An easy way to make Revit wall joins drive you insane

[Wes Macaulay]

Insert a column. Now take a wall at least than twice as wide as the column and drag it to the edge of the column -- the wall eats the column!

But wait - there's more...

Now take a curtain wall and end it against the column -- that works fine. But then drag the wall that's 2x the width of the column and everything goes to pot.

I STILL find Revit's wall joins way too reactive. I think others have also wished that there was some sort of toggle you could activate to allow/disallow joins at wall ends. Or a wall join tool: the rest of the time walls would just stop where you dragged them.

Thoughts or workarounds anyone? I tried an in-place void to cut the end off the thick wall to expose the column, but that's a bit brutal...

[aaronrumple]

Why are you putting a column in a wall?

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Aaron,
I think Wes is taking up the cause I brought up in this post
http://www.zoogdesign.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3298

[rhys]

I assume we're talking Architectural columns here, seems fine with structural columns.
Also works with one wall but yes, if two walls meet the column then they join. I can't imagine exactly what you are trtying to achieve, but if the wall is twice as thick as the colum perhaps drawing as two walls would achieve what you want.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Rhys,
Take a look at the images I posted in the other thread. The walls are in line, not meeting at a corner as you have shown. The exterior wall happens to be a masonry rain screen wall that also has a masonry finish on the interior, hence the excessive thickness.
I tried this with architectural columns, structural columns and, as is the case in the project, an in place family with a 'column' family category. If you make the changes in a specific sequence (insert/create column, align the brick to one column face, drag the curtain wall control ppint to the other column face) it seems to stick... until you make any changes to the walls. Then they snap back together.

[Wes Macaulay]

The wall-ending-at-a-column with a curtain wall on the other side is a common feature in "west coast style" architecture such as we have out here in the Pacific Northwest. This post and beam style is very common: roof loads are transferred to columns, and walls are infilled between the columns.

I've got a couple of clients in mind who are beginning to use Revit and so when Dimitri found this one out, I needed to come up with a solution before I get the question.

I'm not at all happy with Revit's behaviour as mentioned above -- this is another problem that comes from hyperactive wall joins.

Even though I'm griping I'm still smiling. At least I've got a workaround! And Revit still makes me happy. And ADT <choke! thud!>

[PaulB]

Just on the general subject of wall joins, we do quite a few tilt-up conc. panel walls. The panel joints are usually about 15mm and we have recessed vertical or horizontal "grooves" as decorative elements. The "grooves" when horizontal are easy enough to do by using a compound wall and adding in reveals. Verticals are a little harder but the main problem we have is in trying to get the 15mm joint between the panels. The panels when set to a 150mm thick conc. wall seem to want to join to each other all the time. Using "disjoin" does absolutely nothing.

I might be missing something but this wall joining, for me, is also just too automatic. Is the "disjoin" feature supposed to be used in this type of situation or not ?

[beegee]

Just on the general subject of wall joins, we do quite a few tilt-up conc. panel walls. The panel joints are usually about 15mm and we have recessed vertical or horizontal "grooves" as decorative elements. The "grooves" when horizontal are easy enough to do by using a compound wall and adding in reveals. Verticals are a little harder but the main problem we have is in trying to get the 15mm joint between the panels. The panels when set to a 150mm thick conc. wall seem to want to join to each other all the time. Using "disjoin" does absolutely nothing.

I might be missing something but this wall joining, for me, is also just too automatic. Is the "disjoin" feature supposed to be used in this type of situation or not ?

Just an idea on tilt up ( which I haven't explored ).
Could you use a curtain wall, with the system panels being the tilt-up and the "mullions" being invisible and 15 mm wide ?

Just an idea.

[shaunv68276]

Use structural columns! that way they interact as they should do. I find columns in modeling useless due to the fact they get eaten by the wall. I used a 200 x 200 Structural column in a 800 thk wall to test no prob.

[Steve_Stafford]

Structural columns are intended to model the structure of a building and architectural (Revit term) columns are intended to get "swallowed" by a wall and further they are meant to reflect a built up condition "around" a colum that otherwise wouldn't "fit" in a wall. Use the right "tool" for the task... :D

[Wes Macaulay]

The same thing happens with architectural and structural columns... :banghead:

So for now I'm recommending an in-place void to cut away the wall to reveal the column, which to me is more than a bit brutal as a workaround.

[Wes Macaulay]

Verticals are a little harder but the main problem we have is in trying to get the 15mm joint between the panels.
Try a reveal that's as thick as the wall, or use an in-place family and create a void and then cut geometry to create the joint.

[aaronrumple]

Edit Elevation profile can help eliminate some of these issues. Attached it an example of the curtain wall/wall/column issue. I just let the wall and curtain wall join as they wanted to and then edited the edge of the main wall to allow room for the column.

No big deal... ;)

[Wes Macaulay]

Edit Elevation profile can help eliminate some of these issues.
Sure - I guess if things are moving around at all I could put in a locked dim in the elevation profile from the ref plane denoting the end of the wall to where I want the edge of the wall to end.

[dpollard909366]

If you edit the architectural column family, you can change the column category setting to not automatically join to walls.

This makes life a lot easier when the box is unchecked I think.

[bowlingbrad]

Structural columns are intended to model the structure of a building and architectural (Revit term) columns are intended to get "swallowed" by a wall and further they are meant to reflect a built up condition "around" a colum that otherwise wouldn't "fit" in a wall. Use the right "tool" for the task... :D

I was having tons of problems with the very condition you spoke of above. I was told by Adesk support that we shouldn't put arch columns 'over' structural columns. DOESN'T THAT DEFEAT THE WHOLE PURPOSE!!!

[J. Grouchy]

I sort of wish there was an option for a manual wall join tool. Sometimes disallowing joins creates as bad a problem as letting Revit join walls incorrectly. Maybe sketching the join would help solve some of the many issues people have with the joining function of Revit.
I dunno...certainly someone here will pick this idea apart.

[Revitator]

Yes,

We often produce a detail sheet of wall junctions, 'Type A', 'Type B', etc for the contractor. If we could sketch the wall joins we wanted, and then apply them as styles to particular wall joins in the model, that would be great! We could just leave any non-critical, simple joins to Revit, and get the results we need for the complex joins.

Just my 2p.

[afshin_samimi]

this is just a simple suggestion "I have tried it some time in some Lucky situation it might work is n it the case with REVIT ?!!!"
Solution is to edit your wall sketch profile and rather to [lock / anchor] your profile's line some how with Ref. Line or near by object. This should!!! control the wall from jumping to "quick Conclusion/Snap".

[bowlingbrad]

I was having tons of problems with the very condition you spoke of above. I was told by Adesk support that we shouldn't put arch columns 'over' structural columns. DOESN'T THAT DEFEAT THE WHOLE PURPOSE!!!

I found the official support comment. It seems there is a little extra work when placing arch columns over struct columns:

I have done some investigation into the column issue in your project. It appears as though the software is working as designed. Architectural columns are design to join geometry (to the walls) immediately upon placement which allows the wall to “heal” around the column.

The unfortunate side effect of this is that when you place an architectural column over a structural column, it may not display properly until you join the geometry of the structural column to that of the architectural column. You may do this by un-joining the wall and the architectural column and then doing a multiple join of the wall, architectural column and structural column, however this technique has variable results since in your project, it is a corner location and the wall joins can have multiple configurations.

An easier method is just to join the geometry of the structural column to that of the already joined architectural column and clean up whatever stray lines remain using the linework tool.

[ejburrell67787]

I sort of wish there was an option for a manual wall join tool. Sometimes disallowing joins creates as bad a problem as letting Revit join walls incorrectly. Maybe sketching the join would help solve some of the many issues people have with the joining function of Revit.
I dunno...certainly someone here will pick this idea apart.Sometimes wall joins can be forced to tidy up the way you want by setting the walls invloved to 'disallow join', dragging the walls to where you want them and then using the join geometry tool to join the walls while they are still set to 'disallow join'.

Also I have found that sometimes after going through the above process then toggling a wall end to 'allow join' it will behave how you want it to.

A good tool to have would be to have an 'edit cut profile' tool that worked on the layers of the wall in 3d instead of the current drafting version.

[luigi]

WOW, somebody resurrected an old thread....

Wasn't the answer to Wes's problem back then to just Disjoin the column from the wall (Disjoin Geometry)? I know that Revit has always automatically joined the geometry of arch. col. with walls, but I also remember being able to just quickly disjoining them and then, dragging to the edge of the arch. column, would work....

[lev.lipkin]

There is option in column family (edit family, go to Settings, Family Category and Parameters, and switch option 'Automatically joins geometry to wall' off) to avoid automatic join geometry.

The thinking behind joining is that column enclosure (for which Columns are primarily targeted for) when touching walls usually assumes wall structure.

If you use column for different purpose or do not want column to assume wall structure automatically, just switch that setting off.

In-place families has this option switched off by default (but it could be switched on).

Sure, disjoin geometry will remove joining between particular pair of wall and column.

[arch_kashif]

Hi, seems like i have understood the difference of understanding of users, and thereby variety of relavent and irrelevant suggested solutions.
I summarize the problem (as understood and faced by me) and then propose a solution:
Specially in Revit 2009, When a structural column is inserted, and a wall element is built touching, passing through or completely embedding the column within it self this happens:
Initially the column (if structural) stays visible, cutting the wall, and later at sometime, during editing walls and specially after joining geometry of wall to column, it gets eaten up by wall element, wall element actually cuts the column. Regardless of the fact if you insert architectural column or a structural column.
Here is a sample image illustrating the problem (column eaten up.jpg)
Note that this does not happen if the same process was done in Revit 2008.
The solution as i figured out is that, Revit 2009 installation comes with Structural Column families named Round column, square column and rectangular column, that are actually not built as structural columns, so even if you insert them as structural columns, they do not act like structural columns :), solution is to use family creation template of structural column and then make your own Structural columns.
I post here the self created Structural Column, cutting the wall no matter what.(column eating walls.jpg)
Hope that clarifies a looooong posted confusion by many including me.