Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Which Phase Filter?

There are several phase filters that stock templates come with. Sometimes people aren't certain which ones to use or why they exist. There are three options that affect how elements are influenced by Phase Filters: By Category, Overridden and Not Displayed.


By Category - Project Object Styles and/or view's Visibility/Graphics Overrides govern.
Overridden - Revit will change the appearance of elements based on the Phase Graphics Overrides settings (see next image). Note that a Filter (View not Phase) applied to a view can still influence an element affected by a Phase Filter.
Not Displayed - Yes, this means elements are not displayed in the view.


What does it take for Revit to regard an element as being New, Existing, Demolished or Temporary? It varies according to the Phase of the view we see it in and which Phase Created and Phase Demolished parameters values are assigned to it. The following conditions define which Phase Status an element belongs to in a given view. For the following images assume this view is assigned to Phase New Construction and that we are looking at the Phasing parameters of four different walls.

New - Element's Phase Created parameter is assigned to the phase of this view and the Phase Demolished parameter is set to None.


Existing - Element's Phase Created parameter is assigned to an earlier phase than the phase of this view and the Phase Demolished parameter is set to None.


Demolished - Element's Phase Created parameter is assigned to an earlier phase than the phase of this view AND its Phase Demolished parameter is assigned to the same Phase as this view.


Temporary - Element's Phase Created parameter is the same phase as this view AND its Phase Demolished parameter is also assigned to the same phase as this view.


Any given element can belong to one of these four Phase Status in any given view according to the Phase parameter of that view AND its own Phase Created and Phased Demolished parameter settings. Phase graphics depend entirely on creating views for each appropriate phase and creating elements so they are assigned to the correct phase and then altered so their Phase Demolished parameters are assigned as required, if required.

Getting to the title of this post finally, each view has a Phase Filter parameter. What follows is my take on why I'd use each of the stock Phase Filters.

None - It's not a Phase Filter in the dialog, it's a choice in the list of Phase Filters within a view's properties. We use this when we don't want any Phase settings to affect the elements in the view. Everything is displayed according to either Object Styles or Visibility/Graphics Overrides.

Show All = This filter can't be altered or deleted. It means show us everything WITH Phase graphic alterations applied. NEW elements are governed by Object Styles (or possibly Visibility Graphics overrides) AND it overrides Existing, Demolished and Temporary elements. Use this filter to help see everything mixed together AND altered so each Phase Status is obvious. It is NOT a typical way of producing traditional documents but it CAN help explain relationships very well.

Show Completed = We're done! We don't want to see any graphical bias toward new or existing work, they should look the same. We don't want to see any demolished or temporary elements. We want to use this to show the finished design after construction is done. We could think of it as a view of "As Built" conditions if the model is kept current through construction.

Show Previous and New = We want to show new construction information in context against existing features but without Demolished or Temporary elements. This is ideal for New Construction views.

Show Previous and Demo = This is the filter to use for typical demolition documentation, existing features altered to show where demolition occurs. New work and Temporary work are not shown.

Show New Only = This is useful when we want to give a hint of future work. We can isolate and override graphics in a view to prepare a view for overlaying over another view on a sheet. When we overlay this on top of a new construction plan we'll see how they relate to each other despite the fact that Revit has no "future" phase.

Don't be fazed by phasing!

13 comments:

daveedwards said...

Thanks - great article. Users have trouble with Demolition not being a phase. It's hard for them to understand that each Phase is the result of the twin processes of construction and demolition. This article should help.

(This is a very "geeky" comment, but this process reminds me of the old Game of Life. Phases are equated to Generations and the Births and Deaths happen simultaneously.)

Lallan Ji said...

If I require all Phases visible in a view which filter will be effective ?

Steve said...

Show All - will show all elements and apply overrides to them based on the Phase Graphic Overrides.

None - will show all elements and not affect them graphically.

Unknown said...

Hello, Thanks for this information. I have a co-worker who is insisting that we also create a worksets for each of these "phases". This means we have so very many worksets. Interior - New, Interior - Existing Interior - Demo, Exterior - New, Exterior - Demo, Exterior - Existing etc etc. He likes to use worksets to speed up the work flow, e.g. setting up view templates that will not load all worksets by view. Does this seem repetitive to you?

Steve said...

I wouldn't be inclined to do that. It's redundant and a bit counterproductive.

If elements are properly assigned their phase status and views are using Phase Filters then there is nothing to be gained by using Worksets to also classify things as belonging to a phase. An element's phase status also varies according to each view's own phase settings. This means something assigned to a workset may still not show up because of a phase filter.

An element can only be assigned to ONE workset so that effectively eliminates worksets from being useful to unload data for any other reason.

I'd say let Phases do their job and let worksets do theirs, don't try to mix them.

Unknown said...

I have created a new Phase Filter, which overrides New and Demolished in order to show them in the same view. Existing and untouched is set to By Category

There are some walls that are demolished and rebuilt, and here is where Revit seems to get confused, because when printed, some of these walls display OK (with both "new" and "demolished" overrides), but there are others that doesn't share the overrides and only uses one of them.

Any clue to control that or achieve what I'm looking for?

Thanks

P.San said...

Hi Steve,

Referring to earlier question and reply for "If I require all Phases visible in a view which filter will be effective ?" I encountered similar problems and could not successfully display all the proposed new construction and demolition works in one view! I had set up existing, phase 1, phase 2 and phase 3. Of which proposed works were in phase 1 & 2, and I used phase 3 to attempt displaying a summary of all the proposed works (in phases 1, 2) but to no avail. Only the final outcome of the project was displayed in phase 3. The only way I could achieve this was to merge phases 1 and 2. Appreciate your help on this please.


P.San

Steve said...

Using 3 phases will pose a problem if you hope to show demolition that occurred during phase 2. That work will not be displayed anymore because it is "gone" when you move to a view of phase 3.

In phase 3 items that were created in phase 1 and 2 are both regarded as existing now, as long as they were not also demolished since they were created. Once they are demolished they no longer "exist" as far as that view and phase filters are concerned.

To show all the proposed work together, phase 1 (existing) and phase 2 (new work) should be sufficient. In a view assign it to phase 2 and use Show All phase filter.

Anonymous said...

Quick question...I just started with a new firm and in the project template the Demo phase has been deliberately deleted. First why would you ever want to delete the Demo phase and second what issues may this cause?

Unknown said...

So if I have a Demo Plan (New construction/ Show Previous and Demo) with Demo sections and elevations, and a New Floor Plan (New construction/ Show Previous and New) with New sections and elevations; How do I keep the elevation and Section markers from overlapping because the views are all in the same Phase (New construction)?

Am I missing Something?

Steve said...

Regan - Create Elevation and Section View types - then use Filters to restrict which types should be visible in each kind of View.

Unknown said...

Hi! Show All = This filter can't be deleted... But I have copied "Show All" after Transfer Standarts procedure (from Russian Template). So I have "Show All" and "Показать все" (it's same on Russian) as result.
May be Somebody knows how repair it?
Thanks!

Steve said...

Aleksey - My guess is only Autodesk developers could fix it.