Do you know the Best Way to Audit a Set of Model Groups?

Luke Johnson

Let’s say you have inherited a multi-storey project that has been set up with Model Groups for Typical Levels – not necessarily a bad thing (see this post).

There are a couple of things that do scare me a bit, like the fact that groups can break down after a long editing session, and that its not easy to find out which elements are excluded from which group instances.
EDIT Here is an answer using Compare Models by Julien Benoit (note – Compare Models is a Subscriber only Extension, now available on Exchange here.  You will need to login).

After installing Compare Models, you need to open two files.  I opened a ‘live’ version and a detached version of the same model.  Go to Extensions – Tools – Compare Models.  Wait for a while… you will get a list that shows you which Group instances have Members Excluded.

However, this method does not give the actual Excluded Elements, just the Group Instances with Exclusions.

There was a recent twitter exchange (initiated by me) about this (see below), but it didn’t really result in a nice solution.  The closest I came, in theory, was this:

So…..

Does anyone have an awesome way to list group instances and their excluded elements?  Anyone? 🙂

How to Make Image Backgrounds Transparent in Revit

Luke Johnson

You need to save as PNG – but not any old PNG will work.

I have consistent success using Paint.NET, deleting the “background” so it is empty (checkerboard), then saving as a PNG.  But here’s the main lesson – make sure you tick 32-bit.  No other option seems to work, only 32-bit PNGs seem to respect transparency in Revit.

You can even use Bring to Front, Send to Back etc to overlap these images.  Quite useful for Entourage in coloured Plans and Elevations…

How to Delete Viewport Title Types in Revit

Luke Johnson

Firstly, consolidate your Viewport Types by using Select All Instances – In Current Project and switching them to the Types you want to keep.

Then, change a Viewport to one you want to delete, and use Snoop Current Selection (RevitLookup).  You can drill down to find the ElementID of the Viewport Type Definition:

Ok, with this in hand:

  1. Change the Viewport back to one you want to “keep”
  2. Select by ID – use the ID you found above
  3. Press Delete on the keyboard (if any viewports still use this definition, Revit will prompt you that deleting this Viewport Type could cause problems etc). 
  4. Rinse and repeat
Keep in mind that some Viewport Types are “special” / built-in, you will not be able to delete them all…

De-Duplicating the BIM process, and a Checklist for preliminary BIM Coordination Meeting

Luke Johnson

A new challenge faced by collaborative design teams – how to work concurrently, yet not do the same thing four times?

Consider these comments from Glenn Jowett:
“If you look at the process of designing a steel framed building there is the potential for at least four steel frame models to exist within one design team, four models that have been built from scratch by different people within that design team.
…
The design team should sit down at the start of a project and map out who owns what elements at what stage of the project
…
The copy monitor tools within Revit are far from perfect, but this seems to be the only option for walls at the moment.
…
In traditional 2D, drawings would be issued and revisions clouded; in the 3D model revisions can’t be clouded and drawing issues between the design teams are becoming less and less frequent.”
via
http://revitst.blogspot.in/2013/08/revit-collaboration.html

Checklist:
Finally, some great ideas of what to discuss at a pre-project BIM meeting from the same post:
“An initial BIM or Revit meeting should take place at the start of every major project, purely from a Revit and collaboration point of view items for discussion should be:

· File format for data exchange

· How often are files exchanged

· Clearly define what the model is to be used for at what stage in the design process

· Who models what and when

· Who owns what and when does element ownership go from one discipline to another

· Level of development (LOD) – what level of model information should I expect to receive at what stage? And does that meet my expectations

· How often should clash detection take place

· Project coordinates and project north position.

It is important that the above items (at least) are discussed before a project really starts to evolve, and the decisions on each item should be documented and set out in a BIM Execution Plan. Collaboration will be much easier to manage if every member of the design team has the same set of core principles to follow from start to finish.”

To the above list, I would add at least the following:

  • common list of Phases
  • common set of Worksets (or at least exchange Workset lists)
  • how many models will a multi-disciplinary consultant firm be providing?  One combined?  Or multiple?
  • discuss if any particular Copy/Monitor Revit Categories will be key to the project 

How to Schedule Panel Locations on a Flat Rectangular Surface in Revit

Luke Johnson

If you ever feel like your Revit day is just too basic and straightforward, you should definitely read this post by the RevitCat.  There are some serious formulas in place:

This technique will not work with a curved surface because it all works by calculating the actual distance from the control point to the BL corner of the pyramid and relating that to the overall length of the surface.

Read more:
http://revitcat.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/how-to-schedule-panel-locations-on-flat.html

Copy a Directory Tree "Flat" – all files into one folder, no subfolders

Luke Johnson

Let’s say you have exported all families in a Revit project to a bunch of folders by Category, but you want to get them all into one folder so you can drag-drop and load them all into a new project all at once…

Copy the following into a batch file:

@echo off
set source=”E:tempEexport”
set destination=”E:tempEexport2″

::Not sure if this is needed
::It guarantees you have a canonical path (standard form)
for %%F in (%destination%) do set destination=”%%~fF”

for /r %source% %%F in (.) do if “%%~fF” neq %destination% ROBOCOPY “%%F” %destination% *.rfa /COPYALL /R:0

Now, change the text in red to suit your source and destination (my destination folder was empty).  Run the batch file and you should have a stack of RFAs all sitting in that folder.  Note: results may be a bit unpredictable if you have duplicates of particular files in the source directory tree.

Read more:
file – ROBOCOPY – Copy folders content to a single folder – Stack Overflow