How to Draw a Key Plan in Revit

Revit is shit. I would play down the title to something more politically correct, just that would adventure understating Revit's limitations that I accept to deal with on an almost daily basis.

Update: The popularity of this article has shown the industry needs to break out of the unethical behaviour by proprietary vendors, which outcome in proprietary incompatibility, proprietary obsolescence, and proprietary subscription. Data about our built surround is a human being right and should be transparent and not governed by a vendor. Black-box BIM data is no longer adequate by companies with a large real-manor portfolio. We are now developing a 100% gratuitous and open-source native OpenBIM authoring tool called BlenderBIM. Information technology is under heavy evolution, but all early adopters are welcome. Join the OSArch community today and assist bulldoze community-driven AEC tools.

Revit is a proprietary software developed past the monopoly Autodesk for the AEC industry. Its function is to build a 3D "BIM" model of a building and lay out 2D documentation in the traditional form of cartoon sheets. I speak from the perspective of an architect working on big commercial projects across different edifice typologies, and therefore practise not use the MEP aspects, which may exist amend than I accept experienced here. Nevertheless, I have certainly used information technology to document projects, and have used Revit's API.

I have a background in software evolution, previously working as a software architect. Software architects deal with many of the same bug as BIM data management. In that location are ever-irresolute client requirements, lots of small pieces that interact, and domino effects of changing the design in one expanse. Therefore, the concepts of decoupling, interfaces, modularity, Robert Martin's famous code smells of fragility, rigidity, and and then on, and technical debt, are all applicable in this field. I have also used a great deal of software on many platforms, including 3D modeling as good by the CG manufacture, point clouds, programmatic typesetting with Lilypond and LaTeX, and am also closely following OpenBIM initiatives. With this groundwork, I hope to nowadays a off-white just critical list of issues I have faced with Revit.

An example of Revit declining to consistently bargain with openings in an irregularly shaped wall

Let's become.

Revit does not know what a building is

Revit has failed to implement even the most basic of BIM concepts: a building. You tin categorise walls, floors, roofs … only a edifice? Nope. If you accept ii buildings next to each other, Revit has no way of saying that some walls belong to building A, and some belong to edifice B. No way of categorising a shape to stand for a building or that some levels are part of building A and some are part of edifice B. Have a shared site with mix-use buildings where two buildings merge? At present you've got a maintenance nightmare.

In contrast, the first matter that you do when y'all launch FreeCAD to create a BIM project is to define a edifice with storeys in that building that belong to a site.

Revit deals with IFCs very poorly

Exporting to an IFC? Volition your roofs get IfcRoof, or will Revit decide your roof is a slab instead? Volition your windows go IfcWindow? Who knows. Revit does what information technology wants. Volition your building element plough upward at all? Will it even export? Volition it import? Ah, the mysteries of the universe.

The simplest IFC of a few kB will take fifteen seconds to import and in the process Revit will multiply the filesize by at least 10. Revit will develop a mapping and create a special Revit file just to read and perform the nigh rudimentary filtering on the IFC file. Regardless of the IFC MVD, it will never permit modification of the IFC. Forget IFC4, Revit can't even do IFC2x3 properly, even though IFC4 has been an ISO spec since 2013. At the point of writing this, information technology's been v years. Seriously.

This creates problems with circular-tripping, consultants using our files, and even ourselves trying to use our ain files. It besides forces the states to expose visitor intellectual property if we transport out Revit files.

I am enlightened of beingness able to patch the IFC consign type during the export process, and the IFC mapping configuration within Revit itself, besides as the special Ifc override properties, but I should not need to hook into the consign process and the mapping procedure is not reliable. In most cases, such every bit in arrangement families, you simply cannot change the mapping.

Why don't you lot read some Revit IFC complaints, more Revit IFC problems, fifty-fifty more IFC and Revit problems, considering Revit doesn't support IFC. Oh, and that's only about IFC classification, forget the rest of IFC goodness.

There are 35 or so reasons why a building element volition not bear witness on your view

The predicate determining whether or not a building chemical element will be visible in your current view depends on at least 35 different settings. These settings may be ready by yous, set by Revit, set by a consultant, set by a third-party content creator, set past inheritance, set by border-case override, set by your pet rabbit's dietary behaviour, or gear up by a series of Revit version-specific display bugs. In fact, information technology is so complicated that yous require a plugin (Ideate Explorer) to offset select invisible items, and another plugin (Ideate X-Ray) which volition automatically try to make up one's mind which of these 35+ reasons are the cause (Update: Ideate claims they have found 50 unique reasons and counting, but I haven't notwithstanding seen a list to prove it), and declining that, volition point you lot at a series of things that it cannot automatically check, so even failing that, will point you to Revit specific bugs and their workarounds. In fact, in their assist file they identify sure extremely nefarious means that tin hibernate things and condone the firing of any co-worker who commits such a sin. They accept too started a Revit object invisibility hall of fame.

You cannot set a datum level on a sloped roof

Create a roof by footprint. Ready it at a sure level. Now, if yous tag a spot elevation on the edge of a roof you lot volition tag the roof level + roof thickness. Now if yous add together a gradient to the roof, what RL will the roof edge be at?

The answer is nobody knows. Revit volition decide to pivot the roof wherever information technology wants and your edge will be a shitty RL that the builder will ignore.

The datum level of where a ceiling slopes is arbitrarily divers

If yous create a rectangular ceiling sketch at a particular level, define a slope going from ane edge to another. Which border will stay at the original level, and which edge volition gradient up or downwards?

It turns out it'southward determined by the first line you lot draw in your sketch, which if you draw using the rectangle tool, could exist any line. So in practice, you have no idea where your ceiling is going to slope, and you need to move it around by trial and fault.

This is nonetheless broken fifty-fifty if you explicitly draw a slope arrow and say that the head or tail is at a specific level. Revit will totally ignore whatever value you put in that location and do whatever it wants. Revit knows best.

The only solution is to redraw your ceiling or rotate the entire ceiling.

Wall types and joining walls is a nightmare

Earlier I complain most this one, I would state that walls and joints are a very hard problem. Walls are layered, and has many rules on what takes precedence in a joint, both in a plan and in a section, and Autodesk has made an attempt to cater for this.

Unfortunately in practice, nosotros have walls which are also eager to intelligently snap, walls in groups who must be unjoined to prevent Revit errors, the inability to dimension to the core of a wall (which is how people build walls, go figure), curved walls and sharp angles in funky facades that come across strange junctions, and so on. Indeed, the best practice is to give up drawing "intelligent" compound walls and literally depict each wall layer individually in large civic buildings.

I would excuse this behaviour if it weren't for the fact that it is semantically incorrect. According to the IFC definition (and to common sense), a lining on a furring channel, and a block wall should be i wall, not two. The central problem is that Revit has just implemented three types of walls: the organization family wall (a IfcWallStandardCase), which is an extruded axis with material layers, a drapery wall (which is misused), and an in-place wall (corresponding to a catchall IfcWall). Notably missing is the IfcElementedCaseWall, for scenarios where walls are made upwardly of different elements like studs, channels, insulation, and lining but are assembled together into a unmarried wall. If Revit immune you to ascertain walls as a sum of parts, it would be more flexible and still semantically correct.

Revit likewise does not implement things that are purely cladding (i.e. IfcCovering). This means that people draw crash-land rails, skirting, and moulding as railings or walls, draw slab insulation as floors, and of course, draw cladding as walls. This is wrong. They have unlike joining rules, and things like fire, acoustics, and thermal employ differently. They are a unlike toll item. Yet they are all lumped in the aforementioned basket.

No OOTB align and distribute functions for whatsoever blazon of note (or anything, actually)

Are you tagging an elevation? Will any of your tags line up horizontally or vertically? Volition any of your tags be as spaced between grids or building elements?

No, of course not. Revit hates y'all and wants yous to eyeball all your note positions. It'll give yous some hope by highlighting certain lines sometimes when using the align tool, and so will totally ignore any endeavour to align anything. Except, strangely, when you use a leader in your tags. Then information technology'll align.

But not to fear! At that place is a free addon which will let you to marshal objects (called BIM42-Align). Except it doesn't behave consistently. Unlike other software, you cannot choose the "reference object" to which you should align to, and it inconsistently decides to movement pinned elements in some cases and not in others.

Revit unreliably handles CAD links

Revit tin can link in a CAD DWG or DXF file. This is proficient. In practice, nonetheless, CAD links practice not work reliably. From the inability to share coordinates, having missing geometry, lagging of the Revit file, hatch patterns going haywire, and geometry out of extents errors. These problems practise not exhibit themselves in unproblematic vanilla CAD files, merely are very common in complex projects. This means CAD files have to undergo a cleanup process where we purge, delete, explode, and sometimes copy and paste into a bare file to start over again. Nosotros shouldn't need to do this cleanup process, especially not when DWG is a native Autodesk format.

You cannot put in an arbitrary schedule on your canvass

Ever wanted to put a schedule on a sheet that doesn't derive information from the model's data? Turns out Revit doesn't make it easy for you. Instead, you can describe lines manually. That is, unless you create a fake table and put data in the header.

From a reader comment, I should annotation that it is possible to overcome this with various Revit plugins that let you to link data from spreadsheets.

In-identify doors are non room bounding, whereas family unit doors are

A family-created, wall-hosted door does non alter the room bounding property of its host wall. An in-identify door, volition not. This is in contrast to the IFC specification which explicitly explains about the scenario of doors in walls:

The wall represents a vertical construction that bounds or subdivides spaces. A wall may accept openings, such every bit wall openings, openings used for windows or doors, or niches and recesses. They are divers by an IfcOpeningElement attached to the wall using the inverse relationship HasOpenings pointing to IfcRelVoidsElement.

You cannot draw a slanted wall

In Revit world, all walls are completely vertical. Modeling anything more complex than that requires proxy structure objects.

Revit does not apply true north / project due north via view template if a telescopic box is in effect, and then turned off

Unremarkably view templates should override the view setting if the include checkbox is checked. However, if a view used to take a scope box (which disabled true due north / project northward), then the view template will take no effect. This is fifty-fifty if you disable the scope box. It only starts working as expected if y'all uncheck the include checkbox, manually fix the north orientation setting, then re-check the checkbox. Go effigy.

Revit has incorrect or incomplete classification systems

Did you ever want to specify an Omniclass specification for an object? Y'all may think you are, but in reality Revit's shipped Omniclass file is out of date by vii years. And that's if you lot can classify in the starting time identify, as Revit just includes some tables in the Omniclass organization, not all, and doesn't allow system families to have whatsoever classification whatsoever.

Revit is peculiarly harsh towards IFC classifications, and in fact makes it completely invisible in the interface, but has a separately documented feature where certain shared parameters take magic effects on IFC classifications. So without knowing exactly what y'all type, your IFC classifications could well exist nonsense. This is a trouble, as Revit's list of families is and then express, and people are unwittingly encouraged to avoid in-place families like the plague, and and then it is all too easy to put things every bit a generic model, or give up birthday.

No backwards compatibility without a good reason for doing so

Yeah. Autodesk wants you lot to buy the latest version. All the time. If y'all accidentally open a file with a newer version, it will upgrade, and if you forget to do a relieve-as, y'all have now irreversibly broken the compatibility with an older version, and and then assets shared within the company at present cannot be used on older projects.

A single border fashion in a schedule is uneditable when a view template is applied

Are you lot feeling creative? Take y'all changed the line style of a single edge in a schedule? One time you apply a view template, yous volition have no way of editing that single border anywhere, unless you disable your view template. Turns out view templates don't consistently affect border styles, but they exercise consistently stop you from editing it.

Revit does non know what a block wall is

The number one waste product in the construction industry as measured past weight (which is the preferred metric for the waste industry) is masonry. This is unsurprising as Revit does non know what a cake wall is. It cannot restrict to cake / brick dimensions, cannot handle half blocks, cannot count blocks, cannot calculate cut blocks, and cannot fix setout points. Your all-time bet is to create a hatch pattern (using the archaic design syntax, of which people take built generators for it online because it is then unintuitive) and align information technology on the surface. And so once that's done it's all for nothing considering Revit cannot export it to IFC anyway.

Revit does not lock to eye level, or any level, during first-person perspective camera views

Revit does have support for a beginning-person view and movement using the camera view, despite the Revit 3D viewport renderer being extremely inefficient (this means while moving you will experience lag, flickering, and incorrect rendering). Unfortunately, it has no way to lock to a sure level. This means you lot cannot consistently guarantee an feel of your pattern at centre-level, and volition be always floating around randomly.

Hatch patterns distort

Tin't seem to replicate now, but I've seen hatch patterns on floors with non-parallel edges to distort to provide non-xc degree patterns.

Falls suspension the alignment of hatch patterns

This is not the same issue as the hatch baloney to a higher place, merely it is similar. If you add together a autumn to whatsoever slab with a hatch pattern (which is very ofttimes, since most moisture areas are tiled and require a autumn), the hatch pattern will randomly change its orientation seemingly to the UV management of the fall. This transformation is constant, which breaks the power for you lot to align the tiles with side by side segments of the floor. The solution is to eyeball it.

Revit doesn't consistently ascertain the front and back faces of a wall

Non but does Revit only support a small subset of geometric representations for walls, for those that information technology does "support", information technology doesn't know where the wall starts and stops. Try draw a wall with an arbitrary class, such every bit a tapered wall, a thick irregular, intersecting wall, or multiple small sparse regular walls everywhere as one wall. Now attempt inserting host objects. It will not know where to start and finish them. Sometimes it volition work as intuitively expected, sometimes it uses a bounding box interpretation, and sometimes, well, who knows.

Revit's constraints are invisible

Always opened upward a complex Revit family unit and given up on life? Revit'south constraints arrangement is the bizzare brainchild of somebody who has good intentions, merely is very shy. Subsequently creating a constraint, if the chemical element is not selected, the constraint is also invisible. This breaks the number one rule of UI blueprint: if I tin can't come across it, it's non there. There is the "evidence constraints" button, but that does not bear witness nested constraints, nor does information technology evidence system constraints (such as hosting, joining, and attaching).

Constraints are usually the near of import thing of a family unit, as it defines the geometric relationships, yet it is only discoverable if you know where to look. Sometimes, Revit will happily delete a constraint for yous, but not tell y'all where or what or exactly why. You cannot name constraints, yous cannot become a list of constraints, and you cannot summate the caste of constraint without doing random trial and fault "flexing". Instead y'all have to play peek-a-boo with constraints (that may have been forcefully deleted past Revit when you try to do some unrelated transformation) and try to reverse engineer how a family works.

Revit's feature to increase list values doesn't work when you have multiple lists in a text box

Create text box. Make it an ordered list. Increment the listing. Press enter twice. Create a new list. Tada! Now you can no longer increment lists! You broke Revit!

Revit cannot dimension to the midpoint of a line

Since 2015, Revit users have wanted to dimension to the midpoint of a line. You can't.

Magic infill panels are created whenever you demolish an element with an opening

In existent life, if you demolish a door, you are left with a structural opening where the door used to exist. In Revit land, since 2008, if you demolish a door, that opening is magically filled up with an infill wall. This infill wall has no phasing settings, cannot have an opening placed in it, inherits all of the properties of its surrounding existing wall, yet shows in a new construction plan as a new wall.

I get why programmatically it's easier to not have to unmarried out the opening element when performing the sabotage function, but this is at the expense of correct construction. What should happen is the opening should remain, and you should explicitly accept to create a new infill object, so that you can quantify it as part of the building works.

Revit does not properly represent geometric dependencies

Any BIM modeling programme has the concept of relationships between elements. For example, in IFC, a building storey must belong in a building. If yous annihilate the building, by extension, the building storey is besides demolished. In Revit, this is the same: walls must belong to a level (unless y'all come beyond that issue with drape walls where they can disassociate themselves with deleted levels and just bladder in space). This ways that if you delete a level, all elements on that level are also deleted. This is good. This is known every bit a tree, graph, or hierarchical structure, where elements depend on 1 another.

What is not good is that Revit does not acknowledge that elements have relationships. It will scold you in a warning and happily delete or ungroup objects to gear up a broken graph, but information technology will never actually allow you to view this human relationship. For instance, you cannot select all elements that are function of a level. You cannot select all "hosted" elements on a flooring or wall. Y'all cannot select all elements that have a constraint or working aeroplane that derives from another object. If you select a tag, you cannot select the element that is beingness tagged.

The upshot is that people become scared to perform graph-breaking operations like ungrouping objects because they cannot be fixed in Revit. People are hesitant to delete levels, or just sigh when dimensions drop off.

Revit cannot handle section boxes in perspective views when trying to practice perspective cut-away sections

The section box is really hard to control when in perspective views since it more often than not goes out to infinity. The workaround is the adjust it in parallel view, and and so switch to perspective view. But if yous do that approach, Revit tends to forget "domicile positions", "saved views", and the "rewind" feature truncates history. The crop box also loses its scale and position, so you end up getting lost in space. Woo!

Revit'due south viewport renderer is really, really tiresome

2d CAD programs can handle detailed and complex DXFs really well and generally pan and zoom without whatsoever noticeable lag. 3D polygonal modeling programs tin besides handle really detailed and complex 3D objects actually well - only see the workflow of any boilerplate 3D CG creative person! Revit manages to be spectacularly bad at both second and 3D. You will experience slow panning on complicated 2D backgrounds, and slow orbit / pan / zoom on 3D objects.

Function of this is the renderer'south fault (in detail, it is the edge / line rendering which is an issue, not then much the apartment shaders), office is due to the geometric representation which uses effective solid geometry (CSG), and part of this is due to the ridiculously circuitous visibility predicate that I mentioned previously. That'south why Revit considers determining whether an element is in a view an "expensive" functioning, which is why most users give up and striking cancel when Revit asks if it should endeavor to show y'all where a broken element is.

The finish upshot? We tend to not run across our buildings in 3D, tend to non ready broken elements, tend to avert modeling more real BIM objects and instead utilize generic simplifications, and so we wonder why our building information is defective or our archviz needs to exist totally redone past the CG artists and tin't roundtrip the viz workflow. Gee.

Revit cannot support LOD 400 and above

Revit will barely support LOD 300 in a big project, merely the added geometry and the inability to manage external documents every bit mentioned before will cause Revit to be unable to scale to LOD 400. It might keep a pocket-sized project, simply not further than that.

This is in contrast to FreeCAD, where the BIM model is used for fabrication and construction straight, and deliver LOD 500.

No polymorphism and complex inheritence, despite an object oriented architecture

Revit'southward API under the hood conspicuously points to information technology's OO architecture. Unfortunately, its object types and object instances which and then clearly mirror the software concept of classes and objects, practise non use the full potential of OO. This is unlike IFC, which specifies object typing.

No manner of decision-making some surface normals on masses

Surface normals on masses are very important because they decide the wall orientation when you do wall-by-face to create complex geometries. If you want to exercise a wall with finishes and substructure that align to a datum, yous need to brand certain your normals are all facing the same style. Turns out Revit doesn't allow you to command this, fifty-fifty though the imported geometry format supports normal information. This means y'all often need to create ii versions of walls - ane forepart-face, and 1 dorsum-face, and utilize trial and error to work out which 1 goes where.

Planar surfaces cannot be guaranteed on masses

If y'all are doing a custom shape, Revit does not offering whatever tools to cheque planarity. This usually means that fabricators cannot set out, nor actually construct the funky shape you lot take drawn. Revit volition happily distort hatches and other 3D elements to fit.

Revit cannot link families, settings, or any non-projection-specific data

Complex data and nugget management usually follows the "Dry out" principle of Don't Repeat Yourself. This means that project-specific information is inlined into the projection files, and non-project specific data is referenced from an external, linked library, so it can exist reused and seen every bit a source of truth for many projects.

Revit supports this basic concept in terms of "Linked CAD" (which you can but do in certain contexts, apparently), and too "Linked Revit", but does not offer whatsoever more granularity beyond that. So yous are unable to link in families or projection settings. This means that every single projection substantially duplicates every single company asset that it needs. Not only is this inefficient, it means it is difficult to propagate changes across the visitor. If we meliorate an asset, we cannot hands roll information technology out to every project. It also encourages projection members to make changes locally and not share their improvements to the rest of the company. This means inconsistent documentation, increased filesizes (which Revit tin can't handle), a lack of shared resource, and time wasted in propagation, if washed at all.

Revit handles project settings in bulk

If you lot modify settings in 1 file and desire to propagate that setting to other files in the aforementioned project, you lot tin't carmine-pick that one change. Instead, Revit merely allows you to transfer settings in bulk and overwrite other things y'all wouldn't want to overwrite. This means that people either don't bother to propagate, or propagate manually.

Revit can't dimension to the heart of an arc in a profile

Elements such as slabs which may take profiles which are curved don't allow yous to dimension to the centerpoint of the arc. Why would you ever do such a affair?

The "Manage Images" system doesn't allow you lot to add images

Add an paradigm into a Revit project. Now delete it. Is it gone? Nope, it'southward nevertheless stored in the Revit file. If information technology'due south all the same stored, tin yous readd it from the store (i.e. Manage Images dialog) back into your file? Nope. Tin can you tell where it's used? Nope. Fifty-fifty though it stores a path to show the source, can it detect duplicate sources? Nope.

Revit cannot link external assets to BIM elements

Unlike IFC, where you can happily connect external resources to elements, such equally supporting production documentation and brochures, or external databases and schedules, Revit does non back up whatever such thing. Instead, people rely on using 3rd-party plugins, such every bit dRofus. This is odd, because dRofus supports IFC.

View templates can only specify a colourscheme for one type of programme

If you want a view template to apply to multiple types of plans, such as floor plans and area plans, the colourschemes will just work for 1 or the other. This means you demand to do a manual setting, or create 2 view templates.

The error color for profiles in orange, which is very hard to see

Profiles are pinkish. Specifically, they are #FF00FF. Errors are orange, or #FF8000. This provides a WCAG contrast ratio of 1.25:i, and fails even the WCAG AA standard. In practice, this means that information technology is actually hard to spot where the mistakes are when y'all depict an incorrect profile. In fact, even the selection blue colour (#003BBD) doesn't comply with WCAG AA (ii.84:1 - it seems similar errors are less important than what you accept selected), and this is keeping in mind that WCAG AA is meant for regular font, not single 1px lines. This makes information technology really hard to even see what yous have selected.

Revit does not consistently obey the architectural convention of how to describe a plan

Architectural convention states that a plan is essentially a horizontal section - a boolean operation that displays what is in front of the cut plane, and whatsoever is behind it is not shown, or when relevant, shown in a different visual representation (e.thousand. a dotted line). Lines farther than a sure threshold in the distance may be shown in a lighter or faded representation to show that it is far into the groundwork.

Revit apparently doesn't follow the architectural convention and instead shows whatever it wants to evidence depending on a complex determination tree that people figure out through trial and fault. For starters, if your model is casework, generic, a structural column, or a window, it'll show upwardly in a flooring plan even though it is above the cutting aeroplane. Another case, if the view is an MEP view, it'll show all MEP things on a flooring plan even though it is in the ceiling. If your model in-identify intersects the cut plane at even just 1 point, information technology'll show the entire model, regardless of whether or not the other parts should be seen. An even more than bizarre instance is where a Revit floor will condone your view depth and prove anyhow, as long as it is within an arbitrarily picked range of 4 anxiety of your bottom clip. Stairs also have their own cut plane and view range rules, which go especially confusing when you create your own in-place stair model, or fifty-fifty convert that in-identify model into a stair family. Article of furniture families also ignore the cutting plane. As for objects which are above your cutting plane that y'all'd similar shown, Revit won't display certain family unit types above the cutting airplane.

In that location are as well no ways to change the rules for cutting, which results in people doing hacks like invisible geometry to be cut, or placing objects with certain offsets.

Don't inquire me how to define the logic for cutting planes and RCPs because of how unintuitive it is.

Not-hosted doors demand a workaround

In Revit, by default, all doors need a wall to be hosted in. In real life, we have gates, toilet cubicle doors, fences, bar doors, and a whole bunch of doors that don't really live inside a wall. In lodge to do this in Revit you need to play a joke on it by creating a generic model, and and so irresolute the category to door. Information technology may or may not show up in your door schedule, though.

Some people don't know this, and end up creating perfectly sized walls that are and so made invisible (and thus very hard to select) by doors that cutting perfectly through them.

You lot cannot assign a stage to a wall opening

It's quite common in building works to patch upward existing holes in walls or create new openings in existing walls. Unfortunately, Revit does not permit you to assign a construction phase in a wall opening. An unsemantic workaround is to create a void family.

Tags cannot employ related element data

The IFC spec supports element relationships, where elements can be related to i another. A common usecase for this is doors, where a door goes to a space, and from another space. In Revit, a symptom of this issue is where you want to annotate a door and label it based on its to / from room - you cannot exercise this in whatsoever straightforward way. Y'all can work around it, using custom parameters, API calls, and Dynamo scripts, but fundamentally Revit does non make it easy to expose element relationships.

No custom roof, stair, or whatsoever, families

Certain families are considered to be special for whatever Autodesk reason, and cannot be created in the traditional family mode. They can merely be created as an in-place model. Some Revit users accept been taught that in-identify models are e'er bad, and therefore will resort to misclassification of BIM elements instead of actually building the object properly. Even if an in-place model is used, it is difficult to propagate, and if it uses openings, information technology is very difficult to copy around the project, and y'all cannot create instances of it.

Voids cannot cut nested families

One family inside another? Revit's boolean operation is limited by one generation, pitiful.

For a roof, above is interior, and below is exterior

Revit'due south walls distinctly define an outside side and an interior side. A little known fact is that roofs as well do this. An fifty-fifty lesser known fact is that a roof things that above is interior, and below is exterior. For roofs with complex layered families, or past face, or curtain walls, this symptom volition show and you will and so have to basically draw an upside downwards roof.

Revit does non empathize profiled metal sail roofing

Given that metal profiled sail roofs are absolutely everywhere in construction, it is surprising how hard information technology is to draw in Revit. It turns out the "easiest" way to reach this is to use a curtain wall by confront (and remember to use the bottom face of a mass instead of the summit to draw an upside down roof, because roofs in Revit call back in a higher place is interior), and and then use more invisible cutting objects to get the right shape of your roof since you can't just cut through a profiled curtain panel.

Revit is very slow in viewing CAD files on a sheet, but faster when in an private view

This suggests that the renderer used for views and sheets are different, and may account for inconsistent visuals between the 2.

Sometimes, Revit views "corrupt" and need to be re-created

This is not an easily replicated one but does occur, peculiarly in 3D views where yous are constantly changing section boxes and orbiting. Sometimes they can "corrupt", leading to strange 3D rendering and inconsistent behaviour. Just deleting the view and starting again seems to do the trick, just like the Window's mentality of "Doesn't work? Attempt restarting".

Geographically large Revit links practice not testify in sections and elevations

A strange occurance might exist where a large link does not evidence upward in a department or meridian. It turns out Revit'due south ability to solve the Visibility computation (i of the most bones problems in computer geometry) is flawed, and cannot depict the linked geometry unless the far clipping is disabled, in which instance yous encounter absolutely everything, which may not be what you want either.

Nested structural families that are shared lose their geometry constraints

Ever tried nesting a structural family? It's not really uncommon. What if you demand a repeatable structural bay? It turns out parametric family constraints don't actually nest that well. There is a really nasty working to push up the scope of a constraint'southward value through a nested family unit, and I've applied it successfully, but it's seriously nasty.

You can't utilize openings or void families to cut through custom drape panels

Sort of. Turns out you can do information technology, but at that place is an obscure workaround to trick Revit where you create a solid in-place generic model, then cutting the curtain panel using that, and then hide the generic model either using view element overrides, a visibility boolean parameter in the generic model, or by hiding it in some other workset. Autodesk has disabled the boolean parameter trick in more recent versions of Autodesk in an endeavor to finish the states from doing this for some reason, merely the workset flim-flam all the same works.

Topography can't have a void cut into it that isn't vertical and from the superlative

If you are designing a bunker, tunnel, den, or other construction that is cut into the Earth, you're out of luck. Revit doesn't allow y'all to do cut out tunnels, horizontal burrows, or annihilation really into it'due south topography. Sure plenty, the style a toposurface works is by defining a 2D +Z boundary surface, and and then whenever a boolean operation is applied on the toposurface, everything -Z is considered to be cut. This ways that cutting it in any other way than from the +Z is impossible.

Room shape handles practise not snap to anything

Rooms in sections brandish shape handles allowing you to drag and drib them to define their vertical extends. In my opinion, Revit allows a bit also much flexibility with carefree dragging and dropping, and this is a frequent source of inaccuracy when people try to eyeball things. When dragging a room, the extents exercise non snap to anything, meaning that you have rooms that are just floating willy-nilly. This is one symptom of Revit'southward inconsistent implementation where sometimes shape handles announced and sometimes they do not.

Sometimes, you lot cannot select and replace text

In most text editors since people became too lazy to acquire a modal text editor, if you select text and so start typing, it volition replace the selected text and enter in new text. In fact, this behaviour comes out of the box in most GUI toolkits. Autodesk, of course, is special, and requires you lot to explicitly press backspace or delete before you tin can blazon.

I've also had issues where label fields evidence phantom text and I am prevented from editing it unless I undock and redock the properties dock.

If y'all're interested, here's 3 pages of user complaints about Revit's text boxes.

You cannot change the size of points in a point cloud

I volition laurels Revit points (get information technology?) for implementing other point colourings (RGB, normal, summit, etc) but I volition call them out considering you cannot change the size of a signal cloud in Revit. Maybe it'll come up in the time to come.

You lot cannot put a door in a curtain wall

You cannot tag information technology as a door, because it isn't actually a door. It'south a curtain console that masquerades as a door, and then perhaps you might consider it in your door schedule, and maybe you won't. You tin can alter the pall console family unit to a door, and that will piece of work in terms of nomenclature as a workaround. All the same, you cannot identify that door into a regular wall, and you likewise cannot place regular doors into a curtain wall. Equally an fifty-fifty greater twist of logic, you can place regular walls into a pall panel, but once you have this regular wall, you can't identify a door into it. Likewise later on the door category workaround it may or may non consign to IFC.

In fact, this highlights a deeper issue with the misuse of mantle walls. A curtain wall is defined both in IFC and in the English linguistic communication as an exterior facade that is differentiated from regular walls by its nature of existence hung. In Revit, a curtain wall is whatever you want information technology to exist, including internal glazed partitions, chainwire fences, windows for those too lazy to make a window, and even a roof, considering why not.

Revit cannot impress a portion of a drawing

AutoCAD has this bang-up feature where you tin print a portion of a drawing based on a selection. This isn't possible with Revit.

Update: information technology is somewhat possible by using a scope box every bit a workaround. Yet annoying and yous can't scopebox a canvass so I'm keeping this entry.

Revit does not output quantities correctly for costing

If you draw a wall in Revit, that wall has a length associated with it. If you place a full height door in that wall, what practice yous think happens to the wall length? Will it decrease and minus the width of the door, or volition information technology remain the same?

Turns out it will stay the aforementioned and ignore your door. This means if a quantity surveyor costs your model, they will count actress wall and price incorrectly. Merely of course, most QS don't check your Revit model - most QS software works with IFC files instead. So what happens if you consign your model to IFC?

Past default, Revit will not export annihilation at all quantity related to the IFC, and so if yous give such an IFC to your QS, it's useless. If you lot do happen to cheque the boxes to export quantities and Revit backdrop, and then things meliorate a footling, simply not much improve. In this scenario, Revit volition export two length properties - i as a custom Revit belongings set which is the double counted wall which is a wrong number anyway, and another in the IFC quantities backdrop, which is actually the net length: the right value. However, of form, even though Revit calculates information technology properly for this field, it has named the field incorrectly (Length vs NominalLength in IFC2X3) so it you went searching for the ISO standard location for length, you wouldn't come beyond information technology.

This misnaming of quantities is mutual in Revit. For instance, areas and volumes in IFC are either Gross or Internet. Revit but calculates Cyberspace, just places it in the Gross field. Go effigy. Given that Revit has no ability to inspect quantities and so architects blindly give QSes garbage model data means that QSes either resort to 2D drawings, or counting things manually, which gets a little bit prohibitive on big, complex projects.

Wireframe way doesn't work on slabs which have sub elements

Wireframe mode lets you see through objects to spot things that are obscured. This is bang-up when you have complex geometry. However if your slab take sub elements (due east.g. falls in slabs, which most slabs have), then wireframe mode will simply not work. Boo.

You cannot apply a colourscheme to an RCP in Revit

Colourschemes are useful to color in rooms or areas past their backdrop. On occasion, you might desire to produce one for a reflected ceiling plan. It turns out you can't do this. Revit does not let you to apply a colourscheme to an RCP.

There is a filter-based piece of work around if you want to color by height, but otherwise you need to resort to overlaying ii plans. Neither of which are nice solutions.

You cannot print a PDF past default

Like higher up, Revit doesn't ship with a PDF driver, which means that unless you download some third party PDF driver, you lot cannot save your drawings to a PDF. This is OK if Revit offered another non-CAD vector format like SVG, only it doesn't.

This side effect is that everybody downloads some random third party PDF printing driver all of which have their subtle problems and rendering issues. When things neglect to impress, people try and solve it past using some other driver and trying their luck. This causes drawings to be inconsistent graphically and showroom random rendering errors.

Insulation lines cannot exist warped

Insulation is a fuzzy matter that moves here and there and in commercial construction can weave between studs or sag between safety meshes. You can't draw this in Revit considering insulation is a dumb line and and then you demand to employ masking regions to achieve the effect.

You can't tag a gutter

Autodesk seemingly forgot that gutters are building items too and yous can't tag a Revit gutter since 2015. You can use a multi-category tag instead, simply why should you need to? What's with all the arbitrary tag types anyway?

You can't dimension to a sweep

If you use a "sweep" to extrude a profile forth a path, you lot cannot dimension to that sweep line.

Shared parameter paths cannot be saved to a project

You tin can add together custom parameters to your project by adding "project parameters". If you want to add custom parameters that are shared across multiple projects (along with some additional behaviour similar scheduling, which is strange why you lot can't practise information technology for whatsoever type of parameter), you lot have to add it to a "shared parameter" file. This file stores your parameters in a text file on the filesystem independent from your projection. Storing it independently isn't a problem, except when y'all open up another projection that needs to utilise another shared parameter file, because it won't remember which project needs which shared parameter file.

This is a problem in a large company where different design sectors or dissimilar design groups have unlike shared parameter files. Fifty-fifty worse, when Revit tin't find what its looking for in the shared parameter file, information technology won't complain, it'll simply continue working and use that parameter which won't exist tied dorsum to its origin. If you then load another parameter file which has parameters with the same proper name, you lot tin end up with multiple parameters all with the same name, but they're really all different. You can't tell them apart in the UI, just under the hood …

This ends upwards creating a data direction mess.

Plan regions take erratic behaviour effectually MEP, stairs, and in random circumstances

Program regions are simply completely messed up in Revit. The idea is uncomplicated: create a zone in your floor plan or RCP with a different cutting aeroplane, foreground clip and groundwork clip. However, if you accept whatever MEP objects, Revit plan regions won't work on MEP objects. If you take a stair, the Revit plan region won't cut stairs properly. If you have site topography, Revit programme regions will not touch on topography. Sometimes, the plan region may or may not work depending on whether information technology is some arbitrary distance away from your object. You may need to move the programme region to create a buffer zone away from your object to work, or fifty-fifty merely randomly motion the program region away from the object. Why this is the case, oh, who knows. It's 2019, and I have experienced all of these issues on the latest Revit version. You besides tin can't create a plan region with a curved footprint, so distressing if you have a curved blueprint.

You can't find the RL or peak of a sloping floor

Most floors in real life are sloped. They gradient so that water can drain, they slope to get from ane level to another, and they slope because the Earth itself slopes. In Revit, slabs can have slopes and "subelements" added to them (a funny proper noun that basically means vertex modeling, which will triangulate your slab into planar tris and n-gons). To build things, nosotros need to marking elevations and levels. This is specially of import when the RLs modify.

Unfortunately, Revit doesn't allow yous to create spot elevations on sloping floors. This is literally the scenario when it is near vital to know the level. Yous will have to manually interpolate and put fake text level annotations on your plans.

If you mirror a hatch in a group, the hatch alignment breaks

Grouping and mirroring is a cardinal strategy to efficient modeling in BIM. Unfortunately, if you lot have any hatched objects, such as a tiled floor, the Revit hatch alignment will no longer be maintained when you mirror the group. This causes tile setouts to break. This is literally the main reason people mirror groups: for residential units or modules. There is no gear up. You just have to take your floors out of the group. This has been broken for a decade.

Tagging in-identify models in plan may not piece of work due to afar origins

Ever had a bespoke door in a project? Turns out you tin't tag in-place Revit doors in a plan view (broken since 2006). Information technology works in elevation, though. This is considering the tag is existence created very far away as the origin of the in-place model could be very far abroad. You tin can fix this with making the tag leader freeform, but it is an unnecessary workaround.

At that place are capricious minimum dimensions on objects

Stacked walls in Revit have a minimum height for some reason. Besides bad. You likewise cannot draw any line in Revit smaller than 1/32" or the element will be too small on screen (the inch harking back to the fact that Revit has a preference for imperial units instead of logical units). This is notwithstanding another issue cleaved for more than a decade.

Duct linings and duct insulation are unselectable by normal means

The only way to select a duct lining or insulation in Revit is to first click the duct, and and then press a menu button to select the lining or insulation. This is rather strange behaviour and information technology isn't clear why it is specific to this element. It also doesn't assistance that the insulation or lining doesn't inherit visibility backdrop from its parent duct. This ways that if you lot hide the duct, the insulation and lining will nonetheless evidence, and now you lot take no manner of selecting the insulation or lining, then you volition be stuck with a visible, unselectable object.

You cannot specify a Coordinate Reference System (CRS) in Revit

Buildings and sites should ideally exist located to a coordinate arrangement that tin be used by GIS systems to geolocate the edifice. This is really quite a key feature of any programme used to design geographically significant structures. Unfortunately, Revit has no features that allow you to properly record the Helmert transformation required to catechumen betwixt project local coordinates and GIS coordinate reference systems. This means that projects often utilize local origin points that are placed in real world coordinates that will fail to import in other programs … or even fail to import dorsum into Revit. This as well leads to enough of coordinate issues when there are multiple sub-sites in a large project site where Revit doesn't distinguish between different sites.

Worksets are unavailable for not-workshared projects

Amidst its various purposes, worksets are a great way to group project objects into things you want loaded and unloaded. This is an absolute must in a large projection with lots of detail. Unfortunately, this only works if your project is a worksharing project. Regular projects have this characteristic disabled. I doubtable this is due to Autodesk'south push button to make BIM working more centralised and deject-based, where they tin can then own all of your information, take information technology earnest, and charge you periodical fees to maintain access over your piece of work. Why whatever customer of Autodesk is willing to put up with this ridiculous proffer escapes me.

You can only create in-place walls in Revit LT

Good BIM starts with proper categorisation of your geometry into semantic types. Revit LT, apart from providing a stepping stone for people to give more coin to Autodesk, also allows yous to exercise BIM, without the flexibility of BIM. The only custom shaped in-place object yous tin can create in Revit LT is the "Wall" category. This leads to people all around the world misclassifying their BIM models simply because Autodesk has artifically limited this basic function.

Material tags drib off when you change an in-place model's BIM category

You would think that telling BIM that this cube geometry is now an electrical equipment instead of a mechanical equipment would not affect annihilation other than a simple bit of metadata which classifies the objects. It turns out that Revit volition happily nuke your tags along with it. It won't tell you though, you'll just be unpleasantly surprised later on.

You lot cannot change a hosted element'southward phase within a grouping

Groups let you to example elements again and again in a project. If you lot change the geometry of an chemical element while editing a group, all other groups will mirror the alter in geometry.

Except for phases. Phases do not propagate to other groups. I guess this is useful sometimes, just as well harmful at other times. It also leads to very bizarre fault messages. For example: create a grouping which has a wall and a door which are both existing. Now edit the group, and brand the door demolished in the "New construction" phase. Yous'll get an error "Pall grid based elements cannot be grouped", even though there is nothing related to drape grids.

All the same, you can change the stage exterior of group edit mode. Interestingly, once you do this, y'all can then edit the group and change the phase. So much for consistency.

Sometimes, material tags lose association with their object

When the stars align, material tags will randomly lose association with their object, leading to a printout of a cartoon with a lot of question marks all over it. Nudging the tags restores them to their rightful behaviour. Or you can endeavor condign vegan with an equal likelihood of fixing the trouble.

Colour schemes aren't visible over floors with a surface pattern

Colour schemes are a groovy way to colour code spaces in a plan. Except colour schemes won't work if your floor object has a surface pattern specifically ready to the "Solid fill" type. It works on all other cloth hatching types. I'g not entirely sure why Autodesk likes creating inconsistent behaviour.

Problems that have been fixed since this article was published

I am exceptionally proud to announce that as of Revit 2020, one (ane) of the items on this listing have been fixed past Autodesk! Woo! I've listed them below for historic record.

You cannot import a PDF into Revit (Fixed in: Revit 2020)

The guys at Autodesk don't like PDFs because it is a common format and they prefer proprietary limited formats. This is evident because you cannot import or link a PDF into Revit. This is a pity, as literally 100% of all of architectural drawings are a PDF.

More Revit woes?

I'm sure there's much more, and the to a higher place listing have surfaced through a meager few weeks of day-to-day Revit usage. Feel gratis to transport me if you have your ain woes, and I'd exist happy to add together it if I concur that information technology is a sensible criticism, and I volition of course credit you besides.

Comments

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