Fill patterns in groups

[michael.12445]

I'm working on an apartment project in which the apartments are modeled as groups. Some of the apartments have balconies, and the deck coating is represented as a fill pattern (diagonal lines).

In cases where a group is mirrored, the fill pattern seems to rotate arbitrarily. It gets really bad where the balcony has crickets for drainage, as these are modeled as separate pieces on top of the main sloping surface (a floor that has been manipulated with the shape tools). In the non-mirrored group, I have the deck coating fill pattern on all the pieces rotated all in the same direction, and aligned so that it looks like a single fill. But in the mirrored group, all the pieces show the pattern with a different rotation. If I edit the mirrored group to fix this, of course it wrecks the non-mirrored instances.

This is our first major Revit project, and due to the many bumps we've encountered, the principals are getting pretty skeptical about Revit's usefulness. I kind of need a solution to this, or it could become (believe it or not) a deal-killer.

BTW, is there any way, once a group instance is selected, to find out whether it's a mirrored or non-mirrored instance?

Thanks,

Michael Evans

[dhurtubise]

You are using a Model pattern ?

[rosskirby]

Different people have different philosophies when it comes to mirroring groups. As you've found out, it can sometimes be problematic if you don't set up the model correctly to begin with. Personally, I prefer to create two separate groups, one for each direction. If you want, you can take the primary group, mirror it, ungroup it, and then regroup it with the name" primary group-mirrored". While this may seem like double the work, you'll find that it allows you to avoid quite a few of the problems typically encountered with mirrored groups.

That being said, you can always save the group out as it's own file, and then link it in. From what I remember, the linked files can be mirrored more easily than the groups, but it's been a while since I worked on a project with mirrored groups, so don't quote me on that.

And if your boss is willing to give up on Revit because the first project didn't go as smoothly as your previous CAD (I'm assuming) projects, then you've got an uphill battle against you. Our first project wasn't great, either. The second was better; the third at least as smooth as previous projects, and every project since has been like a dream. Supporting CAD in the office has now become physically painful for me. Keep at it!

[michael.12445]

Daniel,

Yes, it's a model pattern.

rosskirby,

We do need the ability of group geometry to join with adjacent walls, etc., and my understanding is that linked-in .rvt files can't do that. And maybe I'm missing something, but if you have the same apartment in a mirrored configuration, and to get it to work properly you have to have two separate groups, doesn't that kind of start to defeat the purpose of groups? Or maybe I'm still stuck in the AutoCAD block - xref way of thinking?

Anyway, I'm going to play around with maybe not having the pattern fill be part of the group, but applying it separately after the group is made.

And yes, you don't know how right you are about this being an uphill battle...

Thanks for the replies!