--GROUPS FORUM--

[robmorfin]

Groups,


The tiny groups tutorial works great and is very promissing, you start using them in your multi unit project and everything looks great, suddenly you start getting alot of messages, about realtionships, about objects not allowed to be there, start getting objects to move outside of its original location inside the group (always happens to me with casework families made with extruded massing), you need to ungroup and regroup, the grouped objects that were demolished into the group are not added to the regrouped group unless you add them later on, sometimes you try to add objects to the group and will not allow you to group them for whatever weird message you get (so you ungroup and regroup again with a new name), if in a group you edit objects and demolish them, it is not reflected on other groups (when a group is copied it should have the options of Copy and Instance, one as a plain copy that doesn't update and the other one that is exactly the same as all other copies every time one of them is modified [just like in 3dsMAX])


I have read most of the threads about multifamily, groups, worksets, linking files and all the workarounds but nothing seems to work 100% for what we need for the multi unit projects which is repeating a group of objects as one unit keeping them together as one all the time and accepting new objects without any problem, and when grouped they need not to be related to any other objects outside of that group, forgetting about previuos restricting relationships, except visually in the wall joins being touched by grouped walls, so no phisical-data connection needs to be done, just visual connection, also the wall height related to named levels needs to be substituded once grouped as follows: wall base becomes the level of the level where the group is inserted and wall top becomes by default the next level for all walls into that group, but with the option of manually been able to change the top by selecting a different level on the group properties.


I called support today and they are working really hard right now to solve these group issues, I am afraid we will need to wait until release 9 to see if something changed for better or worse, alot of us can't wait that long, we are already working on multi units and it is ridiculous that we have to manually be updating these units or checking which one got screwed up or ungroup for whatever reason, I think there is alot of interest, time and money involved in this issue, so I was thiking there should be a forum only for groups, so we can input all error messages we are getting and when it happens, upload files where the problems are happening, make lists of workarounds, what works, what doesn't, what we need, what is useless, new ideas, ways you do it in other software, I know Revit team is brain storming, why don't we help them a little bit, kind of like the beta release forums, and by the way I proposed them to create a new family template for Units where you can create also walls, windows, doors, ect. who knows, it may behave better than groups or linked files.


.......?

[aaronrumple]

Yep. As much as I like Revit - groups suck.

Even the lowly detail groups gave me problems on this latest project.

We do multi-family, student housing, elderly housing, schools - virtually everything we do needs rock solid performance from groups.

[robmorfin]

Where should I request for this forum?

[Steve_Stafford]

At first blush I don't think we need a forum for Groups alone...a search for groups will return threads for those interested in research. The worksets forum isn't used much and it is a complex element of Revit. We can certainly consider such a forum but need a little more feedback from our membership and even the factory to decide if it is really necessary? So I'll add a poll...

[iru69]

Maybe "Groups" is worthy, but in general, I'm weary of adding more forums.

It's obvious that a lot of thought has gone into the organization already - and I really think the moderators have done an awesome job keeping things organized. But I feel like we've already passed the threshold of one too many forums (time to move the "Student Support" forum into the Revit Archives... and there are a couple others I have my eye on as well ;-)).

For getting answers to questions, there's already a general feeling that some of the sub-categories (such as "Worksets" or "Families") are more likely to be ignored if you post there. If the forums are further balkanized, eventually users will just post everything in the "General" forum for fear of their question/topic being overlooked. That sounds like a recipe for a mess.

Just my 2 cents...

[robmorfin]

-a search for groups will return threads for those interested in research.

-That search will not help anybody that is trying to create multi-units, the problem is in Revit Groups regardless of workarounds, I just think that we should be very specific with every single situation when groups are not working so the Revit team get to know it, try it, play with it and fix it

-The worksets forum isn't used much and it is a complex element of Revit.

-Maybe because the worksets are working as they are suppossed to, so there is nothing to discuss.

-But I feel like we've already passed the threshold of one too many forums

-You are right, I am just proposing a temporary emergency forum like a beta testing forum to help the Revit Team which will go away after groups been able to work as they should.

[iru69]

[i]You are right, I am just proposing a temporary emergency forum like a beta testing forum to help the Revit Team which will go away after groups been able to work as they should.
I find this an intriguing idea. I'm not trying to get off topic - I understand at the moment you're focusing on a Group forum. But I think there's a very interesting larger picture here. You could really expand the concept to all sorts of subjects - walls, roofs, etc.

It's kind of difficult to get an overall "best approach" to certain subjects when there are threads, often with partial answers, scattered all over the forums. What might be pretty neat would be something like a "Topic of the Month" which gets it's own temporary forum. All questions, tips, wishes, etc., related to that topic would be posted there. Everyone could focus in on that topic for a couple of weeks, kind of concentrate all the knowledge, all the answers, on a particular subject in one area. At the end of the month, all the threads would get dumped back into the General forum and we'd tackle the next one.

I'm just throwing this out there... I obviously haven't given it a lot of thought.

[sbrown]

The revit team has battled with groups for long enough, they just don't work. I think they are a case where the team needs to step back and look for a new solution. Groups may work for groups of like objects, ie furniture layouts etc. I think our hawii office has had some success with simple hotel room groups, but just at a schematic level. I don't think groups would stand the ultimate test, which is the needed functionality of creating a guestroom or apartment, with all that is in it. ie floor finishes, walls, ceilings, kitchen equip, bathrooms etc Basically a small database in itself. and beable to assemble that into a shell. I truely believe the answer is more in file linking/design options and graphical joins between linked models than it is in groups. The database for an apartment unit is = to a small whole project and groups just don't cut it. The last time I hoped to use groups was a simple tower element on a building 4 walls, 1 roof, 4 window families, 2 wall sweeps. Revit couldn't handle it, one group showed the sweeps the other didn't. This functionality is critical and I hope to see some progress soon. The solution whatever it maybe will require levels of abstraction, so that full builing sections can be made without requiring the database to look at more than is needed for that use. But schedules will need to extract the data they need. I can't wait to see the creative, functional, easy to use solution that revit will surely come up with!!!

[cosmickingpin]

Working with groups is seems like we all get burned, too many things seem to go wrong when relied upon in ways them seemed promised to work in. Revit development need to get serious about groups and perhaps allow a "save group as component" option (I don't think there is one now anyways) and perhaps limit the behavior of groups to prevent these kinds of disasters, or at least warn new users about potential problems before they go all crazy making groups in simple controlled way and end up with a 3d salad of malfunctions. I don't know anybody happy with the unexpected ways groups seem to respond to non group entities, and perhaps fixing this issue would render a group forum unnecessary. This is something development has dropped the ball on. No offense intended to our fine workers, management needs to make this a development issue ASAP!


***are you freaking kidding? Bad Rep for saying this?!***

[robmorfin]

Groups is the right way to create multi unit projects, as the group tutorial is demostrating it, they are not worthless, they just need to behave better when changed of level or related to other elements, again, the Revit team is not working on projects all the time, they are programming from the input we give them, they have to know how we need groups to behave, how we are using them, how are we going to repeat them or deform them, I am just asking to help them, so they are not blind trying to create a grouping relationship that it is hard to know how it will be handled by the end user.

[BWG]

I am sure we can get rid of a forum or two that is not really revelant to Revit and have things like Groups which potentially are just as important as families and wish lists.

[Alvin_Alejandro]

Group Error- for typical multi-level floors......haaaaaah sucks

Need help...

[James.Lupton]

I would like to have fewer forums and perhaps better classification of the thread to make the searching more specific.

Now that we have the Revit Structural forums and the Revit Building Forums we have to look in twice as many forums to get the same information and the community becomes more divided.

Architectural issues are being discussed in Revit Structural Forums and Structural issues in the Revit Building Forums.

I would rather see all issues available in one forum with perhaps an issue classification eg walls, roofs, structural groups etc. you can then simply ignore those topics you are not interested in.

[Steve_Stafford]

Interesting comments...going off topic a touch...may split this into a separate discussion if it gains momentum.

...I would like to have fewer forums and perhaps better classification of the thread to make the searching more specific...
We have a couple of forums that are not well traveled and are considering consolidating Student Support for example into the archive forum. That said, I'm not convinced consolidating more forums into fewer is better.


...Architectural issues are being discussed in Revit Structural Forums and Structural issues in the Revit Building Forums...
If this happens it is up to the moderators to get them in the correct forums and our members to point us to them if we miss em.

These two products have a common interest but distinctly separate users with a small overlap perhaps. At least that is the information I have.

Also read here recently that a member believes that if they don't post in General it won't get read or replied to as reliably. It has been my experience that it matters not...more likely a question doesn't get replied to quickly either because it is asking a hard question or it isn't asked clearly. If it is a hard question, it may be simple to resolve but time consuming to explain effectively, thus delaying a response till someone has the time to reply well.

As always we remain open to ideas to make our forum effective and worth coming back to...speaking for myself, I need more convincing that consolidation is the right path.

[janunson]

...a search for groups will return threads for those interested in research. ...


I'd rather see a better search tool! It's hard to find stuff that i KNOW is in here...

[robmorfin]

Lot's of OFF TOPIC posts, the main content of this post is to create a Forum about Groups to be able to create multi-unit projects, or at least to rename the forum "Revit- Worksharing/Worksets (http://forums.augi.com/forumdisplay.php?f=8) to "Revit - Worksets /Groups", just a formality so people can find group posts without having to do a search, you know, group the group posts in one place.