workset vs linked revit file

[diesellam]

OK, the typical worksets are: interior, exterior, core for small projects (from what I've learned in the tutorial.)

But how is this setup better than creating 3 separate revit file: 1 is for interior, 1 is for exterior, 1 is core; then you have one file to link all of these 3 files together at once.

I just don't see any obvious benefits doing the workset way. Any suggestion is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[ttiefenbach]

If you're working on a house, you probably don't need worksets at all, unless there is more than one user working on the model at the same time, which is the main purpose of using worksharing.

Another benefit is having one model to open. If you're linking them all together you have to have them open in separate Revit sessions or close one to open another one to make changes. All document and sections will need to be in one model anyway. On large models having one file with the worksets allows you to close one keeping the memory usage lower.

[Steve_Stafford]

Fundamentally Revit is intended to do all the work in a single project file. This provides access to all of Revity goodness and integration. Linking files is the result of different disciplines often working as part of separate companies yet needing to be able to share the result of their own model work with others.

Worksharing is intended to permit multiple users to contribute to the same single project file via their own "sandbox" copy of the project. As they work they share their progress as they are satisfied with the results, called syncronizing with central. I think of it as a public library where the central file is the library, the local file is our library card, bookshelves are worksets and books are everything in the Revit project.

My personal library at home could be one bookshelf with all my books randomly spread across the shelves. That's how my own residential project could be structured in Revit if I want to share the work with another co-worker. A larger library with 1,000's of books probably should start to organize itself by fiction, non-fiction, geography, sports and so on. Additional bookshelves mean a larger group of users can find things because of categorization. The same is true of a larger Revit project and team.

If you are working by yourself you don't need anything more than a single project file to do your project. If you want to share the load with other co-workers then you'll need to use worksharing. How many bookshelves (worksets) you need depends greatly on the nature and size of the project and team. I've written (and responded to posts here) about worksets and worksharing a lot over the years both here and my blog, this post is a summary of workset posts fwiw.

[patricks]

I agree with Steve - if you have a model that will be very large and want to break it up into Shell, Interior, Core, etc., then create those on different worksets, and then selectively open worksets that you'll be working on. Trying to document a single building broken up as linked files can become a logistical nightmare.

[kmarquis]

Try to stick to one model as much as possible. It's going to get challenging if you don't. I was just at a Revit users group at lunch today and some of the BIM managers there from other firms were working on 300MB or larger files that were just fine with working with the whole building in one file. The Revit consultants there even mentioned to stay with one model as much as possible.

One part of the project I might think about seperating out in the future is furniture. I've put furniture on it's own workset and told the consultants so many times not to include the furniture in the backgrounds but it ends up showing anyway. I can understand wanting to see it for electrical but we've put furniture in for design studies/layout that we don't want incorporated into the set. I might consider finishes too but I'm still on the fence about that one.

[Steve_Stafford]

Just remember that furniture that isn't in the same file with rooms won't know which rooms they are in, which makes it a lot harder to report that kind of information effectively.

[kmarquis]

Good point. I guess I've never worked on a project with that requirement. Do you think this changes with Revit 2013 giving you the capability to tag rooms from linked files? I guess then you'd be printing this information from another file which is a little harder.

[snowocean]

you could always go to a 3 d view and turn off every workset except for furniture. copy to clip board and then delete. export to cad then paste back to original coordinates.

agree on multiple models. working on a project where we divided existing conditions and new construction into (2) separate models. has not been fun.

[Steve_Stafford]

Tagging only helps in plan views. Some people expect to be able to see which room furniture is part of in schedules too. For example, a move-in schedule that tells the movers where to put various items. Maybe not part of typical architecture work but firms that do full service interior design work often do.

[digidreamgrafix683931]

all other disciplines are LINKS....ONLY LINKS: MECH, ELEC, PLUMB, CIVIL. STRUCT. BEWARE of file size.