Category Archives: Platform

Stacked Walls and Design Options

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A client was having an issue working with design options and stacked walls the other day.  When the stacked wall was selected it wouldn’t allow it to become part of a design option.  I started an new file and had the same issue as he was having, however when I went to do it again for this post the issue didn’t happen again, then I realized it had been changed in Revit 2013.  I thought I should post it anyway in case this issue does happen for others still using 2012.

As with any element if the host is going to be apart of the design option then anything hosted to it must be part of that same option.  For instance all doors and windows hosted in a wall must be part of the same design option the wall is in.  Stacked walls are the same, each wall type that make up the stacked wall are hosted to the stacked wall (at least we will say that for this situation), so the stacked wall and all of the individual wall types that make up the stack must be selected in order to become part of a design option.  For this to happen the “Tab” key will need to be used to select the individual wall types.

In Revit 2013 they improved on the entire selection process for adding elements to design options.  Most notably if you select a host element now everything associated with that element will become part of the design option.  No longer do we have to select all the doors, windows, etc they just go.  HUGE improvement for working with design options in my opinion.

Tags not tagging

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A question came up on why material tags weren’t working on this upgraded file from Revit 2012 to Revit 2013, the problem wasn’t in an upgrade it was in the Visual Style assigned to the view.  Certain commands inside of Revit don’t like the view to be in wireframe.  In this case the we were dealing with material tags, other tags such as spot elevations also don’t like wireframe.  Once a view is changed to wireframe the surface of all elements cease to exist and only the bounding edges are there.  If there isn’t a surface to tag there can’t be any materials on that surface, so tools like material tags don’t have anything to tag.  This is similar to spot elevations, however a spot elevation can see the edge of an element and tag that.

Plan View Types Part 3

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I have posted a few times now about the Revit 2013 new Plan View Types.  I really like this feature, however I found another nuance that everyone should be aware of and hopefully will change with future service packs or releases. 

At first I loved the fact that when levels were created it allowed the Plan Views to all have the same name if they were under different view types.  I still like this, however it seems to be causing issues.

Notice in the image below I have Level 1 and Level 2 views in each plan view type. This is great now if you rename a level or view the capability to rename all of them still exist.

 

Now simply move a view from one category to another. 

 

If that view name already exists then it doesn’t add another number at the end, it simply add up to the next available number. Which seems totally non_Revit like in my opinion why not a (2) at the end?

 I wanted to make everyone aware of this issue. I have already been discussing this with clients to see how they want to impliment and deal with this issue.

Small nuance that could be frustrating however not devastating to a project.  If you want to apply a view template via another view and all of the plan views have the same name how do you choose?  As you can see there are numerous Level 1 views.

2013 Divided Path Command

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I was working on a layout of a panelized system around a tower, and I was using the new Divided Path commannd.  I found it has a limitation of 200 divisions. At first I thought this was going to be an issue but it made me rethink the shape and I ended up with a better solution anyway.  Just a heads up for everyone trying to use the command.

Autodesk Subscription Advantages

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I don’t want to sound like a salesperson here but I think the Autodesk Subscription benefits are easily overlooked by most users.  Usually I go to a firm and only the IT, CAD or BIM Manager even have rights to the companies subscription benefits.  Plus not many users even know what additions are available.  I thought I would write a little post to remind everyone to check them out and to mention a couple of my most used.  As you can see in the image below there are quite a few applications and extensions that are available, (I would like to make a note that they all depend on the software you have on subscription) heck by the time you read this I will bet there are already more they have released.  One of my most commonly used one is the eTransmit for Revit, formerly an Autodesk Lab tool it has been promoted to a subscription benefit.  This tool allows a user to copy a Revit model and dependant files to  a single folder location.  This way when the files is needed for the BIM team it copies the Host file and all linked files to a location, it also marks the Revit Model as transmitted and forces the end user to open it and create it as a new central file, assuming worksharing has been enabled.  I had been using the Structure Generator when it was a Lab tool and I can’t wait to play with it now that it has graduated to a subscription tool.  Take a look at some of the tools and let me know which ones you are using the most.