Managing Linked RVT file Visiblity/Graphics

[greg.mcdowell]

How do you control the visibility of elements in an linked RVT file without going into each and every view (possibly hundreds of them) and manually turning them off?

I know that we could use View Templates to help things out a bit but when you consider that we'd need one for each type, scale, phase and design option (at least) then number of templates needed is almost as difficult to manage as the changes to the individual views.

Say, for example, that we link in our Structural Engineers file and copy/monitor the grid lines. I know need to go into all of our views and turn off the grid lines in the linked file. And if, after all that, we decide we also want to turn off the floors in the linked file we would need to go through the entire process again.

Thoughts, ideas?

[greg.mcdowell]

hopefully this bump will find someone who has an idea or two... or at least can tell me what I'm missing...

[dbaldacchino]

Greg, View Templates as far as I know, are the only way.

The way we're doing it is to create "architectural views" for each floor within the structural rvt project (not required, but has worked well since you only need to set a couple of options instead of turning off categories one by one). In my case, I'm working on a 2 story building, so it's 2 views. I turned gridlines, columns and bracing plan symbols on and that's it. Then in my Revit project, I created View Templates and in the Revit Links, selected the appropriate linked view (Arch1 and Arch 2). Yes, you need a View Template for each floor and scale. I don't believe that's too daunting. You typically have a lot of 1/8" plans with a few occasional 1/16", some enlarged 1/4" plans, building sections and elevations at 1/8" or/and 1/16" and wall sections at 1 1/2". So it shouldn't be as bad. I have about 20 or so Templates, but they're not too bad to manage and quite efficient. Once you assign the default view template to each view, you can apply the default to all views in a couple of clicks. I have been encouraging users to use them because they are a great Q/C measure. One thing I wish you could do is to choose not to load imported categories in the linked file, such as linked dwg's. It just slows you down like crazy and it's all for nothing, since they're typically only in drafting views...one more reason to divorce from dwg completely.

One word of advice....put the structural linked file on a workset and check it out permanently. This week someone inadvertenly deleted the linked file and even the view templates lost the information as to what categories are on or off in the linked rvt file. I think I'll be able to use Transfer Project Standards from one of the old locals and not have to fix the view templates manually, but I haven't tried that yet....will know tomorrow :)

[greg.mcdowell]

Thanks... that's sort of what I figured.

Are you turning these things on/off in the linked file before you load it into Revit or just turning dealing with them in the project file? I'm thinking that if I modified the linked file first I should be able to set up my View Templates to use the visibility settings from the linked file... of course I'll have to remember to rework this when we get a new file.

Also, what are you doing about sections, elevations and details? The plans I don't have a problem with... as you said, there aren't "that" many of them. But I've already got a ton of other views and this is where I'm finding myself bogged down.

So templates then... plan, section, elevation and details... one for each assumed scale... one for each phase and design option (if appropriate)... I guess if you took the time to set these up in the template file it wouldn't be so bad... maybe I'm just whining because I don't have them done yet <grin>

I like the idea of putting the linked file in a separate "locked" workset. I started thinking about doing the same with Shared Levels and Grids.

Really wish there were another way... like maybe a way to globally set the visibility of elements within a linked file... or a way to have as the default something other than "use view settings"

[dbaldacchino]

We have in-house structural, so I just went in and set up a view for each level myself. I made the plan look like I want it to and then I set my view templates for plans to use "By Linked View" and select the view I want. That way it's easy to get your view templates going for plan views. If you're dealing with external consultants, have them leave those views there for you so you don't have to "re-map" each time you get an update....they're just working views for you. If they won't do that, than I'd dump them :) Seriously, if they won't for some odd reason, do them all custom so you don't have to re-do them when you get updates.

For sections, elevations and details, I use V/T (view templates) also....you can group select views of the same kind and assign their default V/T at once. So really the main chore is setting the V/T's, then it's a snap. I'm definately including these in my templates. The only thing the project teams will modify are the settings for linked files. One thing I don't understand about V/T is why they don't save workset information. After all, they're now mainly used for visibility. Oh well :)

[Steve_Stafford]

...One thing I don't understand about V/T is why they don't save workset information. After all, they're now mainly used for visibility...Oh well :) They are not intended for visibilty, it's a collateral benefit. The new Filter feature was created to relieve worksets of this load to some degree. Remains to be seen how succesful it is at that.

I've always assumed that worksets are not support by view templates because they are not always present and may not persist for the duration of the project. There is probably a much more technical reason that I'm just not aware of though.

[JamesVan]

Another option is to close certain worksets when loading the linked model. For example, if the grids in your engineering model need to be hidden in all views, go to Manage Links, select the linked structural file, click on Reload From... then use the Select option under the Worksets pulldown to open the workset dialog of the linked file and close the workset on which the grids reside. This is a brute-force approach and you'll have to go through Reload From... again if you want the grids to appear anywhere again.

[dbaldacchino]

Good tip James....now if only you had control over dwg's, I'd be reeeeally happy. Unfortunately, the user only has control of user-defined worksets....besides the fact that linked dwg's don't even have a worsket property.

Steve, that's why I said "they're now mainly used for" :) I came to Revit in 8.1 and I was aware of the change between borrowing elements and checking out entire worksets. We have not used filters that much as of yet, but it seems to be a pretty slick feature. Since that can be part of a V/T, we'll use that over worksets for visibility. Worksets will still be useful to manage speed on large projects.

[dbaldacchino]

I think I'll be able to use Transfer Project Standards from one of the old locals and not have to fix the view templates manually, but I haven't tried that yet....will know tomorrow :)It doesn't work :banghead:

For some odd reason, it keeps removing my linked rvt files when I transfer project standards. I basically took an old local file, detached from central and saved it to my desktop with a new name, making sure all links were loaded and correct. Then I opened my current local and transferred Project Standards from this file. The linked rvt files go away! So this method doesn't work, I feel this is a bug. Back to fixing the V/T's manually....

EDIT: Oh and BTW, the undo clears out any previous history after this Transfer P.S. occurs, so I had to exit the file without saving. I didn't want to lose the link for the second time!