Drafting Views or Detial Components for Details

[amjones]

Hi All,

I have an issue. Drafting Views are great unless you want to update them globally...a big concern here for some of our project types...highly standardized, but that standard changes a bunch. Ideally Drafting Views would be more like a Family or - god forbid - an Xref...that can be reloaded with little fuss.

As another option I have seen here that some people use the Detail Component Family to store their standard details...this allows them to be updated as any family. I am concerned though about the trade offs...what are they?

Here are the questions my limited poking about have yielded:

Can you actually draft in a Detail Component Family? I add text but the Text does not come along for the ride if I place the family. What of Leaders...I can place text but I can't put a leader on it. If Drafting Views become more easily updatable in the future how easy is it to take a detail that is a Detail Component Family and turn it into a real Drafting View? It seems that if I am coming with leaders and everything from an AutoCAD import I am set with the Detail Component Route, but if I actually want to draft the detail or even make the import more Revity with the right text and dimensions I am stymied...thoughts?

Alternately...is there something colossally easy that I am missing about Drafting Views?

Thanks,
Drew

[greg.mcdowell]

Havne't done this myself but I think your best bet would be to put these in a standards project and link it in to your individual projects. You should be able to reference them (unless I'm just way off base) and then they truly would all be connected. Let me know if it works so I'll know if I ever need to do the same!

[amjones]

Greg,

I did a little test of what you propose and I may be missing something.

I make a project, I make a drafting view in that project, I make a sheet and place the drafting view on the sheet...then save the project.

Then I open a new project and link the previous and I get no detail, and no sheet.

Here are the issues at hand, perhaps this can help clarify. I have sheets set up in a template. Someone starts a project based of the template and all the drafting views come along for the ride. I now need a solid way to update those drafting views when the corporate client decides details x, y and z will change and must be updated across all current projects. Lets assume that the changes come every week and include 4-10 details and there are 10-15 current projects. The sheets in question will have standard as well as model based and 'live' info on them like schedules and interior elevations. I really want Drafting Views to work, but I need a more concrete and streamlined update process. This is why I am look to the Detail Component Family route.

Ideas?

For whatever reason I feel that I am asking a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too question...lol.

Thanks,
Drew

[theLarom]

Drew, I am surprised the method Greg outlined didn't work. I will have to try it myself in the next few days. I do have something else that you might be able to try:

Detail Component families do not allow text to pass through them into a project. The family you would be looking for is an Annotation Symbol (probably just a "Generic"), which will show you what you were looking for when placed on a detail view in the project.

By making it a family instead of linked file, you are subjected to the dangers of how Revit loads families into projects. Every family (door, sink, view title, etc.) you load is subjected to the fact that it is only loosely linked back to a central server file, and becomes very easy for slightly different versions to exist. If you are willing to live with this in terms of your very universal and precise details, so be it; it's not like it is any worse than any other family you have.

I think the best way to control it would be to open every active project, make each Annotation, and do a "Load into Project" en masse, so that every project gets the most updated version.

[jcoe]

I think Greg's idea is on the right track. Instead of placing the drafting views onto a sheet and linking that into another project, use File>Insert From File>Views.

Navigate to the "standards detail file" and select open.
You will receive a dialog that looks like the attached image.
Using the pull down menu, select either Drafting views or schedules(reports).
Select the views you wish to load by using the check box and select OK.
The view(s) should now appear in your project under Drafting Views or Schedules.I use this method to manage the majority of our standard details, except I have a master file for each CSI division. If an update is needed, you update the master file and instruct users to follow the steps above and the details will update (so long as the view name has not been changed). To take it one step further, I preset my view titles by using "Title on Sheet" override in my master files. This way, when they are loaded and placed onto sheets, everyones view titles are the same between projects.

Hope this is useful.

[greg.mcdowell]

Okay... my linking idea doesn't seem to work. I was guessing but now I've got something that I think will work and it's related to jcoe's.

Save each detail as a new RVT file (right-click over the view and select Save to New File). Load that file as a group (File menu - Load from Library - Load File as Group) and place in a Drafting View and on your sheet of choice.

Make changes to the detail RVT file and then reload that file as a group. You'll get a dialog warning that there's a group already in the project with that name and it will be overwritten with the new definition (good, that's what we want). Accept the dialog and notice the revisions!

You should be able to do the setup in your template file. Updates won't happen globally automatically but then maybe they shouldn't...

[amjones]

Jason,

The way you suggest, even if the name remains the same, I get duplicate copies of the drafting view. How do you do it that it doesn't give you a duplicate copy. I would like this to be the method but perhaps I am missing soemthing. I really like the idea of having a master detial file that I can load multiple views from at once. Please tell me I am missing something here.

Greg,

You method works...though I can only do one at a time. And of course, the selective update is paramount ;) Oh Wait....If I load a detial project with Multiple Drafting Views in them...and load it as a group...I get all the detials in the loaded file as individual groups. If I need to load changed detials I repaet the process and it includes all the detials in the file, including the revised ones....propmting me that 'these groups exisit...do you want to replace them?". Yes I do :)



Ok...Thanks...though I woudl like to know if I am missign soemthign with Jasons solution...If I can get that to not give me duplicates I would rather go that way as it woudl be more flexible.

Thanks,
Drew

[greg.mcdowell]

I just noticed that after you place the imported group there's an option to link it in from an external RVT file. Sounds like this might be just what you're looking for!

[amjones]

Greg,

So far I am loving your solution. And what you are now saying is intersting too, though I must not be seeing what you are seeing or I am looking in the wrong place Care to elaborate?

Thanks again,
Drew

[greg.mcdowell]

Drat! It works when importing as a model group but not as a detail group. Oh well.

If you are importing a model group the option to link is in the options bar with the placed group selected.

[amjones]

Greg,

Thanks for the clarification. Actually the 'demand load only' nature of the original solution is ideal. The last thing we want is detials updating of thier own volition after we have issued a CD set ;)

Thanks agian for the slick solution.
Drew

[andrewjohnson97]

Hello,

<edit> It seems my idea has already been presented, but here are some brief details of how we work with prototypical details. <edit>

In doing prototypical project types, I would suggest using detail groups of each detail, each in their own drafting view. A detail library can be created by saving each detail group out as their own file. Update the detail library files, and load these .rvt files into a project as details are updated. The groups update when you reload.

I usually denote a date/ref in the detail group, so you know which version is in use in a project. If a detail changes to become project specific, and you don't want someone to accidentally reload the group and change it, ungroup the detail. Now it is frozen in that project.

I hate using the "insert from file". It seems great at first glance, but when a drafting view already exists with the same name, it creates a 2nd, 3rd,....version of the view, now you have to change them on the sheet, etc. Revit also make all kinds of duplicated version of annotation families as well. It assumes you want "Callout Head1" -"Callout Head50". Both of these problems make file management a nightmare.

This process is one that has evolved over time, but with all team members on the same page, and one Revit "prototype manager", it is the best method I have worked with.