Website statistics

I have been blogging for some time. Sometimes, it is difficult to find time to blog and one looses interest, especially blogging is not one’s livelihood. During these times, looking at the web statistics helps one a lot. Understanding around 200 people visit the blog every day makes it easy to blog and feel good about it!

Another interesting aspect of the web statistics is to give a list of recent keyword activity like:

which is the list of the recent ‘web searches’ people have performed to land in one of the pages of the blog. This list is immensely helpful to figure ‘what’ people are searching for, which in turn, can help in figuring out topics to blog about in the future.

Central File accessed by someone else

If you belong to a large team working on a big project, once in a while you get this File being accessed indication like

The best part of this warning is that it goes away automatically as and when the file becomes available. However, if a user leaves the computer unmonitored after issuing a save to central command, things can get tricky. For eg., if Revit is waiting for a response from the user, like coordinating linked files,

then Revit locks the central file (bad) and does not allow other users to modify elements. Even a tiny “move a wall” command will be returned with the “File being accessed indication” and no subsequent save to central is possible!

Only solution is to find the culprit computer and dismiss the dialog box. This can become a pain if there are many users. The worksharing monitor (free download for subscription customers) is a great help in this regard to identify the culprit! It shows you who is stuck!

The best practice would be to ‘convince’ the users to stay with the computer until STC completes successfully.

Titleblock not centered while plotting

While printing a sheet, Revit gets the print boundary from all the objects that are present in the sheet (including the title block). Usually the title block encompasses all other objects and so the TB outline defines the print boundary.

So,  if you select the option to “center” the plot in the Print Setup dialog box,

revit prints the TB centered like this:

However, if there are other objects present, (even if a boundary of a text object extends beyond the TB like:)

Revit shifts the TB to accommodate this ‘extended’ object. The ‘centered’ print looks like this:

I feel Revit should just stick with the TB. Anyway, if you want to find the offending object, you have to “zoom all” and then do a crossing window of the whole visible portion of the screen.

INSERTED ELEMENT DISAPPEARS

Last year I wrote this list to check for any missing objects in Revit.

This is similar. Sometimes, when we try to insert an element, Revit does not show the inserted object, but shows a small warning message at the bottom right. Here are some reasons that could cause this:

Visibility Graphics: If the category of the element being inserted is switched off in the VG dialog, this can happen. Instead of inserting the element again and again to check if the element dramatically comes into life, it is better to check the VG.

Worksets switched off: Advanced users use worksets to manipulate the visibility of a whole set of objects. If the current workset is turned off (File > worksets) then any inserted object wont be visible. It is a good idea to check if the workset is switched off in the VG dialog box, workset tab.

Phases: If you have contradictory phase filters assigned to a view (View properties > phase filter parameter), that can interfere with the visibility of the inserted object.

Workplane: If some smart person has changed the workplane, that can affect the visibility of inserted objects. This can happen in RCP. (any model object ‘copied and pasted’ from floor plan view, would get pasted with respect to the floor level and may be behind the cut plane or farther than the view range.

Tags and Phases

Most of the annotations are view dependent in Revit. Tags are also dependent on the object they tag to. (for eg. a door tag will get hidden when the door is hidden, etc.)

Phasing acts similarly – if the object is not shown in the view because of the:

1. phase of the object
2. phase filter of the view
3. phase of the view

then the tag is not shown.

Interestingly, this applies to view tags also. (elevation, sections, etc. ) but because these tags dont attach to any ‘physical’ elements, it is a bit confusing.

So,

View tags that are assigned to any future construction phase will not be visible in views that are assigned to any past phases.

(Thanks to Stephen)

Moving Elevation Tags

As a follow-up to the previous post on ‘elevation tag not visible’, here are some notes on moving elevation tags.

The elevation tag itself is comprised of square and triangular elements. (square tag shown here)

When you select the triangular element and move it, it does not move the tag but only the elevation cutplane.

When you select the square

 

and move it, it only moves the tag. It does not move the cutplane as shown below.

 

To move both the tag and the cutplane, you need to select both the square and the triangular elements.

While moving the cutplane (applies for sections / details / elevations, etc. too), you need to move the cutplane perpendicular to the cutplane.

If you don't do this, any detail element drawn (lines, filled region, etc.) will shift and make your drawing inaccurate like below. The text does not shift.

That makes another case to model as much as possible than using lines to depict stuff in Revit!