Area plans & Automatic associations

[ron.sanpedro]

When you create an Area Plan, Revit is nice enough to offer to "Automatically create area boundary lines associated with all external walls." However, it seems that Revit will only associate with the centerline of the wall, which seems totally wrong like 99% of the time. If it is an exterior wall I really need an association with the exterior face of wall. Anyone know of a way to chance this association? And does anyone actually need centerline of exterior wall? Or is this another "feature" where Autodesk seemingly doesn't actually understand the needs of users so we get a totally useless marketing bulletpoint?

Gordon

[james.251382]

When you place an area inside a closed boundry it will utilize a set of rules to decide where the line needs to be located relative to the wall. If you are creating a gross area plan and only have one area it will push the area boundry line to the outside face of wall. If you have a rentable area plan and have two areas side by side and they are both set to retail it will locate the area boundry line for the demising wall to the centerline while the other boundry lines facing the exterior will be to the outside face of the wall.

[patricks]

When you create an Area Plan, Revit is nice enough to offer to "Automatically create area boundary lines associated with all external walls." However, it seems that Revit will only associate with the centerline of the wall, which seems totally wrong like 99% of the time. If it is an exterior wall I really need an association with the exterior face of wall. Anyone know of a way to chance this association? And does anyone actually need centerline of exterior wall? Or is this another "feature" where Autodesk seemingly doesn't actually understand the needs of users so we get a totally useless marketing bulletpoint?

Gordon

If the lines created from the exterior walls don't create a closed loop, the lines will default to the center of the wall. Only when you have enough area boundary lines to create a closed loop will the lines move to the outside face of the walls. Check by trying to place an area element. Most likely it will say it's unenclosed if the area lines are all along the center of your exterior walls.

[nancy.mcclure]

I'm seeing instances where area boundary lines placed at centerline of wall are being MOVED to the face of wall when trimming/etc is done. Very annoying. Seems the only way (and this has yet to be proven consistent) is to place the boundary lines with "Apply Area Rules" unchecked.

My question:
a) anyone found a way to 'reset' a boundary line that was placed with area rules applied to release that rule association?

gracias

[greg.mcdowell]

Since Areas placed with rules follow BOMA (roughly) you can try changing the area type and see if there isn't some combination that will work for you.