Thursday, October 14, 2010

Workset Visibility in Linked Files

Warning: Worksets are not for visibility control purists need to walk away, put some ear plugs in and repeat after me, "Nah nah nah, I can't hear you Steve, I can't hear you".

When you work with linked project files a common issue people deal with is controlling the display of the linked levels and grids. The first person I recall discovering the technique I'm about to describe is Daniel Stine, the author of several Revit books.

If your project and the other project files use specific worksets for certain elements, like Levels and/or grids you can control their visibility quite easily. Here's the steps:

  • For each linked project file - define a workset(s) name for the linked elements
  • Have the source of each file make sure the elements are assigned to this workset(s)
  • Create the same workset(s) using the same name in your own project
  • Un-Check Visible by default in all views

When you import the other project file Revit will recognize the workset that uses the same name and respect the fact that your workset by the same name isn't supposed to be visible, rendering their workset "invisible" too. I've created a brief video that explains this too.



For the purist that prefers to use Filters for visibility control, Revit doesn't provide access to project file parameters like file name or project name. If Revit did then we could filter for the grids in the other file instead. If the grid family name chosen by the other project file creators was carefully assigned/selected we could control it with Filters.

4 comments:

Rachel said...

Hmm, interesting way to control linked object visibility in selected views. Thanks, I'm going to try it to control our furniture visibility

For levels and grids that need to be turned off in all your views, its easier to close/open that workset of the linked file under manage links> manage worksets for the whole project. One of the best perks of 2011 !

Aaron Maller said...

Its really not a "purist" thing... its a "which tool for the job" thing.

Its great that they gave us control over Linked Workset for visibility, for those that like to use it. The fact that they linked up Like-Named worksets is an added bonus, to be sure.

Having said that, you dont need worksets OR filters for Linked Model grids, since theyre accessible in VG:RVT Link.

I could see not liking that solution for Firms that dont use View Templates as aggressively as we do, as its a lot of clicks to get in and out of. But, if you use View Templates everywhere as we do, doing it in VG:RVT Link means you dont ever have to worry about either party modeling something on the wrong workset, and you get the same result. (This is also why we had those 5 blank files linked in to our template).

If you know you dont want to see MEP's redundant grids in 90% of your views (but want them in working views), link a blankie in to your template and do this. Then Reload From instead of Link Revit, and the grids are hidden already.

:)

But i didnt mean to be stubborn about it. Just this week i received a few... clever models. Design Options for Project Phase, worksets for design options, phases for design options, phases for visibility, worksets for visibility...

Im not knocking it. Just mentioning another POV on why it might not be a good idea. :)

Unknown said...

Can someone confirm that this works through all versions of Revit? I had this working when I was using the one box install, but it doesn't seem to work on the single version install.

Unknown said...

After some addtitional investigating, keep in mind that setting linked views in a view will affect this behavior. Also, it looks like once you have the settings in place, avoid changing them back and forth as Revit is not being consistent with turning on/off linked content.