Mysteries of the Unknown!

I have a running list of “REVIT MYSTERIES’ on my desk (I’ve already discussed one of those mysteries).  One day, I would like to take this list with me into a room of the developers and ask “why”.

Until then, I shall whine about it here and maybe someone out there has a good explanation.  Today’s case: The Mystery of the Vanishing Strucutral Column!

Something is happening wiht drawing order and how things are cut.  I cannot find much other folks with this issue, but I can consistently get something weird to happen.  At least I think it’s weird.

Let’s say I place a wall.  Let’s say I place some components (structural columns) in that wall.  Now I do a callout of the area.

If I do a callout and set the type to FLOOR PLAN, things seem to come in how I expect.

If I do a callout and set the type to DETAIL VIEW, then I get some odd results.  Hatches and lines overlap.  Things don’t seem to cut clean.

Why is this?  Is Revit making assumptions about what I want to do with DETAIL VIEWS?  That I plan on slapping detail components everywhere?  How presumptive of Revit.

Detail Views have some very different settings than a “standard” floor plan callout view.  The help file does not explain this graphic difference, however.

I would really love to hear an explanation.  Right now, we just kind of avoid Detail Views, and if someone took the time to make them function differently, I would love to know why.

Where Is My Constraint Lock?

Just a quickie, and looks like it is not a Revit 2010 thing.  Might seem like a no brainer, but is one of those things that you can spin your wheels on and waste time with.

Let’s say you’ve just aligned something in Revit (say it with me – “destination, traveller”).  You want to click the handy padlock to constrain it, but… oh no!  No constraint lock!  What the deuce is going on?!

It’s there, don’t worry.  Check out your Visibility Graphics (VG).  Look under the Annotation Categories tab for “Constrants”.  Make sure that is checked.  POOF!  There they are!

Like I said, this seems to be OK in 2010.  The constraint lock will show up after you align something even if you have the Constraints category hidden.  What won’t show up are any locks on already constrained objects when you select them.

Revit, Links and Phases – Part 1

When working in Revit, I often find myself quoting Spider-man.  Don’t look at me that way.

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

SO true.  And very true in the world of phasing.  Phasing itself can be quite confusing.  It takes some time to get your head around it.  The best way that I find to explain it to folks (who have a basic understanding of 80’s classic cinema) is that you are getting into a DeLorean and speeding up to 88 miles per hour.  Whatever phase you set for your view, you have travelled through time to get to that spot and that’s where you are.

Then you get to deal with Phase Filters.  That adds another level of fun to the conversation, but the key to remember about the filter is that they are changing the appearance of the model BASED UPON WHERE IN TIME THAT DELOREAN DROPPED YOU.

How stuff is labeled seems to be one of the banes of Revit (How many releases did we wait through until they finally renamed it “Synchronize with Central”?) and the phases vs. phase filters are no different.  The out of the box template has a phase called “New Construction”.  There are also phase filters called “Show Demo + New”, “Show New” and “Show Previous + New”.  When introduced to the concept, most folks make the assumption that the word “New” in the phase filter relates to the “New Construction” phase, and it’s hard to blame them because they are the same word!

You have to keep in mind that the phase filter is in relation to the phase your view is in.  So even though it says “New” in the filter, if you have gone back in time to the existing phase, you will not see new construction stuff.  You will see what was new during the existing phase year.

We have even gone so far to rename the Phase Filters in our template.  Wherever the word “New” was we have replaced it with “Current”.  Not the best word necessarily, but it makes it harder for the brain to connect the phase and the filter incorrectly.

I’ve rambled a lot to get us on the same page with phases here.  In Part 2, I’ll discuss a little bit about the fun when you link another Revit file in and have to deal with someone else’s phases.

Poor Interior Designers

I don’t mean the title of this post sarcastically, I do mean it in relation to good old Revit.

I recently had the pleasure to sit down with our Interior Designers group for an Autodesk webinar titled “Revit Architecture and Interior Design”.  Well, it was a pleasure to sit with them, not so much the presentation.

It wasn’t the presenter, it was completely the material, or lack thereof.  We have been working hard to fully integrate our designers with the rest of the project team on our Revit models.  Unfortunately, it is only halfway (quarterway?) there.  We wanted to see the tools for easy floor pattern design!  We wanted to see the commitment from manufacturer’s to get consistent and proper families into Revit!  We wanted to see better integration of room object finish information and the actual model!

We didn’t see these things.  They don’t exist yet.

We saw rendering (nice!), Autodesk Seek (spotty) and integration with Inventor (what?!)

I have a feeling that the Interior Designer is not on the marketshare target for Autodesk yet.  The in house solutions we are putting together are piecemeal at best.  We get frustrated that they cannot fully take advantage of the parametric engine that is Revit’s bread and butter.  We cross our fingers that this will be remedied in future releases.

2010 Halftone Control

One of our Revit “last 10%” complaints was always about the obtuse “halftone” toggle for visibility graphics and appearance settings.  We pretty much assumed that it is literally 50% of whatever the original color is.

The thing is, even when we “ghosted” linework in AutoCrap and called it “halftone”, it was really about 65%, not 50%.  50% is just too darn light.

Apparently, the Revit guys, when they weren’t working on shiny new plastic-like icons, decided to add something practical to 2010.  We can now control the halftone setting on a project basis.

If you go to MANAGE – SETTINGS you will see the new HALFTONE/UNDERLAY control. 

This will bring up a beautiful little slider that lets you control exactly what the “half” in “halftone” means.

Slide up or slide down, whichever way you want to slide now, Revit lets you.

Warning – Floor May Be Closer Than It Appears

So, I stumbled across an odd one today.  Apparently, floors don’t like to follow the rules when it comes to view ranges.

Let’s say you have a floor at Level 1, offset 0′-0″.  Your view range bottom is set at the same height.  I always assumed that since the range was touching the floor, that’s why I saw it.

Boy, was I wrong.

It turns out that you have to get your view range at least 4′ above the floor for it not to appear in a view.

What the what?!  It’s like there is an invisible cube that is 4′ tall sitting on top of a floor.

I did a quick Google and found one reference to it on another blog.  That write-up states that it is “confusing” and “poorly documented”.  I used some different words, but not any that I will type here, in case my mom is reading this.  Hi, mom!

Looks like this “feature” made its way through to 2010 also, at least in my beta it did.

In my opinion this is insane and an amazingly poor idea that needs to be removed ASAP.  When someone sets their view range, they expect that view range to actually work (gasp – crazy idea).  Not work for some items, but not work except for an arbitrary distance with other items.  Dumb dumb dumb.

So watch out for your floors.  They may show up where you don’t expect them to.

Revit 2010 – To Upgrade or No

So, I guess my NDA is over?  Who knows.  All I know is we have started downloading the 2010 version of our favorite BIM software. 

I have heard this being called the R13 of Revit (ominous drum noises follow) and while the updates aren’t earth shattering, there are some compelling reasons that we see.  Some of the vocal minority are stating that they will be skipping this version due to 1) the Ribbon and 2) the low amount of new features.  We will be upgrading to this version because of 1) the Ribbon and 2) the low amount of new features.

I’m not saying that I hate new features and fixed old ones (stairs!  I’m looking at YOU), but the ENTIRE INTERFACE HAS CHANGED.  This is a learning curve unto itself.  So with this version, instead of having to take the time to teach everyon the GUI and new whiz-bang features, we can just spend the time getting our users to learn the new interface.  So when the NEXT version comes out, we’ll already know the interface and can hit the ground running with new features.  Bam!  Seriously, it’s not like the Ribbon is going away.  It’s here.

And I for one embrace our new Ribbony Masters.

Full disclosure – there are one or two projects that we will NOT be upgrading to 2010, either due to time or concern of the PM or both.  Luckily we have this option of keeping multiple versions on the desktop.

Mansard Roof Madness

We have found ourselves needing to create far more mansard roofs in our Revit model than I think is healthy.  The economic downturn has led a lot of our clients to go down the addition and renovation road more than we are used to.  So we find ourselves in the “happy” position of having to model a lot of existing work of questionable architectural value.

But I am not here to argue the validity of aesthetics from decades ago!  I am confident that sometime in the nearish future some future blogger will be looking back at our work and make the same slightly disgusted face.

We tried really hard to use the built in roof tool in Revit to get a mansard roof, but the extent of the slope is just too extreme in most cases.  We now utilize the create roof by face.

We create a mass that consists of a blend sweep, which very easily lets you create the shape of the roof overall.  Then we create roof by face.  This is done face by face.  So, don’t select all the faces then try to finish.  Sometimes Revit gets mad at this and tells you “no”.  But you can definitely go in and change each face one at a time, then join the geometry when you’re done.

The biggest hurdle is learning the massing tools, but once this is overcome, this is a very easy and effective way of getting these roofs done.

Referencing Sheet and View Issues

So, you’ve added some sections and slapped them on a sheet.  Cool.  Good old Revit gets the detail number and referring sheet populated automatically.  It’s one of those magical things that computers should have been doing for years.

If you have a client that requires the good old 3 part bubble, then you find yourself with having to show the detail number, the sheet it’s on and the referring sheet in the bubble.  Some callouts, being datum elements (section cuts, elevations, levels) can actually show up on more than one sheet.  When you put a view on a sheet, how does Revit determine the “referencing sheet” and “referencing detail”?

Simply put, it looks through your sheets.  The first sheet it finds that has the callout mark is the referencing sheet.  And that’s what gets put into your three part bubble.

Now, let’s suppose… you have an A2.1 sheet that is going to have your floor plan on, but you haven’t put it there yet.  You also have an A9.1 reflected ceiling plan sheet and you haveput a view on.  I have a wall section that I am placing on an A5.1 sheet.  So I drag the view on there, and since the callout shows the “referencing sheet” info, it fills that in with A9.1.  Well, that’s not the view I wanted.  I wanted A2.1.  What is one to do?

Well, sometimes you just drag the view onto the sheet.  Drag the plan onto A2.1 and magically the referencing sheet of the section on A5.1 updates.  POOF!  Your work is done and Revit read your mind!

Sadly, sometimes that doesn’t work, especially if the sheet that you drag the desired plan onto is after the already placed sheet.  Then what do you do?

You jump through some hoops.  But let’s try to understand what appearsto be Revit’s behaviors for the hoops.

• When you place a view on a sheet, Revit looks through your sheets to see what the referencing sheet should be.  It also does this when you adjust the scope of your view.
• Revit will only call a view/sheet  referencing if the callout is actively in a view, i.e. not hidden.

OK, nice simple (theoretical) rules.  I say theoretical, because I have no possible way of knowing that the code works this way.  This is all based on observation.  The following are the hoops:

Find all the views that have a callout to the section (or elevation or whatever that you need to change the bubble)

Hide in view the callout in each view EXCEPT for the one that you want to be the referencing sheet

Activate the section (or elevation or whatever) and change the crop region ever so slightly.  Just drag it a little teeny bit.  You’ll see the bubble update as Revit finds the only view on which you have the callout not hidden

Go back to the views from Hoop 2 and unhide the callouts.  Oddly, this will NOT update the section (or elevation or whatever)

This will keep the referencing sheet set, unless you change the crop region for that view, then you have to repeat.  And if you need to show multiple referencing sheets, pull out some text as the monstrous last 10% rears its ugly head one more time.

Ideally, the referencing sheet parameter would be a drop-down, and you could select what view/sheet you want, and possibly even build tags that can generate from a list of multiple views/sheets.  I’m certainly not the first to hope for such a feature, and I wager I won’t be the last.

Pretty Pictures

Saw this at Autodesk University two years ago at their opening demo… I’m sorry, I meant “revival”.  It has recently popped up on Autodesk Labs, and I hope hope hope that it doesn’t die a slow Labs death and never really see the light of day.

Project Newport (which to those of us living near Philip Morris sounds like a top secret cigarette attack) is being touted as a game engine for designers.  Which frankly, would be awesome.

No, I don’t want to make myself a root beer float and pull out the lime chips and sit on my couch in the middle of the night and shoot zombies in one of our designs.  Or do I?

Being able to leverage modern “gaming” processing hooks on video cards for real time visualization type rendering would be amazing and such a boon.  Right now, if we want real time 3d viewing of our Revit model, it’s in Shading With Edges and looks like a cartoon.  If we want some nice materials on there, it’s wait 5 to 30 minutes for this image to render.

And if nothing else, if this works like it’s touted I might help me kill Sketchup in my firm.  That’s too harsh.  Not kill.  But significantly maim.

Hopefully, Newport will happen and it will bridge these two.  I’m not expecting photo realistic real time rendering, but if I can see my building and it looks as good as a modern video game on my PC, that would go SO far to get our design intent to owners.

And if I can export it and navigate through it on an XBox360… how cool would that be?  I’m just saying…