Detail Component in Curtain Panel showing through anything.

[tomnewsom]

I've got a nice curtain wall system set up that closely matches the Schuco Frameless system, incuding detail components for sections of all the mullion pieces. Seeing as how the frame of the opening panel is part of the panel itself, this is where I have included one of these detail components. Everything works fine, and the detail component follows the frame section around properly. It looks great in plan and section.

However, in all plan views, the detail components of curtain panels that are hidden in the view still show through. See attached screenshot. I've also included the curtain panel rfa so this can be troubleshooted (troubleshot?)

Basicly, it's very annoying, and rather ruins the look of my floor plans. The problem doesn't happen with curtain mullions, so I might have to end up putting the detail in the mullions. I have checked:

All visibilty settings.
View Range
Filters (can't filter by Level anyway)

Any ideas?

[ejburrell67787]

I had a look at your family. Because it is a nested detail component of symbolic lines, you can't set it to only show when the element is cut, which I think is what is needed. I don't how to do that though... I read through some of the threads on similar topics (nesting details in sweep families...) but I couldn't see an explanation of how to get it only to show when cut there either!

So hopefully someone will turn up with an answer and I will learn how to do it too! :beer:

[dbaldacchino]

I know you don't want to hear this, but I think this is a case of over-detailing. In your plan views printed at 1/8", these details will show as a blob, so if I were you, I'd take them out. Just draft 2D details if you want to in sheets specifically meant for detail views. I wouldn't even do that. All you should care about for documents is the overall thickness & dept of the mullion, and the placement of the glass and it's overall thickness. Yes, the extrusion drawing looks pretty, but who cares? That's just my opinion.

Now, as for the display, you should be able to control this by using subcategories in your detail component family. Create a sub-cat., "Mullion detail" for instance, and assign your linework to this. Load it up in your project and in your plan views, go to V/G, find the category Detail Items and turn off the subcategory that you created.

EDIT: Welllll this won't really work as it would turn of all your detail components in the mullions/curtain panels that are actually cut.

[Andre Baros]

I use this technique successfully by using the course-medium-fine levels of detail. Any view which shows multiple mullions sections, such as this one, is set to course, and the nested detail is turned off. At medium, a more detailed outline profile is used and at fine the whole detail is used. The fine details are always zoomed way in so I never have this problem and detailing is a snap.

[greg.mcdowell]

I use this technique successfully by using the course-medium-fine levels of detail.

Do you notice any slow downs in your file with all this additional detail in the families?

I've been thinking about doing this sort of thing but I've started noticing that my more "intelligent" families are a bit slower to respond to commands than my "dumb" families and I'm starting to think I should revisit the issue...

Any thoughts on this?

[tomnewsom]

I know exactly where you're coming from re: complexity of drawings. However, this particular drawing set I'm doing at the moment is going out to al consultants as a set of exported .dwgs - they will be using these electronically, not on paper, so lineweights etc are of no real concern.

This also means that they are free to zoom in and out at will and investigate every detail without having to read specific detail sheets.

Besides, the standard Revit mullions have this sort of setup (with detail components for Fine cuts) and, well, monkey see monkey do :) I will probably end up taking them out for the final construction set.

Still, a thorny one. Seems to me like this sort of thing should be better handled. Symbolic lines should be supported everywhere.

[Andre Baros]

I have noticed families behaving slowly when they have lots of adjustable parameters and/or formulas, but no impact from changes in course/medium/fine visibility. Also, the slowness is only when you're placing or adjusting those families, after that they're fine.

[Heitman Architects]

When creating a curtain wall panel that is not just a simple sheet of glass, view settings became an issue for us. Items above the cut plane in plan were showing up and voids were visible regardless of the view level settings.

Upon investigating it, we found that curtain wall panels do not react to view levels when they are embedded in a curtain wall; they bring their own from the family editor settings. So if you are cutting through a void in your panel when you are editing it, that is what you will see in your host file, regardless of that file's view level settings. Also, certain objects above the cut plane are permanently shown. They do not seem to adhere to any level setting. The only way to not have them shown in plan was to de-select the "if cut in plan" option.

This is, in our opinion, not the way it should work. The curtain wall panel should properly reflect whatever the view levels dictate. Sections are not an issue at all, since there are no settings within the panel family combating with settings in the host file.