Working with multiple finished floor levels

[patricks]

We're working an extensive urban renovation project, where the sidewalk along the street slopes a good bit, with around 8 or 9 feet of fall from one end to the other. The building has access at both ends, and a couple of places in the middle. The building of course must be handicap accessible, so all door should be at grade. To accomplish this, there are many ramps set up, and many finish floor levels to define each of the flat areas between the ramps.

The first floor of the building probably has 4 levels to itself. A co-worker was wondering if there was a way to graphically show on the screen which elements are referencing which level, perhaps make everything NOT referencing a particular level turn halftone.

At this point, we have a working plan view set up for every single level, so that element creation (doors, casework, etc.) goes on the correct level. This is in addition to the actual dimensioned and noted plans that will go on sheets. However, like worksets, I'm sure it would be easy to place something in the wrong place in a view, thus making it above or below the floor. If we could set up the working views such that elements on the level of that view were at 100%, and other elements on levels just above or below would be halftone, that would be ideal.

Anyone have any suggestions for this type of work? Unfortunately we cannot filter by "Level" in the Filters dialog.

[Rick Houle]

I have a team of folks doing something that steps a lot. And, instead of having a bunch of levels, they are trying to pull it off by simply offsetting from the main level as needed and using spot elevations. (I am waiting to see how well this works for them before i praise it or knock it)

One problem they have encountered is wall-hosted families that will shift out of place or will report problems when the "Group" is offset up or down from the level...
(it kind of makes sense since the wall-hosted objects are all oriented to a "reference level")

Their number of levels would otherwise be dizzying. I like your idea of identifying objects of different levels. But is there a way to alleviate the many level heads showing up in every view when they all might not be relevant? Can "scope boxes" help filter the level heads out of irrelevant views?

(not trying to veer the thread off course, just hoping we can gather enough clues to make it an easier process)

[patricks]

Yeah this project is actually renovations and additions to 2 different buildings on adjacent blocks, with a pedestrian bridge spanning the street in between. We have already set up scope boxes around each building to keep the appropriate levels around each building only. However, one building still has those 4 levels on the first floor by itself.

As an aside, I visited the new main library in downtown Seattle, Washington a couple years back. The stacks in that library are actually located in a rectangular "spiral", where each row of stacks is on a flat floor surface, and then each aisle in between is a small ramp. So when you walk from one end to the other, you're half a level down, then you walk back again and you're a full level down, and so on. When I was walking through there I thought, man, the CD's must have been a nightmare with hundreds of F.F. elevations, no matter what program they used. :p