Work Plane Based Families and Rotate w Copy

I participated in a thread at Autodesk's Revit forum and it took me far too long to catch on to the issue described at the outset. I should have retraced the thread sooner, but I did get there eventually.

I'm referring to the Rotate tool and its Copy option, this...

The issue boils down to this: the Rotate with Copy option works/affects a Work Plane-Based (and face-based) family differently than when a family is merely hosted by a Level (all non "based" families). Let's start here, imagine I want two screens on my desk like this.

These are stock families: TV - Flat Screen.rfa and Desk.rfa The desk has a top surface that isn't visible in plan view so it can't act as a face to host the TV. I changed that. The TV isn't a work plane-based family. In a plan view, when I place it on the desk it ends up eaten by the desk because it looks like this in a 3D view.

Sure, I can use its Elevation from Level parameter to put it on the desk (an illusion of a relationship). When I move the desk I need to remember to select the TV too (or make a group...or...I digress). I get the clever idea, "Make this family Work Plane-Based, that's easy!"

Using Rotate with Copy should give me the result I want in the first image and it does until I check the box for Work Plane-Based. The angle I decide I want between the screens is 22.5 degrees. I added a couple reference planes for the images to help see what happens, the desired result.

That's what I want except that they should be hosted by the desk, not relying on using the Elevation from Level parameter. When I use Rotate with the Copy option after editing the TV family to make it Work Plane-Based (also Always Vertical is checked) I get this result.

Notice the TV angle itself is correct but it's location is wrong...and a warning message appeared to help me notice... It's been moved/copied by double the input value of 22.5 degrees using the origin of rotation correctly and managed to maintain the angle I wanted. This next image summarizes what happened.

That's weird enough on its own but I can go weird by one more, un-check the TV's Always Vertical parameter. After running through the exercise again I get this outcome.

This time it applied the rotation input angle of 22.5 degrees x 2 = 45 degrees to both rotating the family and its position. This time it did it fully wrong while the previous time it only did it half wrong.

Introduce a Floor, instead of a desk family, into the mix and place the TV family before it is Work Plane-Base with Always Vertical and this happens. No rotation, just copy and in the same place no less.

When the TV family is Work Plane-Based and Always Vertical is used then it works wrong in the same way as relying on the desk's face as the host did.

I imagine Revit is attempting to relate the rotation and copy actions to the family's host, since that is the work plane the family is hosted by. Clearly it is unable to do so properly. I think it is reasonable to expect to get the same result whether level based or work plane-based. This post and the images are from using Revit 2020.2 but I did the same things in Revit 2016 with the same results. This has been around for quite awhile now.

If it is any consolation, the Mirror and Polar Array tools don't suffer from this malady but each have their own prep work required to make them a ready replacement.

Keynote Legends and Keynotes not Updating 2018.3

In Revit 2018.3.2.7 I am seeing and getting reports that keynote legends are not updating to show the current state of keynote tags visible in views. The existing workaround to force a refresh by turning on/off the Annotation Crop Boundary works but is entirely impractical to expect a team to open every sheet and do that task for each and every view on a sheet.

This past Knowledge Network post seems relevant. A portion of the text at that article suggests...

Workaround:
There are a few ways you could work around this behavior, and the best method will vary depending on the model geometry and number of affected tags. Here are a few options:

Temporary fixes (these will restore the display keynote tags, but future view changes will clear them again): 
Temporarily adjust the location of the Cut Plane so that is above the affected elements (this will restore the value to the tags) and then restore the original cut plane location. Note: Some customers have noted that for views with dependent views, this process is required:

1. Open the parent view and adjust the cut plane upward.
2. open all sheets containing dependent views belonging to this parent view to refresh the keynote tags.
3. move the cut plane back to its original position in the parent view.

(Note: this may not work for some elements such as Duct; in that case, see the Non-temporary fix below.) Recreate the affected tags manually.

Non-temporary fix (This will prevent future changes to the view from clearing the keynote tag): Adjust view or elements so that the cut plane is above the affected elements. (This could be done with a Plan Region.)

We really need this fixed ASAP!!

Color Fill Calculation Failed is Back

This warning appeared quite a bit with Revit 2016 and patched in subsequent updates.

I've clicked Restart to no joy and I've submitted the error. I've done the Edit Color Scheme and Cancel process described for Revit 2016 with no joy either. Hopefully it will get sorted out again.

Wish - Release Type Catalogs after Loading a Family

Revit needs to release the Type Catalog files after loading a family that use them.

That message makes the process of updating a type catalog tedious at best if you have to close Revit completely to release it so it can be edited, very inefficient. There was a brief period of time when Revit did release the file as it should, but that ended with 2018 if I recall correctly.

Resizable Dialogs in Revit 2019 - Not Noteblock Schedules

Hey! When you were making more dialog boxes re-sizable you missed one! It's really hard to be sure I'm selecting the correct family with this dialog.

If not outright re-sizable, maybe put the Name field at the top and stretch out the list box underneath and make it at least as wide as the dialog?

My Ongoing Saga of Autodesk Desktop Application

This poor half blind, lame in one-leg, incontinent piece of software continues to amuse and aggravate me. Twice in the last two weeks it has let me know I'm missing some updates.

Amusingly and aggravatingly ... they've all been installed already.

So I indulge it and try to install them again thinking that will help it see better. Nope ... sure enough ...the application that needs the update figures out it is installed already.

Typical response for all four items...

Revit 2017 - Space Naming Utility Update - It is Available Now

The other day I poked Autodesk about this feature. As it turns out it is deployed slightly more automatically. The catch is that the latest iteration of Autodesk Desktop Application (I'm going to call it AdA) must be used to see these updates.

My first problem was that AdA wasn't working. It just displayed a blank white screen. I also noticed that there was no Autodesk (A icon) in the system tray for an active service. Eventually I used the wisdom of The IT Crowd; turned it off and on again. That restarted the service and AdA started working, displaying information.

The second problem was there were no updates to choose from. I logged out of A360 and closed its system tray instance. I also logged out of A360 via Revit, since I had it open. I closed the instance of AdA in the system tray too. I had a browser open looking at my Manage portal. I thought that maybe my access settings were wrong. I logged out and closed the browser too. Then I logged back into A360 and launched AdA...voila, updates appeared. It made no difference earlier that I used the right-click Check for New Updates option for AdA in the system tray repeatedly.

Once I got it working again this appeared in AdA.

This a tiny bit better.

People will still have to pay attention to be alerted to download and install it. If they don't have enough control over their computer they'll still have to get EyeTee involved. I'll have to see if I notice more people have it installed in the coming months.

Once it has been downloaded and installed you don't have to rely on AdA to pass it along to others in the office though. You can just capture the downloaded installation file from the location defined when you downloaded and installed it the first time (C:\Autodesk by default).

It is also a bit tedious that every one of the updates is a separate installation; must be run and completed before starting another. If you attempt to run them while another is running you'll run into messages about something already being in process.

By the way, when you run Revit after installing all the available updates you may be greeted by "Security - Unsigned Add-in" warnings. Nice...

I've got my Space Naming Utility! Do you? I hope so!

...and thanks to Paul Aubin for the heads up!

Smaller Grid Bubbles

I wrote about one way to achieve using smaller grid bubbles in different views HERE. That written I can't help but wonder how much smaller is appropriate. A user recently complained they need a smaller grid bubble in a 1:1000 (metric) view. My gut reaction was "really?...maybe the grid bubble is just too big to begin with?" For example, this is what 1:100 and 1:1000 scale views look like side by side for a tiny footprint of grids using a stock grid family (6.5 mm radius/4.5 mm text).

That image is captured after using Zoom to Fit. How effective are grid bubbles at that scale to begin with? In imperial units that's equivalent to a view scale of 1"=120'-0". Keeping in mind that Revit's bias is to maintain the printed size of annotation, how much smaller does the bubble and text need to be to be better but still useful? This next image is the same sheet with grids bubbles that are half as big, text half as high (3.25 mm radius circle and 2.25 mm text).

I could argue that if the 1:1000 scale size is acceptable it might as well be the standard for all the views? This is how it (the smaller size grid bubbles) looks if I use Zoom Sheet Size and pan the view to show the grids side by side. This is more representative of what it will look like on the printed page.

Having the ability to turn off the bubble graphics only leaving the Grid name's text only might be a nice option. It seems to me that decreasing the size of the text means it is likely to no longer be legible. That's never good for documentation. For example, quite a few standards dictate a minimum text size of 1/8" which is larger than the 2.25 mm text I've shown in the images above.

Using a smaller font than what is shown above is going to start being too small to read on half-size prints; which is what I see getting printed more often these days. Fwiw, it's my understanding that 1/8" text as a requirement was decided upon because half size documents are printed so often and the resulting 1/16" text is at the brink of no longer being legible so standards set it accordingly.

Regardless, it's a frequent enough request that the development team ought to see what they can come up with. Something that is easy to implement and provides more flexibility for documentation.

Revit MEP - Piping Offset from other Elements

When we sketch a wall we can provide an offset value on the Options Bar and then use the Space Bar to flip the side of the reference points we provide during sketching.

That flows pretty well (pun intended). It's not so fluid when using the Duct and Pipe tools. The Offset feature is hiding in the Justification Settings dialog AND the Space Bar concept doesn't work. We have to provide a negative value or be careful to start sketching in a specific direction to get the opposite offset.

This makes sketching pipe with a specific offset value relative to walls and other elements tedious. I think it is very likely (even much more so) to want to create pipe and duct taking into account adjacent elements like walls and structure AND provide an offset while doing so...it would be a lot more fun if there wasn't this extra little dialog hassle to do so.

Line Styles Dialog

A recent thread that discussed the validity of saying Revit is "poorly written" generated the observation by one member that it boggles the mind why something so little has never been fixed. This is the subtle quirkiness.

Why is it necessary to click the little + sign every time this dialog opens. For that matter why is there a + sign at all. It's not like there are more things to show us?? Notice I used Comic Sans for the text? :)

Member Iru69 wrote:

Do they leave it that way as some kind of inside joke?

Our office left the Christmas wreath up on the wall until July last year... it just became a running joke - how long before the office manager thinks to take it down? We had an office pool going for the date it would come down (FTR, I wanted to take it down, but I wasn't going to be that guy). I'm starting to think that's what's going on at the Factory with this kind of stuff.

It just adds up and up and up and at the end, I'm like, this just sucks.

I waited until after Christmas to post this one... I'm nice that way. ;)

Project Version Wish

You may have experienced this too, maybe just once or forty times. I received a file to look over and it's not obvious which version of Revit it was created in. Naturally by the time I got a chance to look at it I couldn't just ask. The file name doesn't give me a clue. Some firms include a version designation in the project file name, for example "1234 Our Big Project-A-13.rvt". The "13" tells me that its a Revit 2013 file. There are plenty of annoying things in life, waiting for a Revit project to upgrade unnecessarily because I don't know what version it was created in is a drag.

Recently a tip was offered (but I can't remember who or where I read it, sorry) that you can use Show History on a project file instead of fully opening it. It helps you catch when you are attempting to open a project in a older version of Revit than the file was created with. It does not help with an older file being opened with a newer version though. Sadly I didn't remember this tip (even though it wouldn't have helped) until I got the dreaded "This is a one time upgrade process" message. Nuts!

I've got a couple wishes. First I'd love it if Revit would store a value in the file properties that indicates Revit version. Second I'd love for Revit to ask first, "Do You WANT to UPGRADE? and a "NO, NOOOO, please on all things holy NOOOO" button.

Grids Generator Extension

While I seem to be in whine mode this week I might as well suggest that the long standing grids generator extension get full Revit status. I think it could live on the ribbon alongside the Levels and Grids tool on the Datum panel. It might actually get used more if it were part of application and where's the harm in that??

Again, like the Space Naming Utility, awareness is the issue. People just don't know it exists. Instead of "hiding" it away on Autodesk Exchange put it in Revit! By the time they find out about it they've already put their grids in. If it was on the ribbon poking you in the eye when you look for grids and levels to begin with you might be more inclined to remember to use it. Hey, I thought the ribbon was better for discovering tools than the old fuddy duddy menu and toolbars approach? :)

Autodesk 360 Kills my Internet Connection

Each time I let Autodesk 360 sync it seems to block all my other internet activity and my PC goes back and forth repeatedly between reporting access and no access to the internet. Very annoying. For this reason, I tend to log out and exit the application, not very 360ish, sad to say.

Managing Revisions

Every time I want to edit the Revisions for a project I activate the Manage ribbon tab. It's never there, no matter how many times I try. The Revisions Button is on the View tab and the Sheet Composition panel. It obviously made sense to the development and user interaction team but not me. I think the correct place to access the Sheet Issues/Revisions dialog is the Manage tab. Despite the inclusion of "Sheet Issues" in the dialog name, mentally I "manage" revisions with that dialog. I'd find it quicker if it were on the Manage ribbon instead. I'd be happy if it was either part of the Settings panel or the Manage Project panel.

Potayto...potahto?

Omniclass and Uniformat Selection

It would be nice if we could search for keywords when attempting to assign the parameters for both Omniclass and Uniformat. Sometimes the best category to use in Revit isn't necessarily the correct category in these classification systems. This means a fair bit of time wasted hunting for an appropriate value. I search the source files to find keywords first which isn't the most straightforward.

Feed Reductions

I'm seeing a trend lately. More and more of the blogs in my feed for Google Reader are limiting how much information can be read there without going to the actual blog site to see the whole post. What a drag... The whole point of the reader is to pull it all together so I can read through a post in a single place, to avoid visiting hundreds of sites. I wish they weren't doing that. If I get annoyed enough I may just stop visiting altogether. Hmmm, that sounds like a threat. :) Don't know if it matters to them or not but it's a drag from this bloggers viewpoint.

Oh Where Art Thou Camera?

I wrote a post in March 2008 about this, still waiting. It would be excellent if in plan we could document where a camera is placed. Sure we can create a family to document where they are but that doesn't provide the automatic view reference that other view annotation enjoys. Seems kind of un-Revity to me, you?

If you decide to create a camera annotation how do you know exactly where it is after you place the camera? Good old "right click" will help, just select the view in the Project Browser, Right Click and choose Show Camera. Make a note of where it is and drop your annotation there.

Managing Point Cloud Files

I've been working with a bit more than 200 point cloud files lately. That means I've been negotiating with the Manage Links dialog a fair bit. It's fun...

First of all, there is no way to import multiple point cloud files once. I've already mentioned previously that Revit shifts the first point cloud import (index to .pcg format) so that the overall z,y,z extents are centered at the origin of the project file. This means you need to carefully sort that out before you go nuts modelling.

Next, the Manage Links dialog doesn't sort the files alpha/numerically, it keeps them in the order that you import them. That might be nice if I were concerned about "when" I imported something. This before that I suppose? Practically speaking it's a pain in the bottom to "find" a scan later. In the video I show five. Imagine scrolling a bit.

Which brings me to re-sizing the dialog. They've been diligently fixing these over the last few releases. The Manage Links dialog does re-size (stretch/contract) and all the tabs information within does too, except...you guessed it...the Point Clouds data frame. This just adds insult to injury when I'm hunting for a scan and they aren't "in order"...and the frame I'm hunting in is a fixed size.

I find that making sure I've got something is easier in the Visibility/Graphics dialog instead.

That's stretchy and the order is sorted!! Oh, Mr. application specialist or product designer, please don't take that as an opportunity to leave the Manage Dialog the way it is...PLEASE!

Last item of frustration...for now, the file location of a point cloud doesn't have the option for absolute OR relative. It's just absolute. So pass a file along to someone else and they've got to fix the path of every point cloud file. It was so much fun to do the first time, I've got to SHARE!!

Okay you know I'm frustrated if I bother to MAKE a VIDEO too right?

Yes, it occurs to me that they didn't expect me to load 200+ .pcg files into a project file. If you are working with a few files, no big deal. If Revit let me load and position the files reliably/repeatably I would have been willing to work with a smaller data set and load/unload as I needed things. As such, once I got a point cloud in place I was really reticent to risk it getting out of whack again.

From a performance standpoint Revit is rather ambivalent about it all surprisingly. Each scan (.pcg) file was created from a FARO .fls file that contained between 25-50 million points (ish) and weighed in at about 1 MB each. The .pcg files ended up about twice as large as the original .fls files (roughly). Fwiw, I did assemble them into a separate project file and linked it to help resolve the positioning issues I had. Also to keep them out of the main project file.

So if you are one of the few that noticed my tweet ten days ago about my personal outlook being cloudy, now you know.

Filter Dialog - Hey Me Too!

Quick request, in the recent releases more and more dialogs are become flexible/stretchy. Unfortunately the Filter dialog remains steadfast and un-flexible, boo! We'd (well me and a few others at least) like it to be stretchy too! Thanks in advance!

Help? Helped!

I got an email this morning alerting me to the fact that my post yesterday was a "perfect storm" of sorts. My post came on the heels of other users letting the "Factory" know something was amiss.

The web developers are always working to improve search speed etc. Some changes over the weekend resulted in 2012 information being left out of the search. This morning finds WikiHelp feeling much better!

Nice to have you back WikiHelp!