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Monthly Archives: April 2013

Drag Listening Dimensions

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by Kate in Tips & Tricks

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Tags

Beams, dimensions, modify, Revit

If you’ve used Revit at all, I’m sure you know what a listening dimension is, even if you’ve never heard the term before. They’re the temporary dimensions that show up when you select an object.

Listening1

They’re GREAT to have — I use them all the time when I know what the distance should be between two points or objects.

But the listening dimensions don’t always show up where you want them. In the image above, maybe I need to set the distance from the selected beam to grid 6.

Before I learned the trick I’m going to share with you, I would have added a dimension from the the beam to the grid, changed my measurement, and deleted the dimension. But no longer!

Instead, I learned (I forget where, sorry) that you can just adjust the listening dimension. Grab the blue dot (the tooltip will say “move witness line” and drag it to your preferred reference.

Listening2

Voilà!

And what’s more, this relocation is sticky — the listening dimension will appear in the same (new) place the next time you select that object.

RAM and Revit: First thoughts

15 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by Kate in Analysis

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Analysis, Bentley, export, import, ISM, RAM, Revit

A large part of my role as Digital Design Manager is getting multiple software platforms to play nicely together. Frankly, getting one at a time to behave is often a challenge, but I thought I’d share a few thoughts on the compatibility of two programs that see a lot of use around here: Revit and RAM.

Revit to RAM

The first time we tried to link the two systems, we started in Revit. This was an existing structure, steel framed, that we were modeling for seismic analysis purposes. The goal was to start in Revit (so we’d have a documentation model ready to go for a later design phase) and then export to RAM Elements.

Unfortunately, it turned into a complete mess. We discovered (too late) that the ISM translator only pulls the physical model from Revit and ignores the analytical elements. This meant that our steel joist roof didn’t connect to the beams it was supported by, columns missed their connections to beams, etc. It was a real disappointment, after all the work we’d put in to making sure our analytical nodes were connected.

We eventually were able to get the model to run, but it was a real headache.

HOWEVER, I have not given up! This was only our first attempt, and involved RAM Elements instead of RAM Structural System. I hope to find a good test project soon for Round 2.

RAM to Revit

Our next experiment went the other way — from RAM Structural System to Revit. This was another steel-framed structure, and when documentation started the engineer had already built a RAM model for some schematic design calcs. It seemed silly to start from scratch in Revit when we could at least try the import.

And this one worked beautifully.

All the elements came into Revit right where they should be. The beams had physical and analytical components. (I haven’t figured out that quirk of ISM yet.) Anything that looked off, like a grid line that stopped halfway up the building, could be traced back to the RAM model element’s definition, not the import process. I estimate that it saved us at least 3 solid days of drafting/modeling time, if not more.

The catch with this second project is that it’s historic steel, not modern. So the RAM model had lots of substitutions for archaic shapes, which had to be swapped out in Revit to be properly displayed & tagged. So I don’t know yet if we’ll be able to round-trip the model. There might be some tweaks we can make to the mapping file to accommodate the historic shapes, but my research hasn’t gotten that far yet.

It’s a good start, though…onward and upward!

Quick Rotate Objects

01 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by Kate in Basics, Tips & Tricks

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Tags

Columns, Revit, Rotate, Tips & Tricks

When you’re inserting objects or components into a Revit view, you may have noticed the “Rotate after placement” checkbox below the ribbon.QuickRotate1

It’s handy, I suppose, but personally, I haven’t used it since I discovered the quick-and-easy way to rotate objects before you place them: with the space bar.

By default, pressing the space bar before you place an object rotates it 90 degrees.

QuickRotate2 QuickRotate3

But if you hover over an existing object first, your new component will rotate to match its alignment.

QuickRotate4 QuickRotate5 QuickRotate6

I use this ALL the time for placing breaklines along braces and sloped beams, or to align columns with non-orthogonal grids.

Just a quick tip to tide you over while we wait for Revit 2014 to appear…

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