Lighting Masks

[Chuckyd67]

ACA 2008

We have our sparkies laying out lighting plans in MEP 2008, which works fine. However, the ceiling grid is in the architectural file. When we have a 2x2 ceiling grid, but the light fixtures are 2x4, we get the grid passing through the light fixture. Is there a way to aleviate this problem without creating a work around, or is this a wish list item?

Thanks,

CG

[Steve_Bennett]

Have you tried selecting the light fixtures, right clicking and choosing attach to anchor the light to the xref? Or does that not work?

[dzatto]

Have you tried selecting the light fixtures, right clicking and choosing attach to anchor the light to the xref? Or does that not work?

As far as I know, you can't anchor to a ceiling grid through an Xref. It needs to be in the same file.

ACA 2008

We have our sparkies laying out lighting plans in MEP 2008, which works fine. However, the ceiling grid is in the architectural file. When we have a 2x2 ceiling grid, but the light fixtures are 2x4, we get the grid passing through the light fixture. Is there a way to aleviate this problem without creating a work around, or is this a wish list item?

Thanks,

CG

If you want to do it through Xrefs, then I think it's a wish list item.

You could put your spaces in a separate construct (instead of the floor plan construct) then created the ceiling grids in that construct using the spaces as the boundary. That way, someone could be working on the floor plan, while the sparkies are working on the lighting. The only drawback is you will have the spaces on the same construct as the lighting and grid..

OR

You could create the ceiling grid as a separate construct and pass that on to the sparkies to put the lights in.

Either way, the lights need to be in the same file as the grid in order to anchor to and mask it.

[Allen Quedawg392]

How do you anchor the light to the ceiling grid. I am not getting openings/holes when I insert lights..

[SamuelAB]

If you really want to be finicky about it, use a WIPEOUT in your blocks. This will, however, most likely cause headaches down the road.