Avoiding Design Options

[rbcameron1]

Anyone else find it easier to avoid design options complication by creating a group of the area that is being redesigned and just swapping out different designed groups rather than the hassle of activating design options in Revit? Is this a weak feature in Revit that could be improved? It was unbelievably simple to create a group, click on it and select the next group down to swap out a new design. Design options...oh man...worksets, selecting objects in design option 1B, 1C.....hiding elements.... tons of warnings....and that's just the start of it.

Its not that design options are too complicated of a process for an avid Revit user, its when I get someone new, or someone who uses Revit wrong, or an intern without much design options experience that design options fails miserably due to the technical understanding of how it works.

Just seeing what is out there and how other people are using design options?..?

-rbcameron

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Nothing 'wrong' with the group approach, until someone asks you to present both options on one sheet with schedules for each option on the same sheet.:lol: (or worse yet, 5 different options!)
I don't think design options are weak as much as they are tough for novice user to wrap their head around and they require an additional level of organization and consideration that most people don't want to bother dealing with. Like a lot of things, unless you use them frequently it's tough to remember all the issues.

[davidcobi]

Design options do seem to misbehave more on heavy models. Any troubleshooting tips for use of design options on heavy models? Design options tend to reject a lot when inplace work, wall sweeps, wall profiles, and walls with split faces are present. Thanks.

[damon.sidel]

We use design options heavily. I agree with Dimitri that novice users will take some time to learn how to use them. However, they are indispensable for us... how else do you design than study a bunch of options?! And they definitely have to be side-by-side so one can evaluate them. There are just a few things that we feel make design options less-than-optimal: facade studies with punched windows are cumbersome because you need the whole wall, too. Options with floor openings: you can't just add shafts into the option because shafts in options only affect floors in the same option. We haven't seen a problem with inplace work, but I can imagine that wall sweeps, profiles, and split faces would be troublesome, just like windows.

The current model I'm using is about 250MB and we have 3-10+ option sets at any time. The previous model I worked on was 500MB with 3-20+ option sets at any time. The former works very well. The latter is just so heavy we work carefully with worksets to do just about everything, so it isn't just the option sets (although I'm sure those add a lot to weight).

[gbrowne]

Just a thought: Not defending badly working software or anything, but would it be true to say that the heavy detail stuff that causes the problems shouldn't really be in the options part of the project? Perhaps?

[damon.sidel]

Just a thought: Not defending badly working software or anything, but would it be true to say that the heavy detail stuff that causes the problems shouldn't really be in the options part of the project? Perhaps?

What if you are designing options for the detail stuff?

[gbrowne]

Personally, I wouldn't really say that was required. Layouts and general elevations, what have you, yes, but not the nitty gritty little things.

[damon.sidel]

Well, we study everything from the biggest to the smallest scales, so I guess it's a difference of practice, not a Revit issue.

[gbrowne]

I think so, yes. That must lead to an inordinate amount of work being scrapped every project. Aside from the time wasting, that would drive me mental...

[davidcobi]

We also have noticed that any design options with hosted components need to include the host even if it was created in a previous phase. And any secondary option walls intersecting main model walls do not clean up so you have to pick your primary and secondary options with that in mind.

[davidcobi]

We do try to create enough niche content for carving into walls so users are not depending so much on inplace families that might complicate design options. And I wouldn't want to tell users they can't split faces and paint because it might impact the reliability of design options in later work. Paint can bleed around to other split faces after a design option is revised. I've had to repaint after every design option edit.

[cliff collins]

You could also use Links instead of D. O.s