Component Mania

[mschroeder]

It's nice that R9 allows you to copy/paste or bulk import drafting views, but my project is accumulating a mountain of redundant detail families.

When a new drafting view comes in with - let's say - a "break line", you get a warning that it renamed it's type to "break line1". Drop another drafting view that uses the same detail component and you get "break line2".

Anyone know of a workaround?

[Steve_Stafford]

Interesting...will have to look at this. Have you contacted support to share your experience yet?

[Phil Palmer]

I have noticed this as well.
Whenever you import a so called 'typical' detail it will not update your current detail in the project you are importing into,

We are having issues with this on a large multi-unit project.
We have various details that are generic to the overall project but must reside within each units construction documents when plotted etc.

A user will create say a drafting detail - detail comps/lines/text etc. - 2d stuff

But when we then import this detail into each block unit - the details do not update as we want as the file we are importing into always wins !

[patricks]

Revit has always done this when you copy detail components into a project. It most often happens when we copy a drafting detail from an older project into a newer project that has detail items that have been modified since that older project. We've had projects that ended up with several definitions of the brick section component, the dimensional wood board component, etc. Unless the component being copied in is exactly the same as the one already loaded in your project, it will create a duplicate type with a numeral suffix.

The best way I know of to consolodate is to go into the families under the project browser, click on one of the duplicate family types and select all instances, then change those to the main family type, then delete the duplicate type. A little tedious, but it could be worse.

[mschroeder]

... The best way I know of to consolodate is to go into the families under the project browser, click on one of the duplicate family types and select all instances, then change those to the main family type, then delete the duplicate type. A little tedious, but it could be worse.

If you try to consolidate detail components that have instance driven shape handles (like the break line) you will mess up your details. Shape handle locations don't propagate when you swap types. I think this is heart of the problem.

[noah]

Revit should just ask us if we want to overwrite the existing copy of the component or make a new one each time we paste details from one project to another. This is becoming a real maintenance nightmare otherwise.

[andrew.70364]

Recently I harvested a bunch of details for a project and ended up with 6 different types of the same detail component, which had about 6 types within each one. The problem with "selecting all instances" is that all components end up with the same parameter variations. By making a wholesale change you loose instance based variations.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Do the instance based parameters still get lost on the new two pick families or is it just the older versions of these components that are affected?

[andrew.70364]

We've made detail components with multiple graphic options, like thin lines, thick lines, blocking, continuous lumber, etc which gives us a variety of options with one component. For example a 1x3 blocking could be toggled to be a 1x3 with finish wood grain. When I "select all instances" I am forced to give all 1x3's the same properties. We've found through experience that limiting the size of the drop down menu really speeds things up, which is why we're caught between a rock and a hard place with this issue. We consolidate and customize components to slim up the list then Revit duplicates them when we copy them around. Argh!

[anthony.67953]

Moldings - I have created profiles of all my old Autocad moldings so that I can make extrusions and sweeps. Now I need Detail components of all the same profiles. I find it odd that I can't import my .rfa profiles into my detail components template, but I can import Autocad dwgs. I just can't get rid of the Autocad stuff.

[sbrown]

Moldings - I have created profiles of all my old Autocad moldings so that I can make extrusions and sweeps. Now I need Detail components of all the same profiles. I find it odd that I can't import my .rfa profiles into my detail components template, but I can import Autocad dwgs. I just can't get rid of the Autocad stuff.

You actually typically do the opposite, create the detail component, then load that into the profile family so it will show up wherever the profile is used.

[anthony.67953]

Dha! I feel dumb.

Thanks Scott