Space Naming Utility not working on ONE project

[Dr._House]

I have one project set it up Revit 2012.. (MEP model with Arch model linked in) and for one reason or another when I make spaces and try to use the Revit Space Naming Utility it doesn't do anything. All of my Spaces are still named "Space". Any thoughts as to why on one project that wouldn't work? We've set others up similarly and didn't have any issues.

Please Help!

[dennis howell]

It could be trying to "point out a problem". Try selecting a Space and check the properties. Does it show the corresponding Room and Room Number? If not, then either the Architect has not put the Rooms in yet, or it could be 'something' wrong in the arch file. If your Space properties have something like "Unoccupied" or other oddity about it, then usually it is something wrong with the arch file.
Things I have found in the past:
1) A raised floor in the arch file, made my Space in the area below the raised floor instead of on top. Had to goto a section and pull up the bottom. Still would not pick up the Room data though.
2) Badly enclosed area, which even ther Arch's Room object didn't work...but they didn't bother to fix it
3) And then the classic, architect hasn't placed the Rooms yet

[moliva]

I've had an instance of an architect not placing rooms and instead throwing in a generic room name symbol to show their room names/numbers. Could not figure out why our spaces would not work.

[DaveDH]

I can't help, unfortunately, but I have had a similar problem with projects from a certain architect. When we first noticed the problem we opened their arch model and tried to find some setting or check box in their rooms but couldn't (and all the rooms were placed properly). As far as we could tell their rooms were fine, except for a few extra fields/parameters. It turns out they had a consultant come in and set up all their Revit for them. So when we asked the architects about how they modified their rooms, they had no clue.

I think I'll go over to the Revit arch forum and pester them for an answer, because this problem is less than useless. It's like anti-BIM. It's even less useful than having the room tags in an xref in AutoCAD."

[CADastrophe]

The two common causes I've seen are:

1. The Link is not set to 'Room Bounding', set under the Link's properties.

2. The cut plane is set to 0'. If the cut plane does not cut through a space, it will not display. If it is aligned to the top of bottom exactly, it will not display.

[Dr._House]

Whoops I must have not subscibed to this thread!

I can tell you that the Cut Plane is at 4'-0" and also the Room Bounding is checked otherwise we couldn't have created the spaces. I can create the spaces just the Space Naming Utility doesn't do anything.

The other suggestions in here I will have to check out! Thanks for the info.

[DaveDH]

So we dug around abit more and discovered that the architects set up some phases. So, using "Transfer Project Standards" we transfered the Phase Settings over from their file. Then, after experimenting a bit more, (after things disappeared) we selected the linked model and opened up the Type Properties window where the Room Bounding checkbox is located. Under the Room Bounding checkbox is a button called "Phase Mapping". Click this and a window opens showing the phases in the MEP model and the phases in the arch model. Make sure they match.

In the process, we somehow lost all the spaces we had originally created, but we placed new ones after we got the phases figured out and tried the Space Naming Utility and it worked. Fortunately, we're at the beginning of the project so we didn't get messed up by the phases, but I have feeling that if we had tried this halfway through project we would have lost more than just spaces. So be careful.

Hope this helps.

[Dr._House]

DaveDH!!! You're a genius!! That worked out Splendedly!! Thank you so much! It all starts because (in this case) the Arch re-named ALL of the phases in their models and ours have NO IDEA how those are supposed to function! So I did the phase mapping and BOOM.. done deal.

THANKS AGAIN!!

[RevitNinja]

Glad to see that a solution was found. Just want to toss something out there - I have been using the Space Naming Utility for a few years now and up until recently it has worked well. On the last few projects, it just stopped working. Seems to be completely random and I have checked everything in the model that could have prevented it from working properly - room bounding, phase mapping, cut plane, etc. I discovered that the free extension from ImaginIT (does the same thing) works on a lot of models where the Autodesk one fails. Its free, so its worth a shot if you have these types of problems in the future.

[Illiniwek]

RevitNinja - did you have a link for IMAGINiT's program? If I'm looking at the right utility (Space Update?), it looks like its part of a bundle they have that is free to those using IMAGINiT as their reseller, but available for purchase for everyone else.