Revit Area Error!

[cfoster739233]

If you use Revit to do area calculations you need to know this. Revit area elements can report an incorrect area number under some circumstances. This particular error seems to be caused by a very small gap between area boundary lines used to create the areas that are parallel to each other. See the attached AreaError01.jpg. The amount of the error increases according to the distance between the boundaries and the origin of the file. In the case of the attached file AreaError02.jpg these areas are about 2000 feet from the origin. The error is relatively small, just about one square foot. As the area and boundaries are copied farther from the origin the error gets greater. If you have a project were you are far away from the origin the error can be substantial. This file is version 2017 but this seems to still be a problem with 2018.

I am also attaching the example Revit file so you can look for yourself. This has been reported to Autodesk - [CaseNo:13417186.] We happened on this when a user happened to notice that a specific area calc was wrong but originally it was a huge mystery and possibly a huge problem as we do area calculations for many clients. My thanks to BIM Optimized in Dallas and COINS in helping to solve the mystery and getting us some tools to diagnose the problem. Hopefully Autodesk will fix this issue in future releases.

[iamtintin]

If you use Revit to do area calculations you need to know this. Revit area elements can report an incorrect area number under some circumstances. This particular error seems to be caused by a very small gap between area boundary lines used to create the areas that are parallel to each other. See the attached AreaError01.jpg. The amount of the error increases according to the distance between the boundaries and the origin of the file. In the case of the attached file AreaError02.jpg these areas are about 2000 feet from the origin. The error is relatively small, just about one square foot. As the area and boundaries are copied farther from the origin the error gets greater. If you have a project were you are far away from the origin the error can be substantial. This file is version 2017 but this seems to still be a problem with 2018.

I am also attaching the example Revit file so you can look for yourself. This has been reported to Autodesk - [CaseNo:13417186.] We happened on this when a user happened to notice that a specific area calc was wrong but originally it was a huge mystery and possibly a huge problem as we do area calculations for many clients. My thanks to BIM Optimized in Dallas and COINS in helping to solve the mystery and getting us some tools to diagnose the problem. Hopefully Autodesk will fix this issue in future releases.

This is interesting! Can you keep us updated on this please?

Cheers,
A