Filter Criteria Order Matters

Taylor wrote to me to say that he noticed a subtle quirk when he wanted to filter pipe in a schedule. He needed to focus on Mark values that contain M15 and M16 for example. He discovered that the filter would work if he put the criteria in that order but that if he happened to reverse them like this, M16 and M15, Revit no longer found the M15 pipes.

Definitely subtle.

Family Not Shared vs Shared

This isn't about sharing things with others. This about the concept that Revit 7.0 provided to families in 2004. It presents itself to us in Family Category and Parameters dialog or just in the Properties Palette if nothing is selected.

Shared or Not Shared means nothing unless the family is then nested into another family. There is really no reason to make a family shared at all if it isn't going to be nested in another family.

Most content is Not Shared, not checked. You can nest families that are not shared and you will see them when the host or parent family is loaded into a project. You see them but they aren't really there, they are just symbols. Revit has not loaded the definition of the nested family(ies) into the project. You can confirm this by scanning through the list of families in the project browser, you won't find it there.

When a family is Shared, checked, something special happens when the host family is loaded into the project. The nested family is loaded into the project too. You'll find it IS in the Project Browser now. Since it is now "real" that means Revit can include the nested shared family(ies) in schedules. You can tag them too. You can use the 2014 Displace Elements on nested shared families too.

You can also place an instance of the nested family separately if desired. By the way, nested families, whether shared or not, "kill" temporary dimensions, they don't show up automatically when you select the family. You need to click the Activate Dimensions button (Options Bar) to get them to appear.

Mass Floor Area vs Volume

I managed to trick myself into believing that area and volume for a "floor" should be the same whether a mass has one or several mass floors. To help explain my delusion, I created a mass that is a 50x50x50 cube, with five levels.

If I remove two levels from the mix (levels 2 and 5) I get twice the volume for floors at Level 1 and 4

Looking at the 3D view it immediately made sense to me. Looking at the schedule I found myself thinking something was wrong. Why is there double the volume? Why would the floor think it is so much bigger? The real problem was my perception. I was thinking floor, the thing I walk on, instead of a "floor", where I am in the building.

If it isn't obvious, the Mass Floor area is the surface area of the mass floor element. The Mass Floor Volume is the volume between mass floors or the top and bottom of the mass if there are no other mass floors.

Btw, you can select and delete a mass floor, like in a 3D view for example, and that's the same as opening the Mass Floors dialog and un-checking a level.

Learn to Program the Revit API

If you are interested in learning the Revit API Harry Mattison (Boost Your BIM) created an online course hosted at Udemy (The Academy of You).

It's delivered in 33 video segments which vary from a few minutes to a little over fifteen minutes. It's also very reasonably priced at $149.00. Maybe I'll see you on campus?

Learn to Program the Revit API

Paul Aubin Book Survey Seeks Input

Paul Aubin recently mentioned that he's working on a new book, title TBA. The title is one of the things he's asking about in the survey.

If you are interested in the subject and can spare a few minutes to

Click to Take the Survey

Project Base Point Manipulation

I written before that I occasionally experience something that feels like a "Revitary alignment" regarding features in Revit. I'll see a post at AUGI or get an email or two from friends or clients asking about the same thing or theme. I recently ran into a user that manipulated their project by moving the Project Base Point. Then a post at AUGi meandered into a related conversation.

General Statements

• The Survey Point allows us to show where an imported CAD file's origin is relative to your model (CLIPPED)
• The Survey Point allows us to identify a benchmark location on the site instead of referencing source file's origin (UNCLIPPED)
• The Project Base Point does not ever "need" to be moved (CLIPPED) normally (my opinion/belief/preference)
• The Project Base Point will allow us to move our project on the site to reposition it (CLIPPED) but the file origin isn't changed
• The Project Base Point (UNCLIPPED) will let us identify an alternate location that Spot Elevations and Spot Coordinates can reference

Applied to a Project

Let's say you design a house, import a survey and it's off to the right and above your building. If you use Acquire Coordinates on the survey file you should find the Survey Point (CLIPPED) moves to mark the origin of the source survey data file (sometimes this is quite far away). The Project Base Point (CLIPPED) can be used to reposition the building over the site. Just drag or move it with specific values. What you see moving is the "Project". The file origin is untouched and you should see that the linked survey file isn't moving either. If you import a small origin "marker" file using Auto - Origin to Origin you'll find that it lands at the Project Base Point. Now if you move the Project Base Point (UNCLIPPED) you see that you can move the icon to another location but it still references the "file origin" (see image).

That approach works for a single building on site but is not very effective for multiple buildings on site. The approach I advocate where we create a site file that is coordinated with survey data and serves as the master coordinator for multiple buildings which are linked into this master site file is much more effective and versatile. Since this subject can be confusing enough I advocate using the same approach for any project so I can learn one technique and use it over and over, since it works for any project.

Revit 2014 Update Release 1

An update for Revit 2014 became available recently. It has been blogged and tweeted many times already but I chose to echo it now because I've encountered questions about it a few times this week. This applies to all Revit versions, Architecture, Structure, MEP and Revit (aka "one-box"...all Revit disciplines in a single Revit install). These are update links for each version:

Revit Architecture 2014
Revit Structure 2014
Revit MEP 2014
Revit 2014 (one-box, only available as part of BDS)