Phasing with links

[sblackburn]

Hello - I am wondering how to best handle the following (I am sure I just need to tweak a setting): I want to be able to link two or more Revit projects into a file and then show them as phases. Is it possible to show a complete building on the "Existing" phase in a linked file? Let's say I have a Revit model of a building that was completed last year. Now they want to add on to that building. I could go into the model and put everything on the "Existing" phase, link it in and then link in my "New" addition. But is there a way to link it in "as-is" and then put it on the "Existing" phase? I've tried this - since there is phasing options in VG for linked Revit models- but it doesn't seem to work. What am i doing wrong? Also - if I go to option #1 and change the whole model to the "Existing" phase - is there a way to do this quickly? It seems like you have to change the phases of everything by category. I would be interested in what others are doing for this very common scenario. Thanks.

Steve Blackburn
MPA Architects, Inc.

[JamesVan]

It sounds most likely that you would use Phase Mapping to connect the Existing phase in the linked model to New Construction in the host...or vice versa. Trying to wrap my head around what you're trying to do.

FYI, Phase Mapping is new to Revit 2009 and is accessed under the Type Properties of a linked RVT file.

Think I figured it out...You should create a phase AFTER the last phase (assuming it is "New Construction") in the 'existing' project (for example "PostOcc"). Link it into the 'addition' project. Select the linked 'existing' project and map the phases as follows:

Phase : Phase from Linked File
Existing : New Construction
New Construction : PostOcc

[sblackburn]

Phase Mapping, huh? I thought that sounded new. I'll have to investigate that in 2009. I thought I'd be able to do what I need to do in the standard VG settings in 2008 for linked files. There is a custom VG setting under Revit Links for the phase of that link - I would think changing it to "Existing" would put that linked file in the existing phase. But that setting makes the linked file disappear, even though the Phase Filters are set to "Show All". The only way I can get a linked Revit file to show up as existing is to go back to the file itself and put everything on the "Existing" phase. Not sure I want to do that everytime.

[Scott Womack]

Phase Mapping, huh? I thought that sounded new. I'll have to investigate that in 2009. I thought I'd be able to do what I need to do in the standard VG settings in 2008 for linked files. There is a custom VG setting under Revit Links for the phase of that link - I would think changing it to "Existing" would put that linked file in the existing phase. But that setting makes the linked file disappear, even though the Phase Filters are set to "Show All". The only way I can get a linked Revit file to show up as existing is to go back to the file itself and put everything on the "Existing" phase. Not sure I want to do that everytime.

As James said, this behavior is new to 2009, and does NOT work in 2008.

[sblackburn]

I checked out Phase Mapping in 2009, and it seems like it might work for what I need, but it does the same thing as changing the phase to existing in 2008 - the existing building disappears. I have posted a zip file with the very simple project I am trying this out with - here's the explanation that goes along with the files:

The attached zip file contains (3) simple Revit files:
Bldg1-Existing.rvt
Bldg2-New.rvt
Both Bldgs.rvt

The first two files are linked into the third. These are simple files with just four wall - no roofs or anything else. I would like to control the phasing of the "Bldg1-Existing.rvt" in the host file. I first tried to do this with VG; there is a custom VG setting under Revit Links for the phase of that link - I would think changing it to "Existing" would put that linked file in the existing phase. But that setting makes the linked file disappear, even though the Phase Filters are set to "Show All". Then I attempted to do it thru Phase Mapping. I went to Phase Mapping in the properties of the "Bldg1-Existing.rvt" link and mapped "new Construction" to "existing". Once again that link disappeared. I reverted back to the original settings in the attached files since the link was not visible after the above changes.

I have gotten this to work (kind of) two ways - 1) by going into the linked file itself, changing all the walls to the "Existing" phase and setting the host file to show that link "By Linked View" under VG or 2) VG > Revit Links > Display Settings > Custom > Model Categories > Custom > Walls and then override the settings as needed. This allows a lot of flexibility, but would also take a tremendous amount of time on a complex model. I had hoped to be able to do this once for the entire model. Perhaps this has not been considered much yet since most companies are new to Revit and have not had to add on to an existing Revit project yet. But think about it - as we get a backlog of Revit projects, we will need a good workflow to go from New > Existing, then do that again a couple years later with the same project. Hopefully our use of Revit will bring these same clients back to us! Just wondering what others have done in this situation.

Steve Blackburn

[sblackburn]

Any other thoughts on this? Anybody?

[Andre Carvalho]

Any other thoughts on this? Anybody?

Go back to your existing file and create a new phase after New Construction. You can call it "Temp" if you want.

Then open the file where they are supposed to be linked, select the linked file for the existing building, go to its properties, Edit/New > Phase Mapping > change as follow:

Phase>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Phase from linked file
Existing>>>>>>>>>>>>>>New Construction
New Construction>>>>>>Temp

Doing that the New construction phase from your Building 1 existing file will be set as existing on the host file. And the Temp phase will only serve as dumb phase to allow not choosing New construction again as both Phase and Phase from Linked file.

It will work as you want.

I hope it helps,

Andre Carvalho

[Andre Carvalho]

Still commenting on my post above, I have to add that trying to schedule won't show properly on the host file. On your example you had walls on a new construction phase in one file and walls on new construction phase in another file. Even if we mapped the new construction phase from one file to become existing phase on the host file, and leave the other file to be mapped as it is (new construction) the schedule will include the walls from both files as new construction. I'm not sure yet if it is a bug or not.

Andre Carvalho

[sblackburn]

Thanks for the info - that tweak (adding the "Temp" phase) seemed to do the trick, even though nothing is on that phase. I am now trying to figure out the limitations of tagging objects in this setup. Your additional comments on that are something to think about. This will probably be something we will live with, though, since we won't want to go back and change the entire model to the existing phase. I'm hoping that we can correctly tag the most commonly scheduled items like doors, windows, etc. - I'll have to check that out. We may have to tag only the new items in the linked files and delete any tags that only refer to the existing objects.

Steve Blackburn