Drawing/Editing Walls = Revit very slow

[Rosie the Reviter]

I have an issue that is more annoying than serious, but really is starting to tick off my users and can eventually be a huge time-sucker. When drawing, moving, or editing a wall in floor plan (no other category has this issue), RAC 2012 takes about 4-5 seconds per wall to think, and then it allows you to make another wall. Draw, think, draw, think..Repeat. The "thinking" is slowing drawing down to a crawl.

About out computers/program version:
Windows 7/ 64 bit/ 16g ram
Xeon Quad Core 2.0 Ghz
Quadro FX 3600 Vid Cards
Running Revit Arch 2012- service pack 2

Weird Observations:
1. This only happens on Level 1 of my 5 level project, all other levels' walls draw just fine.
2. I've found that once you draw a wall, and I turn it to non-room bounding, no "thinking" time occurs. Unfortunately, you can't draw a wall with the room bounding parameter unchecked, so that's not an option.
3. This issue seemed to come about all of the sudden. It WAS NOT like this originally.

About the File:
60mb Workset File, worksets are mostly confined to separate levels, each workset is maybe 15-20k s.f. Linked Files are Structural and Shell File, both linked into their own workset. The floors are split and belong to each workset area that it covers. Spatially it's a large project, 400,000sf, though at this phase of design it's relatively uncomplicated with little more than doors, existing conditions walls and casework. Even if I turn off every workset except for the one that I am working in on Level 1, it's still snail pace in drawing walls.

So in summary, has anybody had this happen to them on a project, of any release in Revit? I find tons of ADSK support for this kind of thing happening in ACAD, but not in Revit. At this point I feel like I've tried everything but open it up to the forums... any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[bbeck]

Are your rooms set to calculate areas and volumes? Areas only is faster. That would be my first check. This doesn't address all your observations but it's a start.

[Rosie the Reviter]

Hi, thanks for the input... I think I have got all of the basics checked. Areas only calculated, no linked cad files, I have most of my warnings under control, I ran and cleanedand up results from a clash coordination between walls and floors... and its not the kind of thinking that happens when your graphics can't keep up, its, dare I say, thinking with purpose.scary.

[renogreen]

Rosie, I have noticed something similar. When my projects get up in file size the wall construction and editing seems to slow down. I've never explored it deep so I have no answer...but it's not just you.

[Overconstrained]

Perhaps try a purge, unlink all that you have linked (to quote Yoda) and open the file with an audit to see what happens. Might be worth a try.

[Rosie the Reviter]

Well after being pulled off the project and tossed back on as that it's ready to go, I dove into the issue and think that I've found the solution, but I still don't understand the problem in the first place...

To fix the problem, I deleted the physical revit level in the project that was giving me issues and made a fresh new one. I copy and pasted all of my original building guts from level 1, into the New Level 1, and tadaaa! walls draw with mucho speed! Now I just have to go back in and re-phase by elements, and re-assign them to their correct worksets, but that is absolutely worth the trouble as apposed to an eternity of slowness.

Now the real question.. what about a Revit Level, would cause such an issue??

[Rosie the Reviter]

As an update for anyone following this.. I have indeed NOT found the solution to this slow drawing/editing walls issue.

Here is what happened:
When I deleted the level and proceeded to redraw everything, what really happened was that all of the rooms belonging to that level deleted (and in reality, all of the rooms in the project were deleted because I had thus far only placed rooms on level 1).

So by deleting the only level with rooms, I was given the impression that the file resumed it's normalcy.

HOWEVER, as soon as I place a new room, the level in which the room was created instantly becomes slow, VERY slow. As soon as I delete the room from the schedule, and thus the project, drawing on the level becomes normal again.

Working with Autodesk now, hopefully we'll have an answer soon.

Rosanne Siegal

[jsteinhauer]

Rosie,

Instead of just turning off those worksets that you are not using, have you tried unloading them from your local? Are you using a local server or a Revit Server? Do you have CAT5 or CAT6 cabling in your office? How many team members do you have working in this model?

I hope these questions help you find an answer to your issue,
Jeff S.

[Rosie the Reviter]

Jeff,

Thanks for your input. The linked files are currently unloaded and completely removed from the project. The issue occurs whether or not the linked files are linked into the project or not. The issue also happens regardless of what computer in the office the file open on, or even in what office (I'm having colleagues outside of my firm attempt to resolve the issue as well, and they come across the same exact problem.) In terms of worksets and people in the file, the problem occurs when there is only 1 person, or several people working in it, and also it occurs regardless of whether you are in a local file, or the central file itself.. I've even went so far as to completely get rid of worksets (as you can in 2012), leaving behind just a normal non-workset file, and the issue still occurs. As for the cables, we have 6 from the servers to the switches, 5 from the switches to the PCs.

The problem literally occurred overnight. As soon as we started placing rooms into the project, the file immediately slowed down. If you delete the rooms from the schedule, from the particular level giving you issues, the file resumes it's normal speed with no think time.

Maybe I'm just overreacting.... but I've never encountered 5 seconds think time between drawing of each wall, and then pushing/pulling/moving/copying/deleting walls is all between 5-7 seconds to think. Detail lines and model lines draw just fine with no think time. Walls, Rooms, Levels: oh my.

[Rosie the Reviter]

Are you using a local server or a Revit Server? How many team members do you have working in this model?

.

Sorry, forgot these ones.... Local server.... We will have eventually 3-4 people working in the file at one time, however the problem started to occur when only one person was in the file.

[jsteinhauer]

Sorry, forgot these ones.... Local server.... We will have eventually 3-4 people working in the file at one time, however the problem started to occur when only one person was in the file.

Rosie,

That's just messed up. Only suggestion I would have, if you can afford to spend the time, would be to create a new project. Load in your trouble one, and place room separation lines over top of the walls. Then place the rooms to see if there is still a slow down. It won't buy you anything towards the project, but it might help identify if it is truly a room issue. Worst case is you might have to have your rooms in a separate file, until right before 100% CD's.

Keep us up-to-date on this issue.

Thanks,
Jeff S.

[Rosie the Reviter]

Jeff,

My work around was going to be something similar to that. With the onslaught of 2012, you can tag rooms between linked files. So in a blank file with our troubled file linked in, we'd be placing our rooms, name and number them. Then back in the troubled file, we simply link in the blank file with the rooms, and tag the rooms. It works great thus far, besides the obvious suckiness of time spent switching between two files. On the upside it will mean that a whole file can be dedicated towards extra room parameter information and thus room data sheets.

I really feel that the building footprint is just probably too big. Although the speed of every normal operation is fast(opening views, saving, switching worksets, panning around, placing furniture etc), rooms+walls is just a doozy. As a complete 3rd party test (which you are welcome to try and see if you get the same results), I opened a fresh new template, and did an intersecting array of walls, 100 horizontally and 100 vertically, each wall about 10' away from another. I then drew some extra walls out in la-la-land which went very fast, then I placed a few rooms, and then tried to draw walls again. And it was a no go. As you increase the amount of rooms the drawing gets slower, as you decrease the amount of walls, the file gets faster. Hoping that text and dimensioning doesn't slow down the file too, there's only so much that we can separate off into different files.

I'll keep everyone posted if Autodesk gets back to me with a decent answer, but I think I'm at the end of the line with ideas.Thanks again for your input.

[jsteinhauer]

Rosie,

In the Worksets Dialog box there is a setting for 'Opened' (see attached image). It was explained to me that this is like unloading X-References in ACAD. Closing worksets that you don't need should take less memory from your computer, and make things go faster for you.

Be careful of relying on linked files for schedules. I seem to remember having trouble getting the room data to populate in schedules other then room schedules. Never tested doors or windows, but I know that specialty equipment would not pull room data in from the linked file.

[Rosie the Reviter]

Thanks for the clarification; then yes, I have been for sure "unloading" the worksets.

Our room Data sheets at this point are not pulling smart information from the rooms themselves, beyond the room names, department and numbers. I do see your point that we'd have lots of troubles if we were in fact planning to pull from the modeled file but at this point, the majority of a typ. room data sheets is text/manual entry.

On an happier note, Autodesk recommended that I delete all of my local files, and temp files on my computer. After doing that the slow draw/editing of walls issue remained, but the room tool itself opened up a lot faster, it was originally very very slow to open. Interesting...

[greg485431]

Rosie, I am in the process of trying to sort the same speed issues you are. I am purely IT so don't have much of a Revit background. About to throw an over-clocked super fast memory PC to see if it makes a difference.

[sbrown]

In my experience rooms and areas can slow revit to a crawl, everytime you move a wall revit has to recalculate the room area(do you have volume turned on? this could make it worse).

[Rosie the Reviter]

Greg, Congrats on your 1st post! Thanks for your testing... let us know what you come up with! How sweet it must be to have a suped-up computer at your disposal..

Scott, congrats on your 4,000 something post.. lol. Volumes are not turned on... and these rooms are ridiculous. It's amazing the difference in speed having even just 1 single room exist, versus none. I'm glad that I'm not alone in having this issue.

Autodesk update: In my opinion, my Autodesk support is having a rough time, as that they are unable to recreate the problem. Although frankly i don't think the issue is fully understood. I've requested a webex session with them to demonstrate the issue live.

[rganter]

Rosie, Have you found a more practical solution or workaround? We have the exact same issue on a project with a large floor plate. I made the following observations in terms of the delay time that occurs after drawing a wall or dragging its end point:
WIth all rooms in the project: 7 seconds
After I deleted all rooms in the project: 2 seconds
With the wall in question set to non-room bounding: Instantaneous.
It probably does not help that we have lots of phases in the project as well. But this is seriously eating into our productivity.

[JohnCAVogt]

A little, maybe unrealistic experiment. In a new file, I arrayed (25) 25m long generic walls a meter apart, then rotate copied them so that I had 25 x 25 or 625 wall intersections. This isn't very realistic, since very few walls will intersect 25 other walls, but I left it that way since it didn't seem to cause a problem. Then I arrayed a room in each hole, and that didn't cause a problem drawing a new wall either. Then I changed 25 of the walls to a basic wall that has some layers in it. Still no problem drawing a new wall. Then I changed the view to fine, and my next wall took 22 seconds to draw.

I think that wall joins are a much bigger processor problem than room boundaries, judging by the fact that wall join calculations was one of the first things that the factory tried to multi-thread on multi-processor computers. I change the view back to course, and additionally set it to only clean joins of same type walls, and my speed is back.

[Revitaoist]

Just a tip, my strategy for isolating problems like this is:

(Archive your file and do this in a copy)

Start deleting and purging things out of your file until you can narrow the problem down to it occurring with only a few elements. Can you get it down to it happening with only one room and a four walls? Then purge everything out of the file, so the only things in the file are the offending elements. This way you have the problem isolated, and a small file you can post on forums like this or send to Adesk without them having to search for the problem.

[Rosie the Reviter]

rganter: I have not found a more practical work around, but let me tell you, it's really not that bad. We've got three people working in the Central file right now. When rooms need to be edited, a person just switches into the the "rooms" file and makes the necessary tweaks. Having Zero rooms and room boundary lines in the Central file (our very large file that would be slow) makes 100% of the difference in speed for us. The back and forth is the only downfall, as that person maybe wastes 5 minutes total in save, close and open time.

Revitaoist: I came to the conclusion of the rooms themselves being the PITA for this project exactly by how you've just recommended. I created a separate copy of the project and slowly started to delete and purge and test, until the issue became apparent. As soon as the rooms were deleted, the drawing speed resumed. This is a great (tho time consuming) method for anyone experiencing whacked out issues.

John: Your test results are interesting, but I do believe that we are experiencing two separate issues, however they both end with the same outcome.

So I also heard back from Autodesk several weeks ago, an actual phone call this time.. The support person said that she was not able to make the issue reoccur, although another person higher up than her could.. But that this person was very busy (as was everyone else) with the preparations for the 2013 release, so that I probably shouldn't hold my breath on a reply or a solution. Fantastic.

[Rosie the Reviter]

Autodesk update.. Autodesk has tested my troublesome file. They can get the issue to occur for the 2012 version... and as good news the issue is not occurring for the 2013 version of the software. So they are working on a hotfix for the 2012 version. I'll keep posting updates as I hear more.