Tag Archives: Tips

Curtain Wall at Corner Not Cutting Wall

1 Reply

Reading a discussion in the Autodesk forums today I realized that this topic is something that comes up often and not everyone may know if this solution so it deserved a post.

When modeling a curtain wall, no matter as a window, storefront or as a curtain wall in at a corner there can be an issue where the automatically embedded curtain wall cuts the openings on each wall but fails to cut the end portion out of the wall, as seen in figure 1.

Figure 1

I have seen several suggestions to edit the profile of the wall, or add an in-place void or use the wall opening command. All of these suggestions work but if the curtain wall changes then the user has to change the element they used to cut the opening.

There is another way…

There isn’t any need for edit profile or adding openings or any crazy work around for that.  Curtain walls look to their origin point (green dashed line see Figure 5) to understand where to cut the walls. That origin of the curtain wall must lie within the wall, when that line is set with in the wall it will cut the opening at that location.  If that line lies on the face of the wall then it will cut the wall at the face, removing the little portion everyone hates as seen in figure 2.

Figure 2

How does a user make the wall align with the face yet have the panels and mullions set back from the face? By using the offsets built into the System Panel and Curtain Wall Mullion families. The curtain wall mullions, regardless if they are rectangular, corner or round will have an Offset value in the type properties, this value will allow for the mullion to be located off the green location line of the wall.

Figure 3

Similarly the default system panel for curtain wall panels have the same value.

Figure 4

If these values are set such that the curtain wall itself can be drawn at the face of the wall yet the mullions and panels are set off of that Revit will cut the walls accordingly. Plus it is an easier way to get a consistent set back for all of the curtain walls.

Figure 5

There is only one glitch to this process. If the curtain wall is modeled on the face of the host wall to start. It doesn’t cut the opening, it must be modeled inside the wall then moved or aligned to the face.

Structural Wood Decking

Leave a reply

While setting up an engineering firms template this week I had a brainstorm while working on creating the Composite Metal Decks.

Typical Composite Deck

While I was setting up their structural metal deck and loading in the profile for “Slab Metal Deck” it dawned on me, these profiles could also be used for other things besides metal deck. Often we want to see floors with 2×6 or tongue and groove decking. Yet we may not want the overhead of modeling these elements (Yes I have modeled them as beam systems in the past).

Wood Decking

With that thought I tried to create a simple Structural Deck Profile that was simply an “L” shape. I only needed the vertical line to represent the 2x members but knowing their would have to be a horizontal line that would represent the width of the the 2x member.

Broken Profile

However I realized that when these profile families are loaded into the project and assigned to a floor Revit attempts to connect the ends of the lines in the profile, Thus creating undesired results

Results from Broken Profile

This means the profiles have to have lines on the left and right end in the same location so Revit can connect them without adjusting the profile.

Correct Profile

With that in mind I haven’t found a way to get a tongue and groove to work properly. I am on the fence if I like the line between the groove and tongue but I think it may be worth it. The profile in conjunction with a drafting cut pattern returns a pretty good result.

Revit 2020 BIM360 Synch with Shared Coordinates .dwg files

Leave a reply

When Autodesk introduced their cloud platform BIM360 Docs for Revit (formerly BIM360 Team, formerly A360, formerly Skyscraper). There was an issue where if a linked file using shared coordinates was moved (mostly .dwg files), thus modifying the shared coordinates, the file would fail to synchronize. The user had to use the save command first telling Revit to ether save the “current” position, do not save or disable shared positioning. This was a bug where this dialog box was not allowed not come up during a synchronize process and only during a save process. Well in 2020.2 I can say this is no longer the case. Today I added several .dwg files using shared coordinates and when I went to synch the dialog box popped up. Thus saving me from yelling at Revit and having to go back and save the file first.

Revit 2020 New Parameter Types

Leave a reply

In Revit 2020 Autodesk added a new tool for Path of Travel. One undocumented added bonus to this is it added two additional parameter types: Time & Speed. I noticed these when setting up a new template for a client and I was adding in a new Project parameter.

As expected these are also there when creating family parameters.

Of course if this new parameter type shows up for both families and projects then we must be able to set units for them. When going to Project Units there will be options to adjust the settings, which would obviously affect the Path of Travel tool but any custom parameters added using this value.

Off the top of my head I haven’t figured out exactly how to use the values. Originally I had though of contractors being able to add time values to elements but since the units are maximized at Hours not sure how it will work. I then thought of the clock families I have created. I also realized that if the Time value is set to Hours then a user can enter the seconds as 600 s and it will convert to Hours, however the value for minutes is “min” which I can see getting confused with minimum values, or is that a hack for values where you don’t want to type in min after every input (I think that is a terrible idea but that is what came to mind first)

At any rate these are here to experiment with and see what values we can use them for.

Resetting coordinates Revit

Leave a reply

In years past it has been easy to reset coordinates on a Revit file, simply link in a different Revit model and acquire coordinates from that model. Yet this changed in Revit 2017 and Steve Stafford has written an excellent article on the topic where you have to select “Do not share site of selected instance”.  What happens when you have several Revit files linked to your project?  I really don’t want to change that setting on 5, 10 , 25 instances of linked models.  There is another way.  If you link in a .dwg file and acquire coordinates from it, then you can go back and acquire the newly updated coordinates of the original Revit file. 

Linked File Instance Properties for Site
Image 1

What happens when you have several Revit files linked to your project?  I really don’t want to change that setting on 5, 10 , 25 instances of linked models.  There is another way.  If you link in a .dwg file and acquire coordinates from it, then you can go back and acquire the  coordinates of the original Revit file. 

In my opinion the first thing I do is create a new “Site” or shared coordinate setting.  This way  I can go back to the original setting if something goes wrong.  To accomplish this go to the Manage tab>>Project Location panel>>Location command.  In the Location Weather and Site dialog switch to the Site panel.

Image 2

In the Name Dialog type in a new Site Name.  Once a new name is created, select it and choose “Make Current” as seen in Image 2.

Image 3

Once this is done then link in a .dwg file.  For me this file has one single line drawn from 0,0,0 at an angle and is extremely long, such that it will reach past the extents of the modeled building.  When linking this file I always select Origin to Origin as my placement setting.

Image 4

Once the .dwg file has been successfully loaded, coordinates may be acquired from this file to “Reset” the internal coordinates.  To accomplish this go to the Manage tab>>Project Location panel>>Coordinates drop Down Acquire Coordinates.  Once this command has been selected you must select the .dwg file in the view.

Image 5

Once the coordinates have been acquired from the .dwg you may now acquire coordinates from the linked Revit file.  If your Revit file is a cloud version (BIM360 Team or Docs) then you will have to do one of the following: either remove the linked .dwg file under manage links, or save the project (not synchronize) and when the Location Position Changed dialog box appears be sure to select Disable shared position

Image 6

If everything seems to be successful I would suggest going back and removing the old Site as seen in Image 2 above.

If you are on a project that has several Revit files linked into it, and all of those files have updated the coordinates to match then each file will have to be selected and in the Choose Site dialog (see Image 1), the “Move instance to:” value should be changed to match the newly named site.  If everything has been done correctly then all of the models should adjust accordingly.