Seek and Ye May Still Not Find

...may not find "Contentment"...

In the continuing disappointment that is Seek, please stop making it so easy to pick on you. This is the tale of a lowly pipe fitting, a vent cap. It was encouraging when I typed the criteria "Vent Cap" and it returned one result and it matched!

I downloaded the bugger right quick. Loaded it into the project and was met with "nope you can't use this fitting Steve" messages whichever way I tried to use it. I took a closer look at the family. Oh, it's looking for a lookup table file called SV-159.csv. Funny, Seek didn't offer me that (note above image again).

The fitting is from Charlotte so I wandered over to their site and found their original version.

I downloaded the zip file that contains these files.

I put the .csv file in the Lookup Table folder, still no joy. Turns out that there is an error in the family, how the revolve is defined. While editing the family, when I try flexing the diameter I get this error message.

When I look more closely at the revolve the axis and the sketch is just slightly past the Center (Right/Left) Reference Plane.

Move it over every so slightly and test, it works. Really subtle. So a novice Revit MEP user's experience with this family? It was a pain in the butt to track down for me...and I've got a few years experience under my belt. If this was a 1:100 experience I wouldn't even bother to mention it. It isn't. :(

Scheduling Inequity for Ducts

If you examine the properties of a duct you'll see a parameter called "Reference Level". Do the same for a Duct Fitting and you get a parameter called "Level".

If you choose to create a schedule of ducts or duct fittings a fairly obvious way to sort them is by the level or floor they are related to. Oddly enough there is no access to either Reference Level or Level. Some other elements have "Associated Level" offered as a valid schedule field, not ducts or duct fittings...not duct systems either.

Revit has been plagued with seemingly arbitrary restrictions on what can appear in a schedule from the beginning. For ducts I can see where a riser that spans several floors might not have a very meaningful "reference level" value but it does have one, so I think it ought to show up in a schedule. In fact I frequently realize that a duct references the wrong level because I placed it in a 3D view, particularly risers. If that showed up in a schedule I'd have another chance to catch it and adjust it accordingly.

In my over-simplifying opinion, if a Revit element has a parameter value in the properties palette it ought to be able to show up in a schedule too.

Revit MEP - Analyze This

Wondering why Revit displays this when you place electrical components (similar for HVAC/Plumbing)?

Easy, just visit the Analyze tab, then Show Disconnects. If you un-check the Electrical Option they'll go away. Use it later to check your circuiting progress.

Conduit from Face Gotcha!

The other day I made what I thought was a simple distribution box, the kind that is really a "junction" box that sits in a ceiling to provide some wire management access. A pull box with a nice door. No problem. To test it out I tried to run some conduit to it. I expected the surface to highlight when I put the cursor over the edge of the box. Nothing. I selected the box and saw the conduit connectors, right-click > choose Draw conduit from face...nothingness. A blank stare from Revit...me staring blankly at Revit. Huh?

Time for a break...

After some dinner I fired it all back up and some clarity returned. Ahh, I used visibility settings on the "box" and un-checked the Plan option.

I used Symbolic Lines to show the box in plan instead. That was the gotcha...if the solid form/face that is the conduit connectors host isn't visible in the plan view the Draw Conduit from Face tool says, "huh?!?". It's kind of like the Spot Elevation tool not finding a floor or ceiling when the view is using Wireframe. The tool can't "see" the connector even though Revit manages to display the connector fine. I just needed to restore that setting and rethink when I wanted things to show up...back on track.

Revit MEP Space Tag Shows Unoccupied Now

The alternate title I was going to use is, "More Floors Than Revit Wants".

A thread popped up at AUGI recently discussing space tags that were working but aren't now. In this case, the tags being used were made to report the linked file's room name and number instead of showing the space's own name and number. That's a common work around to avoid worrying about what a space's name and number really is.

One reply mentions that they've seen a situation where they have more than one linked file and there are floors in each of them. It's my observation that the multiple floors issue isn't just that there just are multiple floors, it's that usually there are floors that are "inside" the Space. When an architect places "finish" floors on top the structural slab (often in a separate model) they typically place the floor using an offset equal to the material thickness. This puts the floor up/inside the Space.

This seems to reduce the space to a quivering mess.

One thing that fixes it, adjust your level(s) computation height (Instance Property of a Level) so it is equal to the top or slightly above their finish floors. To avoid that, ask them (the team that gave you the file) to set their finish floors so they are not Room Bounding instead. You'll have to wait for the new file though.

Then again, another way is to just use the regular space tag (using space name/number) and the Space Naming Utility extension (free to subscription members) to sync Room names/numbers with Space names/numbers. I'm still amazed that it isn't just built into RME by now.

Sample How-To Video Clips

Here's quick post to mention that the Revit 2011 product has a has a folder called "video-clips".

Here's the path:

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Revit Architecture 2011\Program\video-clips

Here's a list of what twenty three (23) videos that I find in RAC (same list in RME):

• Add Remove Segments
• Add Split Line
• Align
• Arc Center End
• Arc Fillet
• Array
• Building Pad
• Copy
• Edit Sweep
• Edit Swept Blend
• Edit Witness Lines
• Ellipse
• Grid Line Mullion
• Mod Sub Element
• Move
• Partial Ellipse
• Rotate
• Split
• Tangent Arc
• Trim Corner
• Trim Extend Corner
• Trim Multiple
• Trim Single

Jeff Hanson wrote in a comment that these are Toolclips videos. Hover over a feature long enough and if there is a corresponding video, it will play.

Dept. of Bugs - Revit MEP Conduit Bend Radius Uh Oh

Trying to clean up some conduit yesterday I ran into an unpleasant repeatable bug/issue/feature. In my situation I have three  vertical and horizontal conduits that have a sweep joining them, nothing special. They are using the stock conduit Family and Type: Conduit without Fittings: Rigid Nonmetallic Conduit (RNC Sch 40). If I attempt to edit the bend radius parameter in the Properties Palette, no worries. I just get this error message.

If I dare to use the Options Bar field or the Temporary Dimension that appears when the conduit sweep is selected, ouch!

[Inserted 12/30/10 - 12:00 PM] After receiving a couple messages about this, I should clarify that I'm not concerned about being able to supply a smaller radius than appropriate. I'm concerned that entering a "bad" value in the Options Bar or Temporary Dimension is generating a crash. Can't prevent someone from ever putting a bad value into those fields so a crash from the occasional mistake is still a crash.

Watch a VIDEO or video. You can listen and watch below:

As I've been mulling this over, it occurs to me that it might be related to the issue I've been having with Unresolved References and the dialog that appears but fails to finish displaying before hanging Revit out to dry. Since this dialog does the same thing it may be tied to whatever is causing that too, yuck!

Revit MEP - Duct Size in Tags

This is subtle but RME changes how the size of a duct is listed in the tag according to the view orientation of the view that you place your tags in. In plan you get this for a 36" wide x 24" high duct.


In elevation/section however you get this for the same duct.


This convention is defined by the practice of listing the visible (what we see in the view) dimension first. In plan width is visible so it is first. In elevation/section the height is visible and therefore first in the tag values.