Drafting Views to Section Cuts

[jelultra]

Good morning all -

I'm working in Revit 2008 (architecture) and attempting to clean up our drafting view vs. section cuts. My computer is running on Windows XP professional, version 2002 service pack 2.

Currently, we are in the transition from ACAD to Revit.

We have imported numerous wall sections successfully as drafting views, but to hit the home run, I would like to be able to copy clip the linework / text etc. from the drafting views to a wall section view. Then I can display the model as an underlay, and verify that our model matches our designed section.

In very small doses (and I mean small) we can copy clip elements to and from, however when we try to take an entire wall section, all we can transfer is the text. No linework comes in.

Anyone else run into this? Any help is appreciated.

Thanks! Doug

[patricks]

I have had problems trying to copy large numbers of drafting elements (both lines and detail components) from one section to another section in the past, and I'm not sure where the problem is. One thing to check is to make sure your annotation crop is turned off, as that can mess with things if they come in outside that boundary.

Also, as you transition to Revit, try to do as much detailing as possible with components, and as little as possible with drafting lines. More components and fewer lines will help trim down file size and make the program run a bit faster.

To test this, I started a blank project, and drew a rectangle of drafting lines 1" wide and 12" long. That's 4 lines. Then I arrayed that across 100 times, and up 10 times. That's 4000 lines total. Then I started another blank project, loaded a gypsum wall board detail component 1" thick, drew an instance 12" long, and arrayed that 1000 times in the same manner, and saved that file.

The result:

File with 4000 lines = 468 KB
File with 1000 detail components = 228 KB.

Each of the detail components is made up of 6 lines total and a filled region, but because it's the same detail component arrayed many times instead of individual lines, the file size is much smaller.

[jelultra]

Thank you very much - that is interesting.

Anyone know why a line takes up more space than a detail component which is made up of lines?

Also - why would the copy clip bring in a small amount of information, and not a large - is this a limit to the copy clip, or a Revit issue?

Thanks!

Doug

[patricks]

you mean copy/paste. There is no "copy clip" in Revit. That's an ACAD command. :)

For a line, Revit has to log information about the line's type, and it's start point (coordinates) and end point (coordinates). There may be other info (like if lines are joined with other lines), but that's at least 12,000 pieces of information in the example I mentioned above with the 1000 rectangles of 4 lines each.

With a component, the family is the same for every instance. Revit just keeps track of the family type and its parameters. In my example with the gyp. board component arrayed 1000 times, it has to keep track of the component's origin point (coordinates), probably its orientation, and its instance parameters - in this case, the component's length. All 1000 instances are the same component, so the type parameters like the thickness of the gyp. board are only stored once. So that's about 3000 pieces of information, vs. 12,000 with the lines.

[Scott Womack]

Thank you very much - that is interesting.

Anyone know why a line takes up more space than a detail component which is made up of lines?

When you import an AutoCAD file, and explode it, I believe Revit converts ALL of the Autocad lines to model lines, even in a Drafting View. (I no longer have any of this type view around in any projects to verify). Irregardless, a model line takes up more memory than a Revit family. The model line has two points to manage in EVERY viewport for the model, even when it is not visible (I have been told). A family has its definition stored once, and only one point is managed in other views for model based families. A detail component family has its definition stored once, and then a point manged in only those views where it can appear.

In addition, once the Autocad import is exploded, there is no way to grab that defition, and delete it from the project entirely, so the Revit file is inflated by that many bites of information on a more or less permanent basis.