dwg (Import Symbol) file, you will notice you have a scale parameter in its type properties. By adding a number parameter in the family file inputting the scale factor in the .dwg (Import symbol) you should be able to make the dwg import symbol whatever size you want. Flexing the parameter and dwg with-in the detail component family works perfectly. However when you load the family into a project it won’t work!
From a post on AUGI back in the start of 2007 this was a know bug with no workaround (i.e. Revit 9.1). We are now in Revit 2010 and we have 2011 coming out in 3 months. What’s the chance it will be fixed in the 2011 release?

Revit 2010 Silhouette Bug

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 07:00:00 +0000

When you have silhouette edges turned on (under Graphic Display options) in a view in Revit 2010, you cannot “Override Graphics in View” by Element or by Filter as you did in Revit 2009. The override ends up being behind the Silhouette rather than overriding it.

What really annoys me about this bug is I have been trying to spend a lot of time ensuring users are producing good looking drawings with appropriate line weights. When using Silhouette you can still individually line work each line, but having the option of using filters or overriding items by element to change line work is very powerful a large repetitive elevations.

Autodesk have been made aware of the problem and have passed it onto their development team.
The best work around is to use the line work tool and specify the desired line style.
Problem exists on Revit 2010, including SP1 and SP2

ACIS (.SAT) files not cutting correctly in Section

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 06:41:00 +0000

It’s been 2 months since by last post. Work has been very busy, I also just started as REVIC chairperson (Revit users group of Victoria Australia) and I’ve been enjoying our nice long Christmas break.
We started to try importing ACIS (SAT) files into Revit from Rino. The reason for going via ACIS was as some of the geometry was curved. You may know, when you try to import a curved dwg file geometry into Revit, it comes in with triangulated faces and thus is very messy when viewed. ACIS can be exported from Rino to avoid this.
The ACIS files did in general export without a problem out of Rino. During the import process the files were imported into an external generic model family (we also tried an in-place family). However when we took a section in one direction It did not cut correctly (I looked like an elevation). Cutting the section in the other direction worked fine. We tried all the various different SAT exports in Rino and tried some different geometry and the same issue happened. Importing using the same method with a dwg file worked fine.
We have made Autodesk aware of the problem which they acknowledge and they are chasing it up with their Revit development team. I have not come across a direct workaround for this problem. My advice, avoid ACIS file imports where you want them to cut in section until Autodesk resolve the issue.

Divide Surface by distance bug

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:59:00 +0000

In massing if you select a surface and create a divided surface. Now change the grid spacing to distance. Remove the distance displaying , type in 2 (i.e. 2mm) and do nothing for a few seconds.

You are very likely to get this Revit crash error:

I’ve reported the problem to Autodesk.

The work around is; if you are going to use distance for your grid spacing, select the grid and edit the spacing form the element properties dialogue box, rather than the options bar.

Pantone Color Picker

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:45:00 +0000

I’m sure many of you are aware of this annoying bug in Revit 2009 and 2010 when using the Pantone Color Picker. The Pantone Color Picker worked so well in Revit 2008. You could search the Pantone color by number and Revit would find the color quickly and give you a preview.
Now (Revit 2009 / 2010) when you are in the Pantone Color Picker when you enter a Pantone color number, nothing happens. To find the desired color, you have to manually scroll through till you find it. To add to the issue, after selecting a color and clicking OK, it trows you out of the Revit window and into whatever application you have running in the background. Let’s hope Autodesk can fix it for 2011?

Error message consumed in Mass

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:27:00 +0000

If you are use to reading my posts you would know that I am a fan of having very few error warnings in a project file. I was a bit disappointed to see the new 2010 massing tool, is not exactly helping us keep our files clean.

If you create a line slightly off axis in a new mass you will get a report similar to below.

You will have no problem finding the mass with the error from the Mass ID number. Select the mass and go into edit mode. Now try doing a select by ID number on the line. It will select something, but you will never be able to isolate it or find it.
Autodesk have confirmed the problem, and I really hope they fix it. IMHO it is an an over sight by the developers. In the mean time here is Autodesks work around that they came back with. It works, but it is a workaround.

Workaround
After you find a mass which has a slightly off axis error, apply walls to each face. The slightly off axis message will transfer to the wall applied to the slightly off axis mass face. When the error appears that is the face with the error. Now you just have fix it.

I do like the new massing tools, but it still needs work.

Can’t delete local project files

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:49:00 +0000

We came across a really buzzer issue a few weeks ago, where users could not delete or rename their local files on their computer or server drive. It first started happening on some Revit 2010 projects, but then it started happening on a Revit 2009 project.
We are running Revit on Vista 64 bit operating systems. We really haven’t found out what was causing the problem, however we did find a fix that was worked so far.
In Windows, go to Control Panel, Performance Information and Tool, Adjust visual effects. Change the Visual Effects to “Custom” and turn on “Turn on thumbnails instead of icons”.
As odd as it sounds it worked every time so far. Good old windows Vista. The good thing is, your users are better using these visual setting with Revit anyway as it will give them more RAM.

Subscription Advantage Pack for Revit

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:03:00 +0000

There has been some talk on AUGE about some Revit add-ons coming out soon.
It looks like it may by out in the next 2 days,
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=109258
&
http://bimboom.blogspot.com/2009/10/revit-subscription-pack-photos.html

Looks interesting.

Area boundary lines, Groups & Area Schemes.

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:21:00 +0000

I’m sure many of you have had a multi-story modular building (e.g. apartment complex) where it made sense in the same area scheme to group your area boundary lines and copy them to other similar floors. We have found it works very well as long as the group is limited only to the boundary lines.

We currently have been creating a master plan for a large multi-purpose venue. It involves planning areas and using them in different event modes. I didn’t think it would be an issue to have several different area scheme types for the same plan, set up the area boundary lines in one of them, group it, and copy it to the other area scheme types plans (the plans are still changing so it was to improve efficiency).

What we discovered; you can copy the grouped area boundary lines across different type area scheme plan , but; when you try to edit the group with adding or taking away boundary lines it will break the group in the other type area scheme plans.

This bug happens in Revit 2010 and 2009. We reported the problem to Autodesk and they have confirmed the issue.

i.e. – Don’t use grouped area boundary lines across different area scheme type

Select by ID in Family files

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:24:00 +0000

It seems there is a deficiently in revit family files when selecting some items by ID number. If you try selecting a Line or detail component in a family file you will get the following message:

The select by ID of masking regions, model geometry and sketch lines seems to work fine. Working the other way around, i.e. “IDs of Selection” works correctly and is the only way finding the above items that you can’t find using “Select by ID”

The above bug happens in Revit 2010 SP1 as well as Revit 2009.

Pads and Phasing Bug

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:35:00 +0000

I’ve had this item confirmed by Autodesk. There is a bug when trying to use pads with phasing.
When you try to demolish a pad, it does not removed properly from the following phase. A second void where the pad was created is left in the same location. Having different topography for each new earthworks phase does not solve the problem. This bug also means you cannot place a new pad in the location of the demolished one.
Bug exists in Revit Arch. SP1.
The suggested workaround is to use the “Split Surface” tool or floor slabs in replacement to pads, depending on your requirements.

Project Base Point – Survey Point – Revit 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:00:00 +0000

One of my favourite new features with Revit 2010 is the improvements to shared and project coordinates. Wes has put together a very useful tutorial on the AUGI forum here. With the visual coordinate points and the ability to move the project origin makes it a very powerful and easy to use tool.

Split Segment Sections with Dependent Views.

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:45:00 +0000

I’m currently doing a project where we need to do some very long site sections. It requires we use Split Segment Sections along with Dependent Views.

After creating the split segment sections I started to make the dependent views. I found in plan I could no longer change the location of the split segment or even the section view dept.

Through support I was advised in order to change these items you must select the crop region in the parent section view. Only then can you change the location of the split segments or view dept in plan.

To add to this a bug was found that Autodesk have said they will review a fix in future releases.
When you do the above the dependent view does not automatically update to the new section location (the parent view does). In order to update the dependent view you need to alter the view or annotation crop region in some way. Dragging it back and forth will update the view.

This issue happens with Revit 2009 sp3 & Revit 2010 sp1

Finding the true angle of a plane

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 12:04:00 +0000

I've been away on Holiday's for the past few weeks, and boy did I have a good time.
I'm back now and here is my first YouTube video tip, on how to determine the spring point and true angle of a random sloped plane.

Openings in Walls. - Revit 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:02:00 +0000

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.

Flip Control tool missing in Revit 2010 Detail Component Families

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:13:00 +0000

I just saw this thread on AUGI. I think at this stage it’s just funny the amount of bugs that have been found in the Revit 2010 UI (User Interface). If you read the thread you will see the flip control arrow tools have been left out of the ribbon on the Detain Component Family editor.

The work around is to go to a previous detail component family with the desired flip arrows and copy and paste them into your new family.

Revit 2010 Massing & Join-Geometry

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:46:00 +0000

I’m not sure how many readers have been playing around the massing in Revit 2010. One of the big items to be aware of at the moment is; when you join geometry within the mass, you lose some of the mass element editing tools. After you join geometry you cannot use the “Add Edge” or “Add Profile” tool on the element. In order to add an edge or profile, you need to first un-join the two elements. You can then add an edge or profile. When you are finished you can then join the objects together again.

I have a support request sent off to Autodesk on this one. If this is intended functionality it’s not documented very well.

Callout – Reference other view:– Crop View

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:33:00 +0000

One of our Sydney Users made me aware of this little Revit funny. It is in regard to using the Callout view tool in “Reference other view” mode. If the view you are trying to reference to, does not have its “Crop View” enabled on, it will not appear in the view list.

It does not affect Section or Elevation tag cross referencing, however if you are creating a Callout in the elevation or section the above applies.

This applies to Revit 2009 and 2010. I’m not sure if this is intentional, but it is a bit stressful for users trying to figure out why they cannot reference a particular view.

Openings and coordination review

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:44:00 +0000

I was really surprised to hear getting two errors for openings in a coordination review is Revit correct behaviour.

Let’s say you have a floor or wall copy / monitored from a linked file. An opening has been added to the element in the linked file. When you open your (host) project Revit asks you to do a coordination review.
This is the first coordination message you get.

You select “Copy new elements” and then click Apply. You will now get this error message:

The only option you have is to select “OK”
You are then presented with the following coordination message:

The most sensible option is “Ignore new element”. You then press “Apply ” and “OK” and now finally all the coordination messages about that opening are gone.

I really don’t understand why we get this double coordination messages. If anyone does, please post below.

Revit 2010 new features review

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:50:00 +0000

I can't believe I've missed these Revit 2010 reviews on Youtube and this great blog.
If there is a blog and or videos that will make you think twice about implementing Revit 2010, well you can find it here. It is easy to understand why some AUGI members now have "How did Autodesk manage to get Revit 2010 so wrong" as their signature.

Brian

2010 Help shortfall.

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:32:00 +0000

There is a great little help tool in Revit 2009 called “What’s this?”. The toolbar icon in 2009 was always available even if you were in the middle of a command.

In general the help in 2010 is quite good. If you hover over a command icon, Revit will give you some good help tips and by pressing F1 you will get full help on that specific command. However this method of help does not work when you are in the middle of a command on tools in the options bar. In Revit 2009 you could just use the “What’s this?” tool to get good help on items in the options bar.

The “What’s this?” icon is not on the 2010 dashboard, however if you use the old short cut, “Shift + F1” it works and you can get help on commands in the options bar.

This is another UI shortfall with 2010. How many beginners are going to know the old shortcut.

Spot Slope.

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:37:00 +0000

I was very excited when I saw the new “Spot Slope” tool in Revit 2010. However I became disappointed very quickly. I’m not sure why Autodesk cannot create software which caters for a large amount of the countries they sell in.

Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Ireland, Singapore, Malaysia and I’m sure other countries use the Ratio system for Ramps of 1 (rise) : Horizontal Distance Travelled.
Example; in Australia the maximum rise for a disabled compliant ramp is 1:14. The spot slope tool seems to cater for all kind of different slope formula except this system of 1 : Distance.

Considering ensuring ramps are compliant is such a major concern for Architects, it seems to be quite clear, Autodesk need to work on their software product development research.

Come on guys, let’s get the simple things right.

Drafting line tool shortfalls.

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Renehan) — Sat, 30 May 2009 02:21:00 +0000

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.