Odd things happening with divided surface panels

[david.31295]

Hi All,

I have been using Revit in Anger for a couple of years now, and consider myself a competent user, but this has got me stumped.

I need a 2D rectangular parametric array that can come down to a 1x1 grid. Someone has suggested to me that I can accomplish this using Divided Surfaces. Having not used them before, I have given it a go, but I seem to be getting odd results.

I have set up a 2D surface on plan and divided it up in a rectangular grid. It is parametric and working fine. The 'Panel' that I have created to populate this with is - for testing purposes - a column object brought into the panel family as a nested object. The issue I am having is that I cannot stop this column object from rotating and it is driving me nuts.

Please can anyone in the AUGI world explain what I am doing wrong.

Kind Regards

Dave Hoskin

[david.31295]

Bump!

Anyone able to help Please?

Cheers

Dave

[Scott D Davis]

I've downlaoded your file and can't figure it out! I've sent it off internally to get some more help...stay tuned!

[Scott D Davis]

Ok, here's what I have found out about your family. Because you are nesting in a column family thats hosted upon a Level, Revit doesn't really know what to do with it once it gets into a divided surface, which has no "level". Why does it rotate? Not sure exactly, but it does the same with any column family that gets nested in, even the OOTB ones.

So what to do? Try making the column out of a Faced-based generic model family, and then change the category to column, then nest that into the divided surface family. Or you could use an Adaptive Component with the category changed to column.

Let me know if that helps!

[david.31295]

Hi Scott, thanks for the tip. I will definitely have a go at that.

Are you the same Scott that suggested using divided surfaces for 2D arrays to me on the Revit Beta testing Forum? I was going to try and contact you through there as I wasn't sure if that forum was the appropriate place to ask for help. I thought I would chance my luck here and my next plan of attack was to try and contact you over there :).

I will post back when I have had a chance to look at this.

Many Thanks

Dave

[Scott D Davis]

Hi Scott, thanks for the tip. I will definitely have a go at that.

Are you the same Scott that suggested using divided surfaces for 2D arrays to me on the Revit Beta testing Forum? I was going to try and contact you through there as I wasn't sure if that forum was the appropriate place to ask for help. I thought I would chance my luck here and my next plan of attack was to try and contact you over there :).

I will post back when I have had a chance to look at this.

Many Thanks

Dave

Beta forum? what Beta forum? (:) By the Beta agreement, we can't discuss the existence of a Beta Forum...)

but yes it was me, and this was a good place to post the question, here at AUGI.

[david.31295]

Hi Scott et al,

I have had another go at this and I have had some limited success.

I have attached another file. I was trying to avoid posting the actual objects I am playing with, but I see little option at the moment! The grid is set up and there is two panel families loaded, the default one (GASS Leg Assy AC) seems to work ok, but I tried to replicate it with simpler geometry to upload here (ColumnAssemblyPanel) and I get the same error as before. As far as I can recall, they are modelled in the same way.

My next question is, how can I control the objects parametrically once they are inserted in the divided surface. The required user input for simplicities sake will be overall height/Length/Width.

This is a small part of a bigger picture, the next stage is to put 'gates' between the columns. My current thinking is that this will have to be two further divided surfaces, one for the X direction and another for the Y direction.

Cheers

Dave