Why can't we schedule everything in Revit?

[dpasa]

I can't understand why there are some things we can't schedule in Revit.
It would be great to be able to have detailed info about quantities and materials for everything.
For example, a useful thing to have is the length of wall sweeps. I haven't been able to make a wall sweep schedule. This is very bad.

This probably should be added to the wishlist but I post it here in case there is a workaround for some of these.

Also it would be interesting to make a list of what you can't schedule in Revit so please add what you already know.

Thank you in advance for any comment on this

[sbrown]

If you make your sweeps using inplace families(wall or other) than you can schedule them. You will only get the area however, not the length. I'm not sure why.

[robert.manna]

If you make your sweeps using inplace families(wall or other) than you can schedule them. You will only get the area however, not the length. I'm not sure why.
As an in place family could you create a shared parameter that gave you length, and therefore could be scheduled. I did this with countertops, though given most counter tops are done as seperate families, if some did need to make an in-place custom counter top they could still schedule the required linear feet of counter top.

-R

[sbrown]

You certainly could, however I'm frustrated that it doesn't automatically know its length. Any sweep in my opinion should know how long it is. And I'm sure it does know be cause its calculating an area and you can't get the area with out the lenght.

[robert.manna]

Yeah, I agree it would be nice, at least there is a workaround though...

-R

[dpasa]

IMO, workarounds make Revit Team lazy... When I go to properties dialog of a wall sweep, the length is there! Also, inplace families are not needed because we have a command saying "wall sweep" so this is what we should use...
Thanks anyway for your answers, I guess I will follow your instructions until Revit 10 (I hope)

[Andre Baros]

Actually, a list here would be a great idea. I recently complained to support about not being able to schedule room areas in a multi-category schedule... their answer was "oops, we thought you could" I think this is just a case of so many options they haven't gotten to all of them so a list of items that are required would be great... and we would need to pass that list along to the factory.

[dpasa]

A list is something limited... What we need is that everything that can be created in Revit should be scheduled too.

[Andre Baros]

Right, I guess what I'm saying is that everything can be scheduled in some way, just not always the way that we need. So we could make a list of things which can't be scheduled the "right" way.

[Batman]

So what happened....is there a list somewhere?

[mmodernc]

ditto
have you tried exporting to 3ddwf and using component data

[lev.lipkin]

Revit provides schedules by categories. Wall sweeps are considered part of wall definition, there is choice for wall sweeps which wall subcategory to use. So they do not belong to wall schedule as separate item, do they?

Thus we got into current situation. Factory understands importance of the resolution of this issue.

[Anthony.d]

Why can't we add to out-of the box (OTB) categories ? Then we could make our own a schedules?

[Calvn_Swing]

I think this is a fantastic question to have someone like lev, or David Conant answer. I think there are advantages and problems to allowing this, but it is something that needs to be discussed again now that Revit has evolved and gotten a lot more market acceptance.

Anyone care to chime in?

[SkiSouth]

Place specific requests, not generalities. I recently ran into this issue with balusters the other day, as we are using specific forged balsuters, we wanted a count for multiple railings, multiple buildings. Not possible currently - see this thread (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=71127). The factory did reply with a not possible, but placed in request cue...

[ACE001]

Place specific requests, not generalities. I recently ran into this issue with balusters the other day, as we are using specific forged balsuters, we wanted a count for multiple railings, multiple buildings. Not possible currently - see this thread (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=71127). The factory did reply with a not possible, but placed in request cue...


Well it's 2008 and I guess the cue is kinda long...
My interiors group is laying out dining seating for 1650 seats, in a riverbed-esque series of curves.
I created a railing type that uses a table & chair family as baluster and it enables the team to layout the seating quickly and consistently spaced along the varying curves.
Now we need to schedule these seats.
This ability seems to still be missing. Has anyone had any success using the railing "series" tool and enabling a way to grab the nested information?

[robert.manna]

Make the seat a shared nested furniture family that is placed into a baluster family. Then use the baluster family in your "railing". For fun, you can add a parameter that will allow them to replace the seat with any other piece of furniture loaded into the project, as shared nesting will allow you that kind of access. Word of warning with shared nested you can only map instance parameters from the baluster to the nest chair family. As the chair is actually loaded into your project you have access to the type parameters directly. This also means that if you do add a parameter that allows you to switch the furniture around any instance parameters that are mapped have to be consistent otherwise the family will break when you switch the chair for something else.

Oh yeah, then create a furniture schedule. ;)

HTH,
-R

[robert.manna]

So, ACE tried out the technique I proposed and he encountered some strange results (in the interest of full disclosure we know each other from both working in the Philly area). When the furniture family is set to be shared nested in a baluster family. All instances of the furniture family are located near the project origin (on top of each other) relative to the project origin with the same relation the nested family has in the baluster family. So if the furniture family is 30' away from the baluster's origin, the furniture family will be 30' away from the project origin, no matter where you're railing sketch is. I tried several permetations with the baluster family and locking the nested family to the refplane and not the refrence level to no avail. This is a really wacky error, and something I have not encountered when using shared nested previously. I will probably send the test file into my Autodesk contact for him to take a look at. Its really wacky!

edit: I spoke too soon there is only one instance of the furniture family, even though there should be multiple balusters present in the length of the given rail. Didn't do my complete homework before... I mis-understood an error message I was getting.

-R

[ACE001]

No resolution on this yet. It doesn't appear to work correctly and may need a little code-work to fix it. So the resolution for us is using the furniture-embedded railing w/o the shared parameter and laying out the 1650 seats in the "riverbed" design, then use the 'Align' tool and place and align the furniture to each of the railing-formed locations.
:cry:

[twiceroadsfool]

I would use a Line Based Generic Model with the necessary calcuations embedded in it so that the two points you draw create a chord, and array the furniture elements around an arc specified by the math formulas.

Just my two cents, but it irks me when railings are used for non railing things. Ive heard all the "bend the rules" arguments, and im yet to see it work in a way i found all beneficial...

[robert.manna]

Having seen the test file that I played with, I can safley say that I don't think a line based family would help in this situation, the railing tool allows for a certain amount of flexibility that can't be built into a mathmatically derived family (without doing alot of work).

I agree though, I'm generally against co-opting tools for use they're not intended for, but there are occasions where its useful.

-R

[ACE001]

If a line-based family worked for this situation, sure we would have done that. Unfortunately the series of lines are far more complex than what LB can accomplish and the "Railing" tool or what would be better named "Series" tool, is ideal(if it only worked with shared params properly).
Don't be irked twiceroadsfool, for it is the creative use of tools that has brought us a couple of ingenious inventions, like Smoke Signals, and the internet.;)
:beer: Cheers

[twiceroadsfool]

Creative use of tools, im all for, as long as implications are well thought out and planned for. Ive seen, however, railings used to model complex Expansion joints that can then only be tagged by material... And all the hacks that ensued with different materials for different expension joints, just to get intelligent tags to work correctly, lol.

Im a geek at heart, id rather write the formulas. To each their own :)

[Chris.N]

If a line-based family worked for this situation, sure we would have done that. Unfortunately the series of lines are far more complex than what LB can accomplish and the "Railing" tool or what would be better named "Series" tool, is ideal(if it only worked with shared params properly).
Don't be irked twiceroadsfool, for it is the creative use of tools that has brought us a couple of ingenious inventions, like Smoke Signals, and the internet.;)
:beer: Cheers
does this layout need to be rendered? (i'm assuming 2D visualization only) would using the Repeating Detail tool work?

[robert.manna]

does this layout need to be rendered? (i'm assuming 2D visualization only) would using the Repeating Detail tool work?

In his case the repeating detail tool would be more limiting then attempting to make a complex family using the line based template(s).

Craig, you can correct me if I'm wrong.

-R

[atbergma]

Well it's 2008 and I guess the cue is kinda long...
My interiors group is laying out dining seating for 1650 seats, in a riverbed-esque series of curves.
I created a railing type that uses a table & chair family as baluster and it enables the team to layout the seating quickly and consistently spaced along the varying curves.
Now we need to schedule these seats.
This ability seems to still be missing. Has anyone had any success using the railing "series" tool and enabling a way to grab the nested information?

I just employed the technique described in this thread for auditorium seating and got it to work, sort of. As stated earlier, I was unable to share the chair. But through the careful use of a calculated values in a railing schedule, I was able to get the schedule to give me an accurate count (I think). The key was to justify the balusters from the beginning with no beginning or end posts. (no spread pattern to fit, no excess length fill). The formula for the calc value (which is an integer BTW) goes something like this:

((Length - (.5*[your favorite chair spacing+.01"]) / [your favorite chair spacing])

[twiceroadsfool]

We have a Line Based Family with the aud seats nested in as Chair Families, and it works in arcs, and it schedules them as chairs.

(Not to beat my dead horse...)

[atbergma]

. . . so how do you get this line-based dead horse to follow a parametric arc whose center, endpoints, and radius are easily controlled in the project? Whose seats are spaced just so? I've tried leading my horse to drink of the arc, but alas; he is of straight and square stock.

[Haden]

Has anyone found any new ways to do a material takeoff from a wall sweep within the new features of 2009 without having to delete all wall sweeps and replace with in-place family sweeps?

[cbaze]

Has anyone found any new ways to do a material takeoff from a wall sweep within the new features of 2009 without having to delete all wall sweeps and replace with in-place family sweeps?

This is still not possible in 2010, is it?

[nsinha73]

"Why can't we schedule everything in Revit?"
Wow!! Very good question though......Ask yourself how were you able to schedule in your previous Software such as Autocad, Vectorworks, Datacad, etc.....

For Myself, I am thankful that atleast I am able to schedule something, rather then nothing....but yeah!! Revit cannot please all.....:-D