Reassurance needed on many voids, cuts, openings etc

[Damo]

Many years ago I undertook a project using 3D Studio. Working alongside the 3D Studio whiz-kid we’d build up the model and he would add and subtract shapes according to my direction. Every so often, when he began to feel we were doing too many operations on a particular mass, he’d start to get a bit cautious and say something like “It might not like this”, and sure enough, on occasions the programme would crash.

Which brings me to Revit.

With this experience in the back of my mind, I’m concerned that one too many ‘Cut Dormer Opening’ or ‘Cut Geometry’ will push Revit over the edge and cause it to crash or corrupt the file.

This probably explains why I don’t like workarounds, I don’t know whether a particular workaround will come back and bite me in the behind at a later date.

Can someone give me the reassurance I need that Revit is robust enough to take any number of extrudes, voids, cuts etc etc.

[sbrown]

Yes and no, Revit will not get corrupted by too many voids or solids. However it will tell you that you can't cut certain geometry sometimes. Some multiple void cuts can't be done. I can't give any specific examples. Sometimes it will be a sweep profile void partially intersecting another void and the resultant geometry just doesn't work for revit so it will tell you.

I wouldn't worry about corrupt files, Revit is very stable. You only ever see unopenable files when you need to upgrade from one version to another, and these the factory will manually upgrade. This is rare and the revit team will tell you they have a NO TOLERANCE for crashing. I'd say they live up to that with rare exceptions(and then they fix those). I've got someone working next to me on Autocad and it seems to crash 2 or 3 times a day.

[cosmickingpin]

Having a stack modifier that got too deep was a very real problem, and the kid was right to be nervous. After 3 or 4 opperations you would have to collapse your stack and then you could carry on (did he leave that part out?, Hmm) At some point you will reach a a similar threshold with revit, but ti will be much higher and will depend more on your machine's strength and speed. How much are you talking, you can do a large building, some of the largest in the world, but I would not do the city of Seattle. Are we talking a hundred, three hundred? the number of shapes was not the problem, the problem is the number of shapes within each mass or family. I did an animation where I had a whole neighboorhood represented (traced from a aerial photo- houses and trees- fairly dense coverage)) for 3000' diameter and as long as I kept each family's shape count below a 200 or so I was fine (these were simple shapes mind you) but when I first started they did get too big and it would not let me close the family (never crashed though) and I would have to delete some to get it done (but remember this was an insane amount of stuff). that would be your test, every so often finish the family or mass and save, do it every 15 minutes or so and you should be fine (that;s just a good idea no matter what you are working on though). I think you will be fine for 99% of what you will do. Like I siad I have never had this problem on a single building. I have a cad model of the entrie downtown Detroit Area (with every single building with some level of deatil and I can load it into revit as a family and the program functions fine.


Many years ago I undertook a project using 3D Studio. Working alongside the 3D Studio whiz-kid we’d build up the model and he would add and subtract shapes according to my direction. Every so often, when he began to feel we were doing too many operations on a particular mass, he’d start to get a bit cautious and say something like “It might not like this”, and sure enough, on occasions the programme would crash.

Which brings me to Revit.

With this experience in the back of my mind, I’m concerned that one too many ‘Cut Dormer Opening’ or ‘Cut Geometry’ will push Revit over the edge and cause it to crash or corrupt the file.

This probably explains why I don’t like workarounds, I don’t know whether a particular workaround will come back and bite me in the behind at a later date.

Can someone give me the reassurance I need that Revit is robust enough to take any number of extrudes, voids, cuts etc etc.

[Martin P]

When doing lots of inplace family work, I try and split them up as much as I can. I have had the dreaded "cannot create geometry" message a few times and its much less painful if you havent been in family editing mode for over an hour or something!!! - you then spend ages tracking down the offending part (if you can)....... Do lots of little bits as separate families would be my advice, that way if something "cant be created?" you dont lose the whole lot, just the little bit Revit doesnt like - group afterwards if you want it act as one object.

I have had this message appear on some very basic geometry, I have no idea why it appears - especially as Revit HAS actually created the geometry, I can see it in front of me - it just fails when I pick finish family?? very annoying, fortunately quite rare and much, much less annoying if you have lots of families instead of just one big one....

[Damo]

Yes and no, Revit will not get corrupted by too many voids or solids. However it will tell you that you can't cut certain geometry sometimes.So Revit will either do it or not do it, but won't necessarily crash. Thanks for your reassurance.

Along with Martin's tip of breaking down the problem into little chunks and then grouping, this will allow me to be a bit more adventurous and confident in chucking holes in everything. :)