Level Changes and Nested Groups

[tarrah]

We just found a big glitch with Revit and how we are using our groups. Here is the conclusion:

You cannot make level changes to nested groups.

We have a new 100 unit, 4-story residential project. A typical floor plan contains many of one unit type, but other units are unique and only occur once per floor. So we have group instances of our typical unit plan that are placed inside of our entire floor plan, which is another group. In addition, our bathrooms and kitchens are also groups of components (i.e. sink, countertop, etc.) So we have kitchen groups nested in unit groups nested in floor groups.

When we needed to change the floor to floor height, we got a plethora of error messages.

Options/Solutions:
1a. Make your entire floor one group of model geometry and paste aligned to other levels.
1b. Make every unit (or every 2 or 3 units) a group and paste aligned to other floors without making the entire floor a group.
1c. Delete all instances of the group except for one instance, change the floor to floor height, and re-paste aligned, replacing the associated detail groups to the new group instances.

2a. Make your kitchens and bathrooms into components, drawing model lines to represent the kitchens and bathrooms in 2D. As a result, there are families inside of groups, but not groups inside of groups.
2b. Exclude kitchens and bathrooms from your unit groups.

Any thought out there in Revit world?


Subsequent questions:

1. Am i missing something?
2. Does the wall height have anything to do with this? Do walls need to be unconnected or can they attach to the level above? with my experimentation, I dont think it matters as long as you have NO nested groups.
3. I assume the same problems do not exist with nested families?

[ErichB]

I am running into similar issues as our units are groups. Had to adjust the truss depth to 20" from 18". Only solution found was to delete all instances, change levels and re-populate the model with the groups accordingly. Thankfully it is still faster than CAD!!!! If anyone has suggestions for creating units that can flex like that, I'd love to hear them!

[dhurtubise]

When using walls in group make sure that height is not connected to the level above but unconnected and set the height in the properties.
I would suggest that you convert to link files. As long as you dont really mind having walls not cleaned up.
As for the bathroom elements. Those ARE familes (or should be), so use families.

[Kevin Janik]

When using walls in group make sure that height is not connected to the level above but unconnected and set the height in the properties.
I would suggest that you convert to link files. As long as you dont really mind having walls not cleaned up.
As for the bathroom elements. Those ARE familes (or should be), so use families.

This seems to be different then how groups worked in versions back near version 7.0. They use to be much more flexible in this way constrained to levels but now seem more fixed like a block. Is there a way to change floor heights without making the wall heights unconnected and if the floor levels are different dimensions, will they become separate groups when I tell the to go back to be constrained to the levels?

Any help?

Kevin

[Kevin Janik]

Someone must know something out there.

Kevin

[Kevin Janik]

Last try, is anyone out there to comment on my post above. Seems really dead out there since AU regarding this post.

Thanks for anyone's input in advance.

Kevin

[John Anderson]

I am having similar problems. Walls heights do not flex well in groups. I should be able to change the wall top and bottom constraint in any instance of a group without affecting other instances of the same group.

Awful that this is so buggy and a big stink needs to be made of this so Autodesk knows how important it is to get this right.

If the ceiling height changes from floor to floor, or floor finishes change (i.e., gypcrete on upper levels only) then wall heights should easily flex to level constraints without error, fix groups, or any such thing.

Ideally, unit is placed on Floor x Finish Floor level, walls bottom constraint set to Floor x level and walls top constraint set to Floor x Plate level. No OFFSET should be added to wall top or bottom contraints (or other objects for that matter) of other instances when wall top and bottom level constraints are set, just because the wall heights vary between instances.

Please Autodesk, Fix This 'feature' ....

[Kevin Janik]

Since it use to work fine before, are we sure there is no way to make them one group for all level to level constraint groups? It seems very difficult management wise.

Maybe AutoDesk could chime in.

Kevin

[Dwane Lindsey]

As for making a wall in a group a different height from the other instances of that same group, you can use the Attach method as if the wall wasn't part of the group. Tab through to get to the wall you want to adjust, then go up to the Options Bar and use Attach. Select the floor, ceiling, reference plane, etc. to attach to. It will only affect the wall in the group you selected and not modify any of the other groups. This is about the only way I have found to modify individual wall heights within groups.