Phasing in Revit without disconnecting systems

[timsea81]

I have a project with 13 phases where we will have to design more than one phase at a time in the same model. We filter by systems to control visibility on our sheets. This causes problems when dealing with phasing, because elements demolished in any phase become disconnected and cannot be put on systems. For example, in phase 1 we will replace FCU1 and associated piping, and connect the new mains to existing FCU2, which is replaced in phase 2. So for our phase 2 view we need to show the piping to FCU2 as demolished in phase 2, which means it cannot be connected to a system in phase 1.

The solution I came up with is to create my own 'demo' project parameter for each phase, and set up filters that effect the visibility of demo and new work views appropriately without disconnecting anything (except the cut points where they will connect one phase to the next, which will need to be done manually since a pipe connection cannot connect to more than one other connection). So as far as Revit is concerned the piping that is to be demolished in phase 2 is created in existing phase and never demolished, but the project parameter and associated filters and graphic overrides make it appear as if it is demolished in our views: It is not visible in views of future phases, it is dark and uses dashed lines on demo views in the phase that it is demolished, etc.

There are 2 potential problems with this that I am already aware of, I am curious if anyone can come up with any more:

Problem #1: "Identical instances in the same place" warnings will pop up for each fitting, which I can address by changing the type of the fittings so they are different for the new and existing piping. Revit no longer thinks they are identical.

Problem #2: You can still connect to "demolished" pipes that Revit thinks are existing to remain. This can be avoided by turning off the "automatically connect" feature and just being careful.

[lonewolfjustin]

We are running into the same problem and it just doesn't make sense. We use filter on system names to get our pipe linework to show up to print correctly. But something that is demolished in Phase 2 losing its systems connection in Phase 1 causing it not to show up correct for print. Demo filters are the only thing I can think of to work around this, but it has the drawback of not being able to connect into something that was demolished in Phase 1 because it is technically still there.

[Steve_Stafford]

Revit MEP Systems and Phasing are not coordinated enough yet as you both are experiencing. The development team is aware of it but I'm not aware of any public mention of when we might see improvement on this. Hopefully some other folks who have dealt with this kind of situation will offer some insight. The technique described in the earliest post seems "practical" considering the circumstances.

[vccuong1]

I noticed the same problem when I worked on my project. My work arround is to create filter called "HVAC Demolished" to apply to all HVAC items to be demolished. This way I can control of their visibility without having them disconted to it's system.

I hope Revit MEP 2012 will have a better solution for this.

CuongVu

[joseph_turc]

It's not a very friendly work-around but you could make a new view template that filters by a criteria specific to each pipe system. System abbreviation seems to work well.

I just used this method for a 6 phase Fire Pump replacement project.

[casquatch]

Plugging my own idea, but I know we all believe that it is something that should have been in Revit when MEP was added.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-.../idi-p/6445011

Vote it up!