Thursday, November 11, 2010

Frequent thoughts: Referenced views

Here's a typical scenario: You detail various project conditions in drafting views and then create reference annotation in other live project views which point to those drafting views (section/elevation/detail callout). In database jargon, this is a One-to-Many condition. Why is there no way to list which views reference a particular drafting view and why is this important to know?

Let’s say I need to make a change to one of these drafting views because of a particular project condition. Before doing this, I need to know if it's going to affect other areas of the project that reference that view (in which case I would need to create a unique detail and not modify the existing one). This same problem exists with live views. When in a One-to-One condition (live section/elevation/callout that is only referenced once), we’re good but when used in a One-to-Many condition, we run into the same issue described above. Say I have a typical interior elevation of the model: where the same condition occurs, rather than creating a whole new identical live elevation and place it on a sheet, I just reference the typical one a number of times. However, there's no way to find out where this view has been referenced, so if I need to make a change, I cannot verify that the reference locations would still apply.

Another scenario (applies to Structural): a number of typical foundation details are developed as drafting views and the drafter/engineer places reference sections around the building perimeter. But if one particular location triggers a required change to the detail, how will you find out where this view has been referenced so you can check that you’re not referencing an incorrect detail? Only a tedious and time consuming manual check can solve this problem. It's quite frustrating because Revit probably has this information in the rvt file itself, but we don't have access to it through a schedule nor through Model Review. API perhaps? If that was the case, it would still not be accessible to the majority of users.

EDIT: Read the first comment…there is a fast way to find where the view is referenced!


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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is a way around this. Open your drafting view that you've been referencing throughout the project, right click and select "Find Referring Views." It will bring up a dialog box that lists every view you've referenced that detail in, and even allow you to specify a view to open.
Hope that helps.

Dave Baldacchino said...

Wow, how did I (and Autodesk Support!) miss that? I could have sworn that this didn't work properly on referenced views in previous versions, but it sure is now. I recall trying to help out the structural group at my previous place of employment and it wasn't working on referenced drafted views. Maybe it was a broken project file? Regardless, thanks for pointing that out!

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