Phase Filters

[Mactn113]

I am sure this has been discussed before but I can't find what I am looking for.
Could someone please point me in the right direction?

I have 7 different phases for a renovation project:

1) Existing:
2) 1A
3) 1B
4) 1C
5) 2A
6) 2B
7) 3A

Is there a way to display phases 1A through 3A as New Construction?

[Matt Brennan]

In your phases filers through your settings, set your existing filter phase to say "by category". This should do the trick for what you are looking for.

For this task you may want to create a new phase filter.

I hope this helps,

[bowlingbrad]

I don't think you can do it all in one view. The phase filters apply to the current (New) phase and any previous phase (Existing). These headings and such are very confusing.

[Gadget Man]

I may be mistaken but I feel that there is a common misconception about phasing in Revit.

If I understand Revit's phasing correctly, there are really only two distinctive phases: "Existing" and "New" ("New Construction"). If something was built in "Existing" phase and demolished in "New" it doesn't belong to the third "Demolished" phase, but the word "demolished" only describes its state. It only means that it doesn't exist anymore in the current phase (called "New") but existed in a phase previous to "New" (called "Existing"). For simplicity, I assume that the current phase is set to "New" (as we usually model new stuff in a "New" phase, don't we?) but it could be also set to "Existing" (making things more complicated again...)

In other words, simplifying, there are two phases (previous=Existing and current=New) and two states of objects (Demolished and Temporary). "Temporary" is simply something that was created and demolished in the same phase (doesn't matter in which).

Of course, you can set up your new phases as you like - eg. I tried once a phase called "Future Works" to mark any possible Future Development - but as it is impossible to set any new Graphic Overrides, there are only certain ways you can apply your existing overrides to your filters, before you start to repeat them... And it's really hard to specify "Future Works" within the given choices...

It is very limited because it only can compare two phases at the time - say, if current phase is 1B than phase 1A is previous to that. So in that example, logically, phase 1A would be considered "Existing" and phase 1B "New". But when we set phase 1C as current (further along the track), suddenly phase 1 B becomes "Existing", so what happens to phase 1A? It also stays "Existing"? Essentially yes, but that suddenly involves changing phasing of the objects created in this phase from "New" to "Existing"...

It gets very messy pretty soon...

If we, on the other hand, had a chance to define our own new graphic overrides, then the possibilities would be much greater and phasing would have much more sense in the real meaning.

[Mcgregage]

Completely 110% agree Jerry. WE MUST BE ABLE TO CREATE OUR OWN GRAPHIC OVERRIDES!

[Scott D Davis]

Look at it like this: instead of phases called "New" and "Existing", call the phases "One" and "Two". The phase names are "periods of time". Demo, Existing, and New are "actions" during that phase.


In Phase One, you can have stuff that is Existing, New, and Demo.
Existing = anything that was there before Phase One
New = things created during Phase One
Demo = Things Demolished during Phase One

Phase Two, you can have Existing, New, and Demo.
Existing = things created in Phase One
New = things created during Phase Two
Demo = Things Demolished during Phase TwoI've seen projects with 52 phases....done by a contractor to simulate a year long construction project. Each object was assigned a 'week' number. If the object was 'new' in Phase One, it becomes existing in Phase Two. Some things such as construction fencing, were "demo'd' in phase 52...at the end of the project. Note!! If you demo something in the same phase it was created, its 'Temporary'

[Calvn_Swing]

Scott, the problem is that something is either "current" or it isn't. There is no way to set overrides by phase rather than by "current or previous."

To answer the question, if you want to show several phases as "current" then you have to make them all one phase. Which, not surprisingly, is stupid. Plain and simple. Unfortunately, this is a case where you've got to live with the system for now. You'll have to either have all your previous phases show as "by category" or "overridden." If that doesn't work for you, Revit says : "Tough." Which also, not surprisingly, is stupid.

Worse, since Autodesk has kindly (sarcasm) hard-coded phase filters into the view properties, they have therefore removed them from the list of selectable parameters in the "Filters" tab where something like you're talking about could be achieved.

Why we can't have one nice consistent means of "filtering" views is beyond me. In RA2009 we'll probably have yet another hard coded filter removing more functionality from the VG menu... (end rant)

It's still better than anything else out there, and maybe if we complain enough they'll fix this one...

Edit> I'm clearly having a -bitter- at Revit day today. Take all comments with a grain of salt. (Especially ones about stupidity...)

[Scott D Davis]

To answer the question, if you want to show several phases as "current" then you have to make them all one phase.

No, you have to set the Phase to the one called "show complete" out of the box, where the overrides are set to By Category for New and Existing objects, which will take the phase of the current view, and show it and all previous phases By Category.

In my example, if the view is set to Phase 32, and I set the phase filter to Show Complete, Phase One to 32 will all be shown By Category, which means they all look like Revit's default object styles.

EDIT: thinking more....you can't just show phase 25 to Phase 32 as "complete", and all other phases as something else....maybe thats what you are eluding to?

[dbaldacchino]

I think that's what he's talking about. If your view is set to phase 32, it will show everything up to that phase and with phase filters, the only control you have is how to display objects created in Phase 32 (new) and how to display objects created between Phase 1 and Phase 31 (existing). That's where the problem lies: one cannot filter for objects created in a specific group of phases and apply a phase filter to them. I would say perhaps phase filtering needs to be consolidated in the new filters interface and the current phase filters system taken out. Of course more options need to be added to make this a complete solution.

I hate suggesting obscene workarounds, but for the sake of showing objects from Phase 25 to Phase 32 as "new" and anything from Phase 24 backwards as "existing", one could do the following (which isn't very parametric):

A) Create a view with a phase of 25. Create and apply a phase filter to only show "Existing" as "Overridden". New is not shown; this way only objects up to 24 are displayed.

B) Create a view with a phase of 32. Use the phase filter "Show complete" (show everything "By category").

C) Go to the view you created in A and select everything. Switch to the view you created in B and hide the selected objects in the view. Now your view displays only objects created between Phases 25 and 32.

D) Overlay the view created in A and the one resulting from C onto a sheet. Now you should see a complete "view" with objects created between Phases 1 and 24 as "existing" with the correct override and objects created between Phases 25 and 32 as "new" shown by category.

[Gadget Man]

My argument wasn't that it is not possible to work around this problem, but that it is... messy! Just that... It gets messy and pretty soon too...

[truevis]

Maybe it's better to keep the Revit phases simple and just use a "Construction Phase" parameter for finer visibility/schedule control.

[Calvn_Swing]

EDIT: thinking more....you can't just show phase 25 to Phase 32 as "complete", and all other phases as something else....maybe thats what you are eluding to?

Precisely what I was talking about. All that would have to be done to make all this possible is to remove phase filter from the VP settings and let us do visibility graphics filters on the phase parameter. It isn't like Revit "can't" do this, just that Autodesk hasn't enabled it yet.

dbaldacchino's workaround proves it "can" be done. The process he goes through is EXACTLY what a filter does. Makes a selection set and applies a graphics override to it. Strangely, that is exactly what phase filters do. Except (like in most instances where someone chooses to hard-code a functionality into Revit) we have way fewer options that we should have in a true modeling database.

Heck, if they could even leave the phase filters in the VP dialog and just make sure to add that to the VG Filters tab as well. If you've got a phase filter set, it shows in both places.

Come on Autodesk!!!