Monday, May 18, 2009

Blue dots in structural columns

A very simple issue came up the other day. Out of no where, suddenly, all our structural columns in a view started showing a thick blue dot at the center in plan. This ‘thing’ even got printed and was an annoyance.

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Revit switches on the blue blob (and the green lines for walls) if the ‘analytical model’ subcategory for these elements are turned on in the visibility graphics. This sub-category does not show up by default in the VG:

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However, if we switch on the “Show categories from all disciplines” check box, the sub category shows up:

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Turning this sub category off removes these unwanted elements from the view. So far so good. But, how did these ‘analytical model’ elements get turned on in the first place, ‘so’ suddenly?

Accidentally, the visibility of the link was set to use a ‘linked view’, which incidentally had all these analytical model elements turned on!

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3 comments:

rashad gasim said...

is there any differences between normal column and structural column???

Nicholas Iyadurai said...

structural column is the structural column. The normal (architectural) column is the column enclosure and typically takes the material / properties of the object next to it. Architectural column can be used for pilasters, etc.

rashad gasim said...

how can i change normal column into structural, easily? (not copying solid into structural column family)