Tài liệu Mastering Revit Architecture 2008_ Part 21 pptx

Delete unneeded imports to reduce file size and improve overall performance.. This is a good way to reduce file size, improve performance, and minimize the list of things you need to sea

Trang 1

Chapter 21

Troubleshooting and Optimizing Tips

Throughout this book, our focus has been on using Revit as an architectural design and production tool; we’ve shown how to use the software for all of the core BIM operations This chapter looks at the file-management aspect of a Revit project As we’ve said, a Revit project is a single database file, usually a large one Regular file maintenance and a well-built model will keep you from having problems down the road with file performance and stability It’s worth being aware of best prac-tices

In this chapter, you’ll find tips and tricks for keeping your file running quickly and smoothly We’ve included some pointers to keep you from getting into trouble and some solutions if you do We’ll discuss performance issues, file corruption, and getting a project started and point you to some additional resources You’ll learn how to do several things to make your work more efficient:

Performance

It should make sense that a small file on a good network runs the quickest Depending on your hardware configuration, typical file sizes can vary widely

We’ve seen them from 10MB to 150MB Much of that variation depends on the level of detail you’ve put into your model, if you have any imported files (like other 3D files or CAD files), and the overall complexity of your model However, there are a number of things you can do to be pro-active about keeping your model’s performance optimized Here are a few we recommend:

Use the /3GB switch Revit now supports Microsoft XP’s SP2 /3GB switch Windows XP allows any given application access to only 2GB of RAM at a given time; if the application needs more,

it get the rest from virtual memory Microsoft’s switch (which is available in XP Service Pack 2)

/3GB switch Of course, you need more than 2GB of RAM on your workstation for this switch

to do you any good

More information on RAM and Virtual Memory can be found at the Autodesk knowledge web-site See this link for details:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=8018971&linkID=9243099

Don’t explode imported CAD files. A CAD file imported into Revit is a collection of objects that is managed as a single entity If you explode a CAD file, the single object immediately

44831c21.fm Page 635 Friday, October 12, 2007 12:04 PM

Trang 2

636 CHAPTER 21 TROUBLESHOOTING AND OPTIMIZING TIPS

becomes many—and becomes that much more data for Revit to track If you’re unfortunate enough to explode a hatch pattern, one object becomes many thousands If you’re importing DWG files, leave them unexploded as much as possible If you need to hide lines, use the Visibility/

imported geometry, and start with a partial explode The tools shown here are available in the Options bar when you select an imported or linked DWG file

Using Partial Explode will break down the CAD file into subgroups; any blocks within the file will be maintained, hatch will be maintained, and so on Using Full Explode will break each of these components down into its individual lines If the drawing is simple and you are looking

to convert an old CAD detail into a Revit drafting view, this can be a desired effect However, remember that exploding takes one object within the database and makes many many objects from it

Another option is to change the DWG file directly in the CAD application—delete lines and layers you don’t need, then re-import

Delete or unload unused DWGs. Often, you import a DWG as a reference but then you don’t need it later in the process It’s easy to forget, but if you no longer need an import, go ahead and select it in the view and delete it This will delete the import in all views

Close unused views. Keeping the number of open views to a minimum helps the model’s

views open at once, even if you’re concentrating on only a few views Once you reduce your open views to just two or three, you can take advantage of the view switch toggle: Press Ctrl-Tab, and you’ll cycle through your open views Press Ctrl-Shift-Tab to reverse the view cycle

Calculate room volumes only when necessary. You can turn on room volume calculation by

in Figure 21.1) only if you need room tags or a schedule to display volumetric information Don’t forget to switch off this option after you print or view the information Otherwise, the volumes will recalculate each time you edit something in the model, and this can affect the overall per-formance of your file dramatically

Figure 21.1

Compute Room Vol-umes option should only be checked when reviewing volumes or when printing docu-ments that display volume information

Trang 3

BEST PRACTICES 637

Best Practices

Another way to improve performance is to follow some simple, best practice guidelines for your workflow These aren’t necessarily a list of do’s and don’ts or a list of potential hazards, they are suggestions to make a few, simple changes or additions to your workflow and buy yourself back some time in the long run Many users get frustrated with long load times opening views in Revit Follow these tips and it will keep things optimally humming along

Workshared files: Make a new local copy once a week. Sometimes in a worksharing envi-ronment, your local copy can begin to perform poorly but others on your team don’t have the same problems If this is the case, we recommend that you make a new local file Local files can become problematic for any of the reasons that commonly cause issues with large files in a net-worked environment As a general practice, it’s a good idea to make a new local copy once a week

Use Graphics Card options to improve drawing performance. In the Settings Options Graphics tab, make sure you have both the Use OpenGL Hardware Acceleration and “Use over-lay planes to improve performance” check boxes marked (Figure 21.2) Unchecking the “Use overlay planes…” option can cause significant degradation in performance—we recommended you never uncheck it

Figure 21.2

Enable video card options for better performance

Import/Link DWGs in one view only. Importing in all views can seriously affect performance Whenever possible, import in Current View only Exception is when you wish to create a Topo-surface out of a CAD file—you will have to import the CAD file in all views Note the “Link (instead of import)” check box in the Import or Link dialog box Linking is better than importing

if you don’t need to edit the geometry

Watch out for imported geometry. Although Revit has the ability to import files from a num-ber of other sources, you should exercise caution when doing so If you’re importing a 60MB

Trang 4

NURBS-based file into your model, expect your Revit model to grow in size and react a bit slower than it did before Delete unneeded imports to reduce file size and improve overall performance

Purge unused elements. Revit has a built-in tool that allows you to purge unused families and content This is a good way to reduce file size, improve performance, and minimize the list

of things you need to search through when adding content in the project Loaded but unused

very large, it may take a few minutes to run this command before you see the dialog box shown

in Figure 21.3 Here, you can opt to keep or purge families individually

Figure 21.3

Use the “Purge unused” dialog to reduce file size

families that you intend to use but haven’t yet inserted (such as wall types)

Note that some Revit families can only be removed from the project with the Purge command You will notice with elements such as dimensions and textnotes that there is no way to delete a family type from the Properties dialog To get rid of unused types, use Purge Unused Every-thing included in the Other Styles group falls into this category

Manage amount of information shown in views. Learn to manage the amount of information needed in your views Don’t show more than you need to show in a view, in either the View Depth or level of detail you choose Here are a few easy ways to keep your views opening and printing smoothly:

Minimize the level of detail. Set your detail level (in the View Control bar) relative to the

need Detail Level set to Fine—it will cause your view performance to suffer needlessly

Hide elements you don’t need to see. This goes along with the level of detail, but this tip is

(1:50) drawing, make sure you’re showing the proper level of detail in the view Even if Detail Level is set to Coarse, do you really need to show balusters in an elevation on your railing at that scale? They will print as a thick, black line Turning them off in this view will help to not only improve your printing speed, but also the quality of the resulting printed sheet

Trang 5

Minimizing View Depth. View Depth is a great tool to enhance performance It’s especially valuable in section views A typical wall section is shown in Figure 21.4 The default behavior (top) causes Revit to regenerate all of the model geometry the full depth of that view every time you open the view To reduce the amount of geometry that needs to be redrawn, drag the section’s far clip plane (the green dashed line when you highlight the section) in close to the cutting plane (bottom)

Figure 21.4

Depth of a section view can affect performance

Speeding Up Display by Correcting View Detail Level

We had a project in which it was taking upwards of 20 minutes to open plan views As you can imagine, this was very frustrating for the users, especially when those views were opened accidentally As it

unnecessary because none of the elements in the plan showed any significant information at this level

of detail By setting View Detail to Coarse, we were able to reduce the time it took to open those views

to under 2 minutes

We further optimized view performance by modifying complex families in the view to show less detail

at a coarse level The level of detail you need to show in a small scale view (like 1⁄16˝) is far different than

or portions of the family at different detail levels

Trang 6

Turn off shadows. Shadows can help you make beautiful presentations, give a sense of depth

in façades, and show the effect of the sun in a site-plan view Computing shadows, however, is performance intensive and can significantly slow down printing, panning, zooming, and selec-tion Make sure you turn them off whenever you don’t need them

Open only what you need. One of the benefits of having worksets is that you don’t have to turn them all on at once When you open the project, open the Workset dialog box There, you can high-light any workset you won’t be working with and click the Close button (see Figure 21.5) Doing

so drops that workset from active memory and gives you better performance Remember, if worksets are closed, you can’t do anything with them If a workset isn’t visible, it won’t print

To print a current copy of the whole model, you’ll need to turn the worksets back on

Break up your model. For larger projects, or campus-style projects, you can break up your model into smaller submodels that are referenced together You can also do this on a single building If you decide to divide your project, make your cuts are along lines that make sense from a holistic-building standpoint Don’t think of the cuts as you would in CAD, but think about how the actual assemblies will interact in the building So, for example, don’t cut between floors 2 and 3 on a multistory building unless you have a significant change in building form or program Here’s a list of some good places to split a model (for example, Figure 21.6 represents one project split into the four models you see):

Figure 21.5

Worksets can be closed to reduce the amount of memory used to open a file

Print DWFs or PDFs before you print paper Printing big Revit files can sometimes take a long time Enabling raster printing speeds up printing, although there is a trade-off compared

to the quality that vector printing offers Depending on the printer, you may get better line qual-ity by creating a DWF or PDF first and then printing your physical sheets It’s best to experiment

on a few sheets to see what your printer responds to best before sending your entire set Printing

a digital set first will also give you a record copy of what you have just printed as well as a quick way to make additional copies later if needed

Trang 7

Figure 21.6

Splitting up a model can improve performance

Model just what you need. Don’t fall into the trap of overmodeling Just because you can doesn’t

size of your project Some data is just easier and better to show in a 2D detail rather than as 3D model data The amount of information you model or do not model should be based on your project size and complexity, your timeframe, and your comfort level with the software

Don’t overconstrain. User-defined relationships and constraints are important to embed in the design to help keep important dimensions constant However, if you don’t need to lock a relationship, don’t Even though the option to lock all alignments is available, it’s often not nec-essary to do so Overconstraining the model can cause problems later in the project process when you want to move or modify an element and you need to figure out (or remember) what you locked or where to allow the particular element to be moved or modified

Fix overconstrained objects. If you keep encountering a dialog box telling you the model is overconstrained and this is impeding your workflow, you can unlock the constraint If it is a simple element (such as a wall with no openings or sections), it might be easier to simply delete and re-add the troubled object

Open your project, not a new empty project file. Each time you launch Revit, it opens with

a blank default template This template is often rich with data, and your computer will need a minute or two to open it However, once a project is under way, the need to open a default template is removed—you most likely just need to open the file you’re working on Instead of opening Revit and then opening your project file, drag the project file over the Revit icon or double-click the file from Windows Explorer Doing so launches Revit without first opening a template file Also, if you do open Revit with the default template, close the file if you’re not using it for anything

Close Revit with an empty view. To avoid long opening times for really large files, establish

an office standard that you always close your last view as a drafting view or Legend that is empty or maybe contains only some text with the project name This way, when Revit first opens the project, it will need much less processing time By default, Revit always opens with the view from when the project was last saved We’ve seen some nice looking “project pages” made with

a drafting view using text and some simple instructions (Figure 21.7)

Warehouse Model IRS Processing Model

Post Office Model Tunnel Model

Trang 8

Figure 21.7

An example of an

“empty” view to STC, open, and close the Project

File Corruption

On the odd chance your file becomes corrupt and begins to crash frequently, there are a few things you can do to help fix the problem before you call Revit Support in a panic All of these steps can

be taken before you get into trouble Remember, the best way to keep a file from having issues is

Otherwise, here are some suggestions on what to do when you begin get into trouble

Audit the file. When a file is audited, the data structures are reviewed and problems that are found with the model are corrected An audited file won’t look any different when the audit is completed; however, it should (ideally) not crash This is not a cure-all, by any means, but it can help you get out of a tight spot when necessary

You (or the project manager) should first get everyone out of any worksets and local files and have them relinquish their permissions Then take the following steps:

project location

check box in the lower-right corner

can take several minutes to complete

don’t save this file over the old Revit file Saving over an existing Revit file can some-times lead to instability

to work

Review warnings. Each time you make something that Revit considers a problem, a warning

is issued Warnings will accumulate if left unresolved Think of all these errors as unresolved

Trang 9

TIPS FOR GETTING STARTED IN REVIT 643

calculations The more there are, the more your computer will have to struggle trying to resolve them Revit provides an interface for reviewing all the warnings in the project and fixing problems Try to read and react to the warnings that Revit sends You don’t have to do it when you’re under

a tight deadline or when doing so will interrupt your work But once a week, you should spend

30 minutes reviewing the warnings because this can improve your model’s overall performance

Figure 21.8

The Review Warnings dialog

Purge Unused. We referred to this earlier in the chapter, but it can also be used to get rid of poorly built families that might be causing havoc in your file

Tips for Getting Started in Revit

Although this list isn’t complete by any means, it should help steer you in the right direction

Begin with your end in mind. When you begin any project, planning is always a good way to start You can set yourself up for a successful implementation from the beginning by using a bit

of forethought about your process, workflow, and desired outcome

Get your template and office standards in place first. As design professionals, we have a tendency to develop unique graphic conventions and styles for our documents This is a specific area in which good planning leads to a good project If possible, get your standards in place before you begin a project Revit does an excellent job of getting you started with a good tem-plate of graphic standards to work with However, if you’re like most architects, an application right out of the box is never quite nice enough Revit provides a good starting point for custom-ization, and with some up-front time, you can soon have your project and office standards up and running See chapters 4 and 5 for more information about standard project templates

Remember that the first project you do in Revit is a change in methodology You’re lever-aging technology to help you change the way you approach design and documentation Don’t expect the process to have the same workflow as it did in a CAD-based system Try to stay flex-ible in your expectations and schedule, and allow yourself time to adapt to the change

Don’t try to conquer the world on the first project. There are many advantages to using BIM

as a design and documentation methodology As this process becomes more mainstream within the industry, those benefits will only increase All of these things and more are possible with the

Trang 10

use of Revit, but it will take a couple of projects to get there Tailor the use of BIM to the project, and use the features that will maximize the benefits of using BIM Choose your goals realistically based on the expertise of your project team, and plan in advance so you can be successful

Model correctly from the beginning One of the most important rules to follow as you begin your project is to model the building as it will be built We can’t stress this enough It’s critical

to begin modeling correctly from the beginning, so that as the design is refined you don’t have

to fix things later What does this mean? If you can begin to think about how your project will

be assembled, it will save you a lot of time at the end

Get information into the project as soon as it becomes known. A key advantage of using Revit is the ability to change your project schedule In a traditional design process, most of the effort on a project is realized during the construction document phase At that time, more people are typically working on the project, and it can be fairly difficult to implement major changes to the project design By this time, the documents are complex, and it would require a great amount

of effort for the team to redraw all the changed information You’ll find that with Revit, design change is largely managed by the software itself, which gives you a great deal of flexibility in both your design and documentation Take advantage of this shift in the process, and add infor-mation to your model early It can be in the form of more detailed content or it can show the material construction of your wall system Remember that you can change all this information much more quickly and easily than you ever could in CAD, so don’t assume you’re locked into the information you displayed early in the design process

Plan for better communication among team members early in the process Communication within a team is critical for understanding a project and documenting it successfully One of the limitations of a CAD-based system is that there is no direct connection between the different files that make up the drawing set This phenomenon carries through to the project team and is inherent in the project workflow and management In CAD, it’s possible for team members to work in some degree of isolation They aren’t forced to immediately reconcile their changes with changes made by their teammates Revit’s single-file environment forces a much higher degree

of team communication

Don’t try to model everything. Most of us have drafted in a 2D environment until now Moving to a 3D world is a significant change Do you have to model every single screw? That’s

a good question Like any BIM system, Revit doesn’t require 100 percent 3D information Typical workstations aren’t capable of handling all the data of a building in model form Additionally, few projects have the time in their schedule to model the screws in a sheet of gypsum board or the sealant around all the windows; some of that information is best presented in 2D or in the specifications This still leaves you with a wide range of options for modeling In the beginning, err on the side of simplicity It’s far easier to add complexity to your model later on as you gain experience and confidence than it is to troubleshoot overconstrained parameters early in the process Start with the big ideas: walls, openings, roofs, and so forth Work your way down to

a comfortable level of detail for both you and your computer

Organize your team. A BIM project team includes three basic technical roles These roles are interchangeable, especially on smaller projects with fewer team members No matter how small the team, it’s useful to make sure all these roles are filled

Định dạng
Số trang	12
Dung lượng	495,21 KB

Tiêu đề	Troubleshooting and Optimizing Tips
Chuyên ngành	Revit Architecture
Thể loại	Chapter
Năm xuất bản	2007