Revit to Max- Dreaded wall joins

[pfschuyler]

I feel like I'm about to start a weekly column on Revit-to-Max problems. ;-)

This one is a pain. I have a nice clean Revit model with a bunch of perfectly aligned walls. Heck, I've even joined walls from floor to floor. I want to take this model into Max and start rendering. One of the problems with rendering the Revit models that they have nice clean razor sharp edges, not very much like real-world materials. So, I tell myself, I can solve that easily within Max, right? That's why we pay a bunch of money for Max, to access all those great time-saving advanced features.

The Mental Ray renderer in MAX has a great feature. Under the Arch/Viz material there is a Special Affects panel, that will allow you add soft edges within the material itself. This is not a geometery modification, its just a special effect, but it can make all the hard edges of architectural models look soft. This was one of the touted new features of Max 9 when it was released. The only problem is...well, its useless for imported Revit models (won't see that one on the Max sales brochure).

Why? Because a nice clean, perfectly joined Revit model comes into Max showing complete edges for every wall, ignoring the joins themselves. Walls come into max as absolutely separate entities. If you apply the soft edges feature, this will not eliminate the wall overlaps, it will exacerbate them by drawing more attention to the edges.

BTW- lets not talk about the mapping coordinate issues involved here (yikes!). Is there a workaround for this one? Or perhaps, is it fixed in the new 2008?

Thanks.

Paul Schuyler

[Steve_Bennett]

Have you tried changing your wall joins in revit to be mitered as opposed to butt joint for walls that form a corner (interior or exterior)?

What is your weld threshold set to for file/link settings?

[pfschuyler]

Steve,

Thanks man, that did it! Thats a solid gold tip right there, nice work.

Do you know of any way to set that as a default within Revit? I guess the only way to change the joins is one-by-one, corner by corner. Sure would be nice if there was a fast way to change those.

That makes a huge difference. There is still is the floor-to-floor join which appears though on any large, exposed wall. Can you think of a way of solving that without just replacing two walls (on different floors) with one?

Paul Schuyler

[Steve_Bennett]

Steve,

Thanks man, that did it! Thats a solid gold tip right there, nice work.

Do you know of any way to set that as a default within Revit? I guess the only way to change the joins is one-by-one, corner by corner. Sure would be nice if there was a fast way to change those.

That makes a huge difference. There is still is the floor-to-floor join which appears though on any large, exposed wall. Can you think of a way of solving that without just replacing two walls (on different floors) with one?

Paul SchuylerGlad I could help on the vertical seems.

As for the horizontal ones, thats why i was asking about the weld threshold. it should take care of that. if not, how are you joining the geometry in revit?

[pfschuyler]

Weld threshold is the standard Revit setting under the file link manager, in this case .003m (units are set to Meters in Revit and in Max). Interestingly, upon import via the Link Manager, the file must be rescaled using Millimeters to import to the proper scale in Max. I can verify this scale in Max using a tape object, and all is fine now. That should happen automatically (the scaling anyway).

Joining in Revit is via the Join Geometry command, which eliminates the horizontal seam between walls within Revit. I've experimented with a few weld threshold settings now within Max, as high as .1 meters which I think is getting too high. Still no luck eliminating the horizontal seams.

Paul S.

[Steve_Bennett]

Weld threshold is the standard Revit setting under the file link manager, in this case .003m (units are set to Meters in Revit and in Max). Interestingly, upon import via the Link Manager, the file must be rescaled using Millimeters to import to the proper scale in Max. I can verify this scale in Max using a tape object, and all is fine now. That should happen automatically (the scaling anyway).

Joining in Revit is via the Join Geometry command, which eliminates the horizontal seam between walls within Revit. I've experimented with a few weld threshold settings now within Max, as high as .1 meters which I think is getting too high. Still no luck eliminating the horizontal seams.

Paul S.Alright, the screen captures you posted are via the viewport in MAX. Does the rendered image still show a horizontal seam between floor levels? If yes, I'm almost thinking it could be resolved using a Map Scaler (WSM) to apply the material in MAX. You can also modify geometry in max and it should hold its modifications upon reload - in theory. I have not tested that extensively, so try it first in small increments...

[dellis]

As far as mapping goes....everything in Revit is tiled according to real world settings. So you have to use this option in the material editor in MAX as well.

You should be able to add an edit poly modifier at the top of your geometry stack and fix any edge problems. Although if its linked you will run into problems on re-load.