Too Few Facets in Tube Cuts

[brakware]

I am currently creating a door family made of steel tubing for use in animal containments systems. The steel tubing varies from 4" diameter to 10" diameter, all 1/4" wall thickness.

When I do plan cuts for my details, I am finding that whenever the tubing is cut, Revit produces a circle made of only 12 to 14 facets (on some of the rounded corners of square tubing I am getting two facets). My scale is at 3" = 1'-0". This is way too few facets for my details, as my weld representations don't attach properly to the shape. Further, all of my circles in projection have so many facets that they appear perfectly circular. When I look at the cut of the tubing with an intersecting horizontal tube below, I have several facets inscribed in a circle.

Does anyone know if there is a setting where I can set the detail level/number of facets for cut circles? At this point I can't use these detail drawings, and I would prefer not to have to go into the family, set all of the modelled objects to be invisible in all but 3D views and draw over everything in all views with detail components and symbolic lines.

Thanks in advance for any help...

[Fred Blome]

I have the same problem occurring in a railing, where detail cuts are showing facets. In the detail view, I ended up putting a white filled region w/ an outline over the tube cut.

[brakware]

Problem is that I am having to make large scale holding pens for elephants, rhinos, hippos, and such... I will have hundreds of these steel tube cuts in the project, and I would rather not have to go over every single one in the project. I want it to just work properly.

On of the weird things is that when I go in to do some detail lines, it is allowing to snap to the circle that the facets represent... but it will not properly represent the circle.

[narlee]

There is no setting to improve the facets. It's quite pathetic, IMHO, for software at this level to have such cr*ppy graphics in this regard, but it's a fact. I have found that, when I'm doing bullnose trim, that if I make two 90-degree arcs in stead of one 180-degree arc, it helps. Unfortunately, that's the limit of improvement - Four 45-degree arcs don't help.

[mibzim]

On of the weird things is that when I go in to do some detail lines, it is allowing to snap to the circle that the facets represent... but it will not properly represent the circle.

Have you tried printing these views? Sometimes Revit's graphic abilities are the problem but seem to print fine.

[whittendesigns]

I have the same complaint about the smoothness basically. Like you said, anything rounded looks bad.

What would be the ultimate Revit would be to mix Max and Revit together. Now THAT would be an awesome CAD program!

[robert.manna]

Depending on how you are constructing your families you may be able to use symbolic geometry when the family is cut. Without experimentation I don't know if symbolic geometry would have imrpoved faceting versus cutting actual geometry. I'm tempted to say that the symbolic geometry will perform better as from the sounds of it you are using the detail tools to clean things up. In addition to symbolic geometry you could also create a detail component that you could nest into your door family, as opposed to just using symbolic geometry in the family itself. The advantage of a detail component is that you could use it other families and conditions, and from the sounds of it you are going to have many bars, all over the place....

HTH,
-R

[brakware]

I have found that detail components and symbolic lines work quite well for smoothness... it is the cut solid geometry that causes the problem. I have other families that I have built where I have inserted detail components of the cut rather than building the geometry, but that was because it was somewhat complex geometry. In this case, my extrusion profile is two concentric circles. I was hoping to be able to just cut the solid geometry and be able to see the proper details instead of recreating it in a detail component family for my front, side and plan views and then having to embed them.

The other thing that I was hoping, if I couldn't have better graphics on the cuts, is that I could clean it up with linework in my detail (making the faceted circles invisible, and replacing them with drafting circles). This doesn't work, though, because the fill pattern goes to the extents of the faceted circle and not to the circle itself (which I can snap to, oddly). My fill pattern either falls short of the lines or extends beyond them.

On another note, I did try to print them out to see if it was just a screen representation, but it printed out all yucky with the facets... so that is not the solution.

It looks like I have to embed the circles as detail components.

Blech...

[robert.manna]

In this case, my extrusion profile is two concentric circles. I was hoping to be able to just cut the solid geometry and be able to see the proper details instead of recreating it in a detail component family for my front, side and plan views and then having to embed them.
Yeah, but with the visibility controls that you have, you shouldn't need to do detail components for anything but the plan (cut) unless you want to. Just because you use a detail component in plan, when cut, you aren't required to use detail components in elevation etc. If you do the bar(s) as a single component that is shared nested and copied, then it will be very easy to update and re-use. If you wanted to be crazy about it you could included a shared length parameter for the bars, and you could even schedule total linear bar feet required for your entire project (if you used the same parameter for all potential bar families you create)

-R

[brakware]

I guess, technically, the profile of the horizontal members of my structure are the same profile as the vertical, so I could use the same detail component for both... but I do need to have clean views in my plan cuts as well as my section cuts.

It just adds another layer of complexity to my family, which is processing slowly already.

[robert.manna]

Are your bars all extrusions created in the family? If so making them into a nested shared family may improve performance. Also, if you make it as a workplane based family you should be able to use the same "bar" for horizontal and vertical members. This should help reduce load too. Also, is the bar geometry visible at course level of detail? You may want to consider using a single model line at course level of detail, and maybe even medium, and only have the bar geometry visible in fine, and possible medium.

-R

[kclark.128193]

I've found one workaround for this problem. If you create a 3d view of the section, (While in a 3D view, select View-Orient to other view, then choose your detail section view) the faceting seems to increase. It's still not a perfect circle, but is much more usable. For example, a 2" diameter railing has 10 facets in my Detail Section view, but 24 facets in the 3d view.

One major disadvantage is that you cannot do dimensioning or detail lines directly on the 3d view, but you should be able to add them to a sheet containing the view.