Subcategories in project files: What for?

As a Revit beginner, I wondered what was the reason we could add subcategories in a project file. Once I got more familiar with families and started playing around with in-place families, I realized why we could add them. Yet, I never ceased to wonder if there was another use for them and I finally found one recently.

Let’s say you link in an MEP model and it contains custom families with elements assigned to custom subcategories. If you look at your Object Styles in the host project, you’ll realize that those custom sub-categories do not show up (I believe they should, don’t you think?). So if your link is set to By host view, you cannot change the visual characteristics of certain family parts. This forces most users to change the link to Custom and make edits to the link. Personally, I prefer to do this as a last resort. So how do you control a TV that you don’t have a remote control for? (assume it has no buttons either!)

Adding a subcategory in the host project with the exact same name, actually establishes the missing connection to subcategories in linked projects. It’s like finding the remote for that TV. So there you have it, another use for adding subcategories to projects.

In summary, I think Revit should:

1. Display custom subcategories from linked files in your host project;
2. If objects of a discipline-specific category exist (whether in the host or linked projects), it should display that category even if it is of a different discipline than the Revit flavor you are in. I’m not a big fan of having Revit automatically hide all categories from other disciplines even if they have elements on them. Most users can’t figure out why they cannot turn something on/off (Analytical Model subcategories for Structural Framing and Structural Columns anyone?). I’d be ok with Revit hiding unused categories & subcategories from other disciplines or all unused, but if an element of a particular category exists in the project, that category and all subcategories should be listed in the V/G dialog.

Subcategories in project files: What for?

Propagate Extents

How long do bugs take to be resolved? Well, sadly in some cases the answer is “more than 5 years”. At least 6, possibly even more. Here’s proof.

This tool is not widely known, possibly due to discoverability. It’s not a button that is always there, but one that appears when you select a datum, such as a grid or a level. The idea is that when you change the extents from 3D to 2D, you can then propagate these custom 2D extents to other views. But there’s a catch: for some reason this functionality is broken when it comes to views that have a crop region enabled and when the datum’s 3D extents go beyond this crop region. Let’s say you have grids or levels close to each other and the text overlaps. In this case you add an elbow by clicking the little in-canvas symbol and make necessary adjustments to your view, perhaps even shifting the datum’s end point. Since this is a view-specific edit, the use of the Propagate Extents tool will then help you push these changes to all the other views you pick.

There is a workaround for this problem and it’s annoying if you have a lot of views to work with:

1. Disable the Crop Region in the view that contains the 2D extents you want to propagate, and also in the views you want to propagate to;
2. Select the datums, click the Propagate Extents button on the Ribbon, pick your views and finish the command;
3. Re-enable the crop regions in the affected views.

To me this seemingly trivial tool is so good that it’s a shame it doesn’t work properly. I think it’s time to dedicate some manpower to get it fixed.

Propagate Extents

The AUGI Forums are back!

Happy New Year to all! Sorry for my silence. Been travelling to Europe visiting family, getting stuck in the Heathrow airport mess, getting sick with the flu twice and spending 2/3 of my vacation with fever, coughing and the works. And as you can expect, very little energy to post!

So some good news: As of January 10th 2011,  the old AUGI Forum data is back! You can read more about it here and can now access them at http://forums.augi.com. Old links should work as before.

Some tips: Make sure to clear your AUGI cookies in your browser. Try looking for AUGI.com cookies first and if you’re unsuccessful, just clear them all. You might have to log-off from the new AUGI site first before you’re able to log into the new (old?) forums. The new Expression Engine forums will be archived and closed down for good. If you want some troubleshooting help, head towards this thread. Hopefully now AUGI is more autonomous and this debacle will never happen again.

I know that a lot of members are weary of returning to the AUGI forums and I respect their decision. Personally, I’m going to stick to these forums exclusively. I think that AUGI is now safer than ever and trust that it will strengthen its membership base over time. Let’s get to work!

The AUGI Forums are back!