RS2009 Graphical Column Schedule - BUG or BOTCH?

[john.hainsworth]

A watch it -
I have a graphical column schedule which when displayed at 1:100 is good, but at
at 1:200 is not - Revit removes a (pretty damn important!) column from the schedule with the following message.
"Some columns in Graphical Column Schedule exceed the segment's upper/lower bounds. You can add levels or adjust the view parameters"
Took lots of head scratching to understand why - looks like altering scale fixes it - but a botch surely - not very revitlike

[john.hainsworth]

Argh - just switched back and played with the column location formatting (made the text smaller and adjusted the units) , and then offending column re-appeared on a 1:200 scale!
whats going on
I can't be confident all columns are on the schedule - I can't use it in practice !

[Steve_Stafford]

Please contact support and log the issue so they can track and fix it. You can do a regular schedule of structural columns to check the results if you don't trust the results in the GCS, though if it generated an error before and doesn't now you are probably okay.

Keep in mind it is possible to alter the properties of any schedule to limit/decide which elements appear. Therefore any schedule should be verified against expectations. No computer software should be trusted implicitly. It is created by fallible people after all. Trust comes from repeatable verifiable results.

[Paul Andersen]

I'll just throw out a couple of tips that may help boost your confidence in the GCS or at least help you verify that all of the columns are accounted for.

On most projects I will typically create a grid plan and a 3D column view that I can leverage to verify the accuracy of the GCS.

Grid Plan

The grid plan is simply a duplicate of your base level plan with the top and cut plane of the view range set above the uppermost extents of your building and the bottom and view depth set to unlimited or an offset below the lowermost extents of your building. In the VV dialog toggle off all of the categories in the model tab except for the Structural Columns. In the annotation tab turn off all of the categories except for the Grid and possibly the Dimensions depending on your preference.

3D Column View

This is simply a 3D view that has all of the model categories toggled off in the VV dialog except for the Structural Columns.

Putting These Views to Work

Once you have generated the GCS that you are going to place on your construction documents and formatted it as you wish do the following: Window select all of the columns in the GCS. Go to the Grid Plan and/or the 3D Column View. Select the Temporary Hide/Isolate Tool (Sunglasses) and choose Hide Element. What you are left with at this point is a view that will display any columns currently not accounted for in the GCS. Repeat as necessary until you have all columns scheduled. I will typically verify the GCS in this manor prior to every submittal.

As a side note: the grid plan is also very useful for selecting whole column assemblies (top to bottom) with a quick window selection for the purpose of moving, copying or deleting.

While the GCS is still missing some functionality that I'd really like to have (ability to add lines, symbols, text, sections, callouts and dimensions, user defined fields for base plate, anchor bolts, and other notes/information, more control over grouping, and the ability to report shared coordinates for the levels to name a few ) the ability to generate and maintain a schedule of this type with a few minutes and a couple of clicks as opposed to the hours it used to take to generate and maintain I think you'll still come out ahead even working through some of the frustrating hiccups that tend to arise throughout a typical project.

[Tom Weir]

Right on Paul, a somehwat frustrating but very powerful tool when you get the hang of it.

Tom Weir
Los angeles

[tim.lannen]

Hi John,

It sounds like you are getting a warning that a column is "poking" outside of the GCS. When you get the warning, these column(s) show highlighted in the schedule.

Another suggestion to make things easier with GCS is to create View Templates. This way, you only need to spend time once tweeking the view settings (i.e. they will be saved in the template and applied each time you apply the template to the view).

-Tim

[john.coelho]

Paul,

Thanks for the excellent tip to ensure the column schedule contains all columns in the project. A simple but excellent way to verify accuracy!