Copy/Monitor & Batch Copy for MEP Update

NOTE: This is a re-post from the HOK BIM Solutions blog

In the previous post, I made a partially correct statement and want to elaborate more on it. I said that re-hosting doesn’t work, but turns out it just failed in my particular test files due to some special circumstances. In general it should work.

When re-hosting fails

In the test files, ceiling-based fixtures were used. When this model was linked and I ran Copy/Monitor, Revit took that ceiling-based fixture and modified it without my knowledge (no warning was ever issued). The copied fixture was not the same version as the original one and it turned into a pseudo-version of a face-based family that is different than a true face-based family: Geometry was on the bottom of the face rather than the top, and there were “remnants” of the original ceiling-hosted fixture, such as a “Ceiling” reference plane. When I tried re-hosting the pseudo face-based fixture, Revit complained and wouldn’t do it.I suspect that the above is due to the trick that Revit is trying to play. Here is the original fixture:

The following is the modified copy/monitored fixture. There is a perfectly valid reason Revit did this, because in the host model there is no ceiling geometry:

However a true face-based family would be like the following image. Note how geometry is built on the top face and there is no “Ceiling” reference plane. I think this is the reason that Revit is unable to re-host the family shown above.

When re-hosting works

When copy/monitored fixtures are face-based from the start, Revit does not need to do modifications on the fly as described above. In this case, re-hosting works as expected. So if you are faced with copy/monitoring of hosted fixtures other than face-based, such as ceiling or wall-hosted, make sure to use the type-mapping feature, so hosted fixtures are substituted with pre-loaded face-based families.

Final thoughts

There is definite room for improvement in linked model workflows, especially for the MEP disciplines. The recommendations for transferring light fixtures from a design model to the final documentation model are as follows:

1. Use face-based families whenever possible and name hosted fixtures clearly so they can be recognized and substituted;
2. Use the batch-copy feature and specify the type mapping so hosted fixtures can be substituted with pre-loaded face-based fixtures;
3. If you are not going to monitor fixtures for changes in location, do not use the dedicated Stop Monitoring tool. Instead, remove the link and re-link again when needed. This way copied fixtures can be moved around freely without the need to re-host them.

Copy/Monitor & Batch Copy for MEP Update

Copy/Monitor & Batch Copy for MEP

NOTE: This is a re-post from the HOK BIM Solutions blog

The Copy/Monitor tools tend to be a Love/Hate relationship in that very order. In fact we have recently been using the batch copy functionality because we sincerely love it due to its flexibility. But that love is fading quickly due to some unexpected repercussions.

A common scenario to employ this tool on, has been when a Lighting consultant/designer is working in a separate model (for design purposes only, not for documentation) and our Electrical Engineers need to circuit these lighting fixtures and document them in their power and equipment drawings. These fixtures need to be hosted in the electrical model for proper circuiting. Copying and pasting fixtures one by one from the linked lighting model is highly inefficient. Opening the source model to copy and paste into the documentation model also doesn’t work due to hosting issues (most of these families are face-based and cannot be pasted) and also due to the fact that Paste >> Aligned to Same Place uses the Internal Coordinates to determine location and this is not always consistent between models. On a side note, best practice dictates that you link other discipline models via Auto – Origin to Origin to avoid these problems.

We have received several reports and anecdotes of performance degradation when copy/monitored fixture counts are high, so we have been disabling monitoring soon after the copying is complete and resume with manual coordination from that point on.

Unfortunately when you stop monitoring by using the dedicated tool, MEP categories become pretty much useless as they can no longer be modified!

EDIT: Refer to this post. If you try re-hosting, you have to use the workplane positioning option, which is not desirable. I am not sure why Revit even asks you to do this because copy/monitored elements do not have a host in their properties.

There seems to be no work-around, short of deleting all fixtures and starting over, which is really bad. Lesson learned: Do not stop monitoring with the dedicated tool! If you want to stop monitoring, remove the link. Once you do this, none of the MEP categories will behave as shown above and you can freely move them around and re-monitor at will. These categories then pretty much start behaving as Levels, Grids, Columns, Walls and Floors, which we can stop monitoring at any point without experiencing the same repercussions.

At least we now have a plausible workflow for future projects and the love for the batch-copy tool has been (cautiously) restored.

The nice thing is that you can specify type mapping and only batch-copy one fixture type at a time. Just make sure that if you want to use this as a pure copy tool with no monitoring, to then remove the link soon after. You can re-link it back in, but this is currently the only safe way to stop monitoring without putting future revisions to the position of these fixtures in jeopardy. Autodesk has recorded this behavior but there is no estimate when this will be addressed.

Copy/Monitor & Batch Copy for MEP

Securing Linked Files

These days I start blog posts by researching my own past writings and select others, to see if everything has been covered about the topic at hand. I guess it’s the sign of the times: BIM in our daily work is no longer solely concerned about Revit and there is so much information to manage and deal with. Since we are unable to upgrade our neurological hardware & software, I have to do this, else I risk excessive repetition! This will be a follow-up to Securing Links Through Worksets (see comments as well).

Steve Stafford also wrote about this topic indirectly at the start of the month. Since we use Shared Coordinates from time to time, securing linked files against accidental movement is very important, although deletion tends to be the worst since views/templates are so heavily modified (not using <By Host View> everywhere). Accidental deletion will undoubtedly result in wasted work and frustration, so anything one can do to avoid it is always welcome.

As stated in my original post, worksets are not an option when Monitoring is required. Since we’re using this on pretty much every project, I no longer suggest this technique. Luckily, there’s a simpler, more robust Option (unintended pun). This technique was mentioned in a comment in the above post, but I never got around to write about it until now.

Design Options are the best answer I have been able to find. The checkbox on the status bar shown below is at the heart of it all:

Revit automatically checks this option whenever you click the Modify button (or after completely escaping a command). This is great, because you’re not at the mercy of every user remembering to switch it on. With this enabled, anything displayed in your view that is contained in a Design Option is not selectable. So it’s there but you cannot pick it, hence it cannot be accidentally moved or deleted. The great thing though is that if you want to use copy/monitor, this technique will not interfere and the elements in the linked file (now also on a design option) are still picked by the tool and require no special treatment.

Implementation is easy: Create an Option Set (I like to call it Model Management) and a single option named Revit Links.

Now copy over your links to this Option…

…and since there’s only one Option in the Set, it will always be visible, but not selectable unless you uncheck the Exclude Options checkbox.

So far I have not run into any adverse issues, so if you try this and find negative side effects, please comment!

Securing Linked Files

Securing links through worksets

In my projects, I typically create a workset for my consultant linked models and check that workset out permanently to prevent accidental deletion/movement of links (ex: to user "RevitCOP"). The username just needs to be a unique one to prevent anyone from accidentally making an undesired edit.

I have never been a fan of Copy/Monitor functionality but recently I started using it and am running into a problem. When I try to stop monitoring elements or go through coordination monitor to make changes, I'm told that “RevitCOP” has the workset for the links checked out and has to relinquish it before I can make changes. Why is this necessary? All I want to do is move my grids & rename them to match the link (through coordination review). Because of this, I have to open my file under the RevitCOP in order to do copy/monitor & review operations, which seems totally unnecessary. Or I have to quit "securing" my linked files altogether, which I’m really not ready to concede.

During a copy/monitor and when going through warnings, all you're doing is to change the elements in the host file (unless you reject changes, in which case nothing is physically changed), but nothing is being done to the linked project. So why is Revit being so inflexible about a permission that is (intuitively) not required?

I sincerely think that the current logic of having to own the element/workset in order to perform copy/monitor and coordination review is something that really needs to be looked at closely by the Factory. Probably Revit is writing some kind of tracking information to it, but since the only mechanism of securing links is through forcibly checking out worksets, this is causing undesirable consequences and related frustrations (and we don’t want that, right?)

While we’re on the subject of Coordination Review, it would be really nice if we didn’t have to use the steering wheel in order to pan, and simply use the middle scroll button as we do in regular view navigation!

Securing links through worksets