Thursday, May 23, 2019

Structural Column Disappears - Part Deux

Yesterday while trading messages with a friend we discussed my previous post about columns disappearing. He suspected it might explain the issue he was observing. After looking more closely it turned out that it doesn't. In his situation the structural columns were modeled the full height of the building and Join Geometry was used on walls, that passed through (overlapped) the columns, at each floor (level). The result: at some levels no column appeared while at others they do.

It was necessary to pull the walls back so they stop at the surface of the columns. Join Geometry allowed for the desired appearance and the columns reappeared at the other levels where they were missing earlier.

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Filter Dialog and Reading a Long Filter Name

Dialog stretchiness has been an ongoing long standing user wish for all dialogs. Daniel wrote to me hoping that I'd echo his complaint about the Filter dialog. Yes you can stretch it but the frames remain less so. The Filter name frame does add a scroll bar at the bottom when a filter name exceeds the width of the frame, which does not increase in size when the overall host dialog stretches out. Ideally we'd be able to stretch/adjust individual sections of such dialog boxes. If memory serves that is dependent upon which GUI tools are being used to generate the dialog. If that tool set doesn't do it then...we don't get it...without a custom entity.

Daniel was writing about Revit 2019. Even when you scroll over to the right completely a filter with a long name gets truncated and you can't read all of the name.


I note that in Revit 2020 a tooltip will appear that displays the full name while the frame does the same truncating even when it has been scrolled completely to the right.


Naturally, we can avoid it if we can use Filter names that are not very long, an easy fix...there's that word again - easy. Easier said than done...it seems.

Monday, May 20, 2019

Structural Column Disappears in Detail View Type

When we create a Callout within a plan view we can choose between Floor plan and Detail. A structural column that uses a negative offset won't show up when a wall exists in the same location when a Detail view type is used. It works fine in a Floor plan view type.

Here are some example images. The first one is showing the negative offset used. If the offset is zero then there is no graphical issue, the column shows up.


This image shows both callouts in the overall floor plan, Detail on the left and Floor on the right.


This is the Floor Plan Callout, column shows up as expected.


This is the Detail Callout, no column is visible.


This is the same Detail Callout but my cursor is hovering over the column and Revit sees it, highlights it despite not being visible. The wall is masking the column.


This is the same Detail Callout but the view is changed to use Wireframe and the column appears.


It boils down to the negative offset applied to the column. The graphics hierarchy does not respect the full height of the column and the wall element is drawn over the structural column. We can also get around the issue if we edit the column family and remove the option: Show family pre-cut in plan views.

Wednesday, May 08, 2019

RevitForum.org Back

It appears to be restored via a new ISP and up and running again. Glad it's back!

...EDIT...some are saying it isn't fully set up at the new ISP yet...mileage may vary for a bit longer but it is on the way.

...EDIT...Site is still in transition to a new ISP, a message to that effect appears on the site until it is fully transitioned. (05/10/2019)

...EDIT...Site is UP, restored...aahhh

Monday, May 06, 2019

Linked Details - 3rd Party Tool Options

This is an update to a much earlier post after getting a couple comments on that thread. These are three companies I'm familiar with that are providing solutions that contend with sharing details between projects and multiple model projects.

Revolution Design - Revit Workflow

26 Degrees Software - ViewAQC

Parallax Team - Parallax Linked Details

Check them out!