Building Pads & Phases :-(

[TerribleTim]

Ok, I'm having an issue I can't work out and I need some help before I pull all my hair out! :cry:

I have an existing topo. I used the "graded region" tool to create an exact copy. I placed that new topo in a new phase and then placed a building pad in that new phase as you typically would. Everything is great. Now comes the issue -

I need to go back and add another building pad to that same phase. So, I went back in, set the phase to the correct one within that view, clicked on the topo of the correct phase, chose the site tools tab, clicked on "building pad" tool and created a building pad making sure it was in the right phase and all that. But once the pad is completed it only shows up in a later phase. What gives?

[gbrowne]

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?63962-I-HATE-PADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/page2

Some great tips in this thread...

[TerribleTim]

Thanks gbrowne, I saw that thread but it quickly seemed like a huge rant and I wasn't sure I wanted to go through reading it all. Guess I better have a closer look, huh? ;)

[TerribleTim]

Ok, well, I read through that WHOLE thread. Whew! :?

None of it really touched on my issue. There is some interesting methods discussed with split surfaces, but that doesn't really work for my situation since I need those areas to be different in different phases. Unless I'm missing something there. :?

Edit - Let me actually regroup a second. I noticed that once I added the second pad it seemed to blow up the whole thing and now none of those pads show in the right phase. I have 4 phases in the project after "Existing". I created the first pad in "Phase 1". It worked fine. Now, after adding the second pad, they all only show correctly in "Phase 4". The pad shows, but the topo isn't cut correctly until "Phase 4". I checked the settigns on the topo surface of each pad and it is set to "Created in - Phase 1". This makes my head hurt, and doesn't help my cause when the PM says "why do we need to bother with this Revit **** anyway?" :cry:

[TerribleTim]

Bump for love. ;)

[nancy.mcclure]

Tim, did you move your Graded Region FORWARD in time, rather than BACK? The Graded Region is created/demolished, but remains in the NC phase, and should be moved to Existing. No other graded regions need to be created after that, it just becomes the original condition to track changes against. From there, each pad should be created in it's appropriate phase (try to avoid creating them in a single phase and moving them around in time) and various phased views will interpret the previous pads as existing conditions moving forward in time.

[TerribleTim]

Nancy,
I may have. :p So you are saying to leave the graded region in the existing phase and only move the pad to a different phase? I'll give that a shot. I thought they needed to be in the same phase as each other. I'll let you know how it goes.

I may end up scrapping it all together and starting over too. But hopefully I don't have to.

Thank you for the reply!

[nancy.mcclure]

quick summary:
a) create toposurface in New Construction (this is typical, as the views are set to this by default)
b) create a Graded Region (it also resides in New Construction. You can tell which one it is by it's Properties showing both CREATED and DEMOLISHED in New Construction)
c) Select the Graded Region and change it's CREATED to Existing.
d) Create pads in their appropriate phase

admittedly, I have not done point-grading at various times in a multi-phase project... might have to do some testing on if additional graded regions would need to be created or not...