My deepest Revit irritation

[Wes Macaulay]

I've got enough people complaining to me about this, and it bugs me too: Revit objects are too reactive. You move a wall, and something else moves in another view -- like another wall, or a floor or something. Does anyone else have a problem with this? I realise that Revit is looking for relationships between objects and is trying to make things more automatic, but aye! it drives me mad sometimes!

A further downside of this (in my estimation) is that the processing power required for Revit to analyse these relationships is partly what makes the program slower as the project gets bigger -- more objects to analyse and "think" about.

Wall joins are great, and joins between different assembly types are great, but I for one am all for Revit becoming a bit looser. Not as loose as ArchiCAD, mind you, but enough to take a load of Revit's mind, if you will, and to prevent these unexpected relocation of objects that happens too often.

I love Revit and see no other equal to it on the market, but this aspect of it tries my patience.

[bclarch]

I agree that it can be a problem but I'm not sure how to solve it. I suppose you could leave everything unconstrained unless the constraints are set by the user but you might just end up turning a functionality problem into a mangement problem (as in layer mangement).

[Wes Macaulay]

This IS with no contraints... sometimes objects move when another object is moved. I certainly keep contraints and locked alignments to a minimum, alright.

[Allen Lacy]

I've gotten in the habit of clicking "disjoin" most of the time before moving. Then I can correct whatever else needs to be removed.

[Steve_Stafford]

I believe "all" 6oh content has been modified to NOT move with nearby objects. If this is happening it may be related to older content? No excuse but Revit did this to help alleviate the issue.

[BomberAIA]

I have the same problem. I am doing townhomes taht have different units and when I go to dimension them, they all off by fractions. Walls seem to move while I'm developing the building. If I round off the dimensions to a 1/2", the strings do not add up.

[bclarch]

This IS with no contraints... sometimes objects move when another object is moved. I certainly keep contraints and locked alignments to a minimum, alright.

I guess I should have been more careful with my terminology. My use of the term "constraints" in my initial post was meant to mean the inherant constraints applied by the program, not the explicit user applied constraints. Sorry.

[Wes Macaulay]

No worries, Robert. It's just been a long week for me, that's all!

[Scott Hopkins]

Perhaps if the default setting for the move command was set to "Disjoin" this would prevent problems and save processor power. What I would really like to see is a new "Disjoin Move" command so I wouldn't have to remember to reach up and click the disjoin button every time I edit something. I could just set it in a keyboard shortcut.

[irwin]

If you encounter a situation in which moving one element causes another one to move that you wanted to stay put, please supply the example to Autodesk Revit client services, including the model the way it was before the move, the element you moved, and the element that moved with it. If we have specific examples we can tune the rules to more closely match your intent.

[aggockel50321]

Maybe it would make sense to have a hierarchical organizaiton of constaints.

Maybe, reference planes #1, grids #2, etc.

Or maybe, let the user decide the order.

I understand the frustration, when moving a wall for, instance, and getting the error message, "constraints not satisfied". If I let it break the constraints, I have no idea what constraints were broken. I know I constrained the grid dimensions, but can't remember if the walls are constrained to the grids, yada, yada.

Somehow, this has to be sorted out, so that the user knows what constraint Revit is about to break, without having to read the message stating "it may take a long time for revit to sort through all the views to find out what's wrong."

If I knew the software was about to break a relationship between two walls, rather than moving a grid line, I'd feel a whole lot better.

Sort of like real life, don't you think....

[LRaiz]

The intent of current design is to deal with constraints in an non-intrusive manner. At the same time it is difficult to imagine that average user would want to deal with explicit specification of rules for a hierarchy of constrains. As Irwin suggested in a previous post I think that the best thing would be to supply examples of misbehavior to the client support and let the development team improve implementation.

- LR

[designer56644]

Only if you are not tagging "disjoin" will you experience that major frustration. I understand that auto disjoins and hierachies would be nice, but lI agree w/ Allen L., since I started using disjoin when ness, I no longer have those probs.

[Wes Macaulay]

Leonid and Irwin -- I certainly will send along any future examples of stuff moving around. Since it seems Revit's "stickyness" is by design (and it does have its upside), it would be worthwhile for us to learn how to work with this feature.

Even though I've been using Revit since R4, I still foist some of my AutoCAD expectations onto the software even still.

[ita]

andrewg, good point!

It would be very helpful if the constraints that are not satisfies are highlighted and elaborated on. It is frustrating not to know what is being altered and when you don't know you don't go. The error message box could be more helpful. Obviously Revit has defined a list of conditions taht are affected with the change being attempted - if we knew what objects are implicated we can make a decision to go or not.

When the error message appears my rule 99.999% of the time is not to do it and to find a workaround or change something. However if I understood what was changin I may well decide to go ahead with the change an repair the damage later. :)

[irwin]

When constraints aren't satisfied, the extended error dialog lists the elements that are constrained (for example, two walls that have a locked dimension between them). If you click on one of these elements in the dialog then that one highlights in the graphics window and Show should take you to a view where it is visible. (If it doesn't the first time, you can press Show again to go to another view, switch the view to wireframe, etc.). Also, you can jot down the element's ID, Cancel from the error dialog, and then use Tools | Element Ids | Select by Id to select the element, find its Properties, etc.

[Wes Macaulay]

That's a good point, Irwin. When I'm troubleshooting one of our client's files I do use this to find an offending object.

[Martin P]

I find things like moving an internal partition - which will move an external wall quite annoying. I too find a lot of the "magnetic" movement in revit annoying, it seems you spend at least as much time telling things NOT to move as you would just moving the things you would want moved - and at least then you would know for sure what is moving....

Structural columns come in set at "moves with nearby objects" which I have pointed out on numerous occasions, and THE most annoying magnetic behaviour of all is still there - even after almost unanimous agreement on this site that it was bad - beams still snap to column centres, which is 100% a hindrance I can force revit to lock things like this manually - but I cannot override this magnetic beahviour manually......

[aggockel50321]

After rereading the above thread, I tried a few examples this morning. I now think one of the areas giving myself problems is that I tend to use the same building model for multiple projects, and am constantly adding callouts, duplicating views, etc., and then deleting them later after the project completes or is cancelled.

Any constraints I add within a project are always by constrained dimensions. The only objects that I'll select & then add a lock within a project might be a few base reference planes, or sometimes grid lines.

Here's a few observations & things that I find I tend to violate, & it gets me in trouble later.

1.) Although dimensions are view specific, the constraints they establish when locked, are not, as it should be.

2.)If I delete a constrained dimension, I get the dialog warning me of the constraints, & do I want to break them.

3.) If I delete the view containing the constrained dimensions, the dimesions go, but the constraints remain, & I get no warning.

4.) If I add a phase, duplicate a view, change that view to the later phase, constrain objects within that view with locked dimensions, & then delete the view, the constraints remain, & extend back into previous phases. (Phasing was the way I handled design options, pre 6.0)


What I think would help, would be an understanding of how constraints are added to objects by the software. I noticed this morning in 6.0 that when create walls on level 1, & then go to level 2 and create walls, snapping to the walls shown in the level 1 underlay, they are not constrained to each other. The same seems true with walls & grids. Was this the case in previous releases??

[funkman]

I find things like moving an internal partition - which will move an external wall quite annoying. I too find a lot of the "magnetic" movement in revit annoying, it seems you spend at least as much time telling things NOT to move as you would just moving the things you would want moved - and at least then you would know for sure what is moving....

Martin, what I do to get over this is instead of moving the wall, hold the Ctrl button to copy the wall you want to move and then just delete the original. The same properties seem to remain with the new wall without moving its corresponding contraints.

[JohnASB]

I am a newby at this but a longtime autocad user/manager who likes to know all relationships explicitly, when I want, not just when a conflict dialog pops up.

When I pick on an item I would like to see it's relationships; perhaps by highlighting objects it is constrained to in some special way and/or showing a special constraint dimension entitiy (that is clearly recognized as a constraint dimension). This entity could be used by users as well to explicitly constrain objects in two picks instead of using dimension, locking dimension then hiding dimension. An angular dimension version could constrain to corners, etc.

John A

[Martin P]

to know all relationships explicitly, when I want, not just when a conflict dialog pops up.

When I pick on an item I would like to see it's relationships; perhaps by highlighting objects it is constrained to in some special way and/or showing a special constraint dimension entitiy
John A

Absolutely agree, have put a wish on the wishlist some time ago for this.... you have to know everything that is being affected before you can decided which things to lock.

- copy the wall :shock: I never thought of that, disjoin always deleted everything - good tip!

[bclarch]

Martin,
Where's your wishlist post regarding this? I would like to add my voice in support of it. As the Revit development team keeps telling us, the squeeky wheel gets the grease.

[Martin P]

Martin,
Where's your wishlist post regarding this? I would like to add my voice in support of it. As the Revit development team keeps telling us, the squeeky wheel gets the grease.

CLICK HERE (http://www.zoogdesign.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1162)

dont know if that will work? - but it us under the title "highlight all objects that have just moved"

[Wes Macaulay]

- copy the wall :shock: I never thought of that, disjoin always deleted everything - good tip!
Yeah - it's what a few of us have had to do. It's a bogus workaround... but sometimes the Disjoin option doesn't cut it.

[irwin]

I find things like moving an internal partition - which will move an external wall quite annoying. I too find a lot of the "magnetic" movement in revit annoying, it seems you spend at least as much time telling things NOT to move as you would just moving the things you would want moved - and at least then you would know for sure what is moving....

Structural columns come in set at "moves with nearby objects" which I have pointed out on numerous occasions, and THE most annoying magnetic behaviour of all is still there - even after almost unanimous agreement on this site that it was bad - beams still snap to column centres, which is 100% a hindrance I can force revit to lock things like this manually - but I cannot override this magnetic beahviour manually......
I will respond to these in reverse order:
1) As regards the snapping of beams to columns, we know about the problem and are looking into fixing it.
2) Columns (both architectural and structural) have "Moves with Nearby Elements" checked by default. However, the ONLY elements that they move with are column grids that pass through the center of the column. Our assumption was that if you have a column grid passing through the center of a column then you'd always want the column to move when the grid is moved. Is that not correct?
3) As regards internal partitions causing exterior walls to move, some examples are needed to know what is happening. Is the exterior wall parallel with and joined to the interior partition? Our assumption has been that if two joined walls are parallel then moving one should move the other. Do you think that they never should, always should, or only sometimes? If sometimes, then what are the conditions?

[PaulB]

I have been reading this thread with some interest as I too have had things move or not move or do unexpected things.

There are always going to be some things in a software package that do not suit everyone in the way they work, certain actions have numerous possible results in the way the user expects a result. I am not going to comment specifically on this preceived drawback but I would like to say.........

Overall Revit is a very good software package and despite minor glitches, either with the way the user is made to work or the unexpected outcomes of some commands, we have come a long way in terms of productivity and presentation from what we would have had with some other software.
I think sometimes we don't appreciate what an enormous task it is to write software that will suit every user in many different countries around the world. I think that we are extremely fortunate that the founders and the programmers of this software package have both the time and the inclination to answer questions and reply to queries from it's users. I can't think of any time I have received an answer or heaven forbid an explanation as to the reasoning behind the methodolgy of a command. I find the feedback invaluable and would like to thank the gurus from Revit for taking that time to reply.

We have have a tool that gets us 90% of the way to completing our projects, the remaining 10% can be fudged in terms of the presentation of the documents (what we used to do with AutoCAD was all fudging in effect). In time we will get to 99% but as with all good things we need patience. We are also becoming spoilt in the fact that the more tools we get the more we want.

Once again I would like to thank the gurus from Revit for taking that time to reply.

......rant over.

[PaulB]

On a lighter note and just to cross reference to another thread at this forum, How many unexpected things would happen if the software was written by the Building Surveyors/Plan Certifiers.........non of course, the unexpected things would be there we just wouldn't be able to find them. At least not until we looked (and paid) a second time.

[gregcashen]

The more time you spend with Revit, the more you will realize that that 9% (90% to 99% in the above example) can already be achieved with the proper understanding of how to lay stuff out, constrain or not constrain, copy, align, array, etc... I am somewhere between that 90 and 99%. I continue to realize new benefits from Revit and learn new ways of doing things that make modelling and revising easier and easier. Revit, being a 3D technology, is necessarily complex. But it is nowhere near as complex as it could be. At some point, we need to start collecting best practices tutorials on this site...I know Z has a lot of better practices than mine!

[Martin P]

Thanks for answering these things, its very much appreciated.... 8)


1) are looking into fixing it.

:D thank you!!


2) the ONLY elements that they move with are column grids that pass through the center of the column. Our assumption was that if you have a column grid passing through the center of a column then you'd always want the column to move when the grid is moved. Is that not correct?

I must admit that I didnt realise it was grids only - but regarding the second point that you would always want the column to move, I cant say I do think that it would always be the case, (almost always though :wink:)

I think this point really gets to the heart of this thread - I can lock down the columns manually to the grid lines if I want them to be locked, infact for me it is far preferable to do this and I would always do it anyway, even if Revit will move them for me as you describe - if I have not locked something to something else, to my mind it is wrong for Revit to take over and assume that I actually do want this object moved - especially if Revit is not telling me it is going to do so. Particularly with structural components, the location of these is always critical - this same point follows for internal/external walls (admittedly they do line up for the behaviour I describe) - You cant always assume that because they line up before I move the internal partition that I will always want them to line up after I move the internal partition, often I am making a room smaller or larger, but want the building to remain the same.


It would be nice If I could set up relationships between wall types and how they will react with each other - for example internal will not move external or structural walls but they will each other, but will still clean joins with all wall types - curtain walls will only wall join with curtain walls, and only move curtain walls etc etc etc - this would be a really nice set of options to have 8) 8) please....... :lol:

Thanks again for taking my points and answering them individually :)