The 8 Worst Things You Can Do In Revit

The 8 Worst Things You Can Do In Revit

1. Never leave inserted AutoCAD DWGs in a Revit model. Although you can insert a block or drawing into Revit it can cause severe performance and stability issues. DWG files bloat the model by using far more memory than pure Revit entities. If the AutoCAD file is necessary as a background, linking the file in rather than importing it can prevent and reduce some of these issues.

2. Don’t let unresolved Revit warnings languish. Large numbers of unresolved warnings can seriously degrade model performance and stability. Resolve warnings as they occur to keep them from building up in the model. Periodically check the “Warnings” tool on the “Manage” ribbon to see what warnings (if any) have built up in the model.

3. Don’t use Revit Families from Manufacturers without checking them first. Building Product Manufacturers are responding to your requests for Revit content by having families of their products created in Revit. These families may look great when viewed, but if they contain too much detail they can quickly bloat your model.

4. Don’t over-model. One of the most common mistakes among new users of Revit is to put too much detail in the model. Determine how much detail is really necessary to convey your design intent, and then monitor your team to prevent over-modeling.

5. Don’t use in-place families too often. While it is inevitable that you will have to use in-place families in a typical project, be selective in their use. If you create an in-place family and later decide that it should be a component family, there is absolutely no way to convert it. If you must use an in place family, do not duplicate it. For example, if you have to use in-place families to create light coves in several rooms, create them all in one in-place family; don’t create a different in-place family for each room. 

6. Don’t over-constrain model geometry in a project file. Dimension and alignment constraints add overhead to the file and increase the potential for the dreaded “constraints not satisfied” error message. If you’re not absolutely sure that you should constrain something, then you probably shouldn’t.

7. Don’t lose control of your views. Exercise good view management. Don’t create unnecessary views and don’t leave views unnamed. During the course of a project, the project browser can become populated with a large number of unnecessary views that add to file size.

8. Don’t over-use Groups. An inordinate number of groups in a project can impact performance and bloat the model. Make sure to purge unused groups from the model regularly and turn off the “Group and Associate” option when using the Array tool. 

Sc
I found #5 :-)

Reducing Revit File Size

Here are some tips on how to reduce your Revit file size

      Warnings - These get ignored and pile up and some of these are more offensive than others. Room, space and area errors caused by boundary issues or redundancy is wasting your cpu's time. Any warning is a waste of "space" and "resources" to some degree.

      View Detail - Do you have a lot of views that are using fine or medium detail level but have scales like 1/16", 1/8"=1'-0" (1:200, 1:100, 1:50)? These views won't really show this level of detail for all elements effectively and you are asking the computer to show it anyway.

      Unused Content - Families that are not going to be used at all can contributed to some bloat. Especially if they are complex families that are quite large to begin with. Purge out any unused families, if you’re not sure export the families into a container file before purging the project file.

      Compact Central - An oversimplification, it is akin to the operating system performing defragmentation of your computer's hard drive. Think of it as asking Revit to clean up after a busy day, it allows Revit to reduce file size.

      Create New Central File- Open the Central file with the “detach from Central” box checked, and then save as a new Central file with a different file name, or to a different location on their server. What this does is it rewrites the database associated with the file and can dramatically reduce the file size.

      Audit your Families– You can check the file size of your families simply by “export family types” then going through the family list to check the file size. You’ll easily be able to spot large family files at a glance.

      Limit custom crop regions – Custom crop regions are “resource intense”, you computer has to think every time you go to that view, reducing the amount of custom crop regions will help reduce the file size.

      Limit 3D views – Keep the number of 3D views in your project to a minimum where possible. Similar to custom crop regions, 3D views are “resource intense”.

      Limit imported images – Images can easily inflate your file size, if you have any background images for rendering or images in your title block that you need to keep, look at reducing the image file size by as much as possible without compromising the quality of the image.

      Export Renderings and walk-thru’s – Any renderings or walkthroughs created in Revit increase your file size, by exporting these you can dramatically reduce the file size.

      Limit the use of Groups and Array’s – Large numbers of groups and array’s in a project can bloat the model. Purge unused groups from the model regularly and turn off the “Group and Associate” option when using the Array tool.

Cleaning up Families

For some Revit Families you may have received either from a consultant of a supplier (especially from suppliers) the file size may be too big or over-modeled.

 Adam in my Vancouver office came up with this flow chart showing some simple steps on how to clean up Revit Families…

Save a copy of the image to your desktop to keep handy.

Enjoy!.

Thanks Adam!

SC