Problem splitting wall with in-place families

[eeblack]

I have a bunch of walls that I have laboriously edited to indicate expansion joints cutting through them. To do this, I created a new wall, used the Void Extrusion option to create my shape (a parallelogram since it cuts through the wall at an angle), and then the Cut Geometry tool to make the cut.

Now that DD is done, we've gotten some structural revisions to the exterior shear walls and I have to thicken many of these walls. I am trying to use the Split tool, so I can thicken parts of the wall while leaving the other parts unchanged, but I get an error message saying,

"Can't split/join this host because there are instances of In-place Families that cut openings into it. Edit or delete instances first so they don't cut into the host to be split or joined."

Obviously, if I delete the In-Place families (Void Extrusions) that I used to create the expansion joints, I will have to redo all of this work. I will not be happy with that at all.

Any suggestions or workarounds?

Thanks in advance.

[twiceroadsfool]

Well, if i WAS going to model all of the expansion joints (and im not sure i would) i would use a Family instead of the in place extrusion. I have bad feelings about most-things-in-place.

But here is what it sounds like: Are multiple expansion joints in one extrusio sketch? Or did you do one, finish it, then copy the actual extrusion around? Copying the extrusion, and copying the sketch IN the extrusion, are different. Basically, it sounds like its saying "One modeled object is cutting a wall (single) that you are trying to turn in to two walls (multiple) and i dont know what to do). And it wants reconciliation.

Try replacing them with a family and see if it behaves better.

[david_peterson]

I have a bunch of walls that I have laboriously edited to indicate expansion joints cutting through them. To do this, I created a new wall, used the Void Extrusion option to create my shape (a parallelogram since it cuts through the wall at an angle), and then the Cut Geometry tool to make the cut.

Now that DD is done, we've gotten some structural revisions to the exterior shear walls and I have to thicken many of these walls. I am trying to use the Split tool, so I can thicken parts of the wall while leaving the other parts unchanged, but I get an error message saying,

"Can't split/join this host because there are instances of In-place Families that cut openings into it. Edit or delete instances first so they don't cut into the host to be split or joined."
Yep,
You just found the biggest pain in the butt Revit has to offer. You're only option is to delete the pier voids, modify the wall and start over. There's no way around it. :veryevil:

After you remodel the foundation about 40 times on a project you start to get really good at it.
If I could get a hold the fine individual that set it up this way, I'd love to bill him for about 100hrs of re-work I had to do on my last project. What would have taken me 15min to do in cad took me an entire day to do in revit with no benefit. Simply answer, you **** out of luck.

[eeblack]

Thanks for the quick response, Aaron.

I normally wouldn't have modeled the expansion joints, but in this case, we (the architects) are the consultants to the engineering firm who will be finishing the CD phase. They use only AutoCAD and had asked for the EJ's to be cut through the walls correctly.

Anyhow, I was creating a single Void Extrusion for every wall until I realized that (in some instances) you could create a long extrusion and use it to cut more than one wall at a time (you still have to select each wall individually using the Cut Geometry tool). For some reason, the behavior was not consistent and sometimes this worked and sometimes it didn't. Where it didn't work, I created lots of extrusions and used Cut Geometry while still in the sketch mode.

I tried selecting the voids and editing them to pull back from the wall, but they were still showing up in the error message. Plus, when I tried to edit them back, I got a new message saying it couldn't make the cut, so my only option is to delete the void (and lose all of the cuts it had made)

I also tried to copy the wall, trim it and place it back, but so far it's not working very well.

Big PITA!!!

[twiceroadsfool]

Even if you have to model it, make them Wall Hosted Families. Then they wont freak out when you split/trim/join walls together. Trust me, its worth redoing it, lol...

[eeblack]

Actually, David, I wouldn't say this is the biggest PITA I've encountered in Revit - that honor has to go to the horrible Crop Region tool when using it with a huge site (and global coordinates) It literally takes 20 to 30 minutes to first find my building (it's so zoomed out as to be invisible), then drag the corners of the window 50+ times trying to zoom in accurately.

Now that I know about the In-Place families issue, I can avoid it by performing that step later in the process. I cannot escape the Crop Region issue and the huge sense of dread I get every time I have to use it. (And to think it could be solved with a mouse click and drag to define the "new crop region" boundaries...)

Thanks anyway!

[wmullett]

Use a vertical reveal... not an in-place void. Just a profile and easy to place and adjust.

[eeblack]

wmullet,

Vertical reveals might work better if I was only showing the exterior EJ's, and I knew exactly where they occur in the 3D view (and if they didn't change width as the building gets taller...), but the building is irregularly shaped with lots of angles and I have to cut the interior walls also, so setting up all those elevations or 3D views would take longer. I'll keep it in mind for other projects, though.

[Overconstrained]

Could this be done as a curtain wall (with the panel type set to a wall type) with custom mullions as your expansion joints?

[david_peterson]

Use a vertical reveal... not an in-place void. Just a profile and easy to place and adjust.
Won't fix the Pier void issues at corners. They don't work when you try to use them on 2 walls. We've asked the factory guys about this, it was passed on to that "Development Team". Now if they only had a "Fixing Team", the "Development Team" might be able to develop something useful, Like a pier void family, or a family for piers with that have an attached void to them that will automatically cut the wall instead the current method of banging your head against the desk repeatedly.

[lhanyok]

Use a vertical reveal... not an in-place void. Just a profile and easy to place and adjust.

Be careful when using wall reveals, since you don't have control over their lineweight. They just use the lineweight assigned to Cut Walls. We had one project where someone used reveals to show expansion joints and they ended up as big fat lines on our sections and elevations, so we had to go back through with a lot of painful linework. I would also recommend doing it as a component family.

[twiceroadsfool]

Ill even amend my previous suggestion from a Wall Hosted Family to say perhaps a Face Based family, since it sounds like more than one typeof object need to be hacked up...