Has anyone figured out a sensible way of getting a fence (railing) to look realistic on a topo surface? I have used the "panel method" - by which you create a single panel of fenceline in a family and host it to the topo surface then array it. This is fine on flat to moderately sloping sites, and even for most timber or metal fences where a stepped fenceline doesn't look stupid. However, a post and wire fence (which is a typical fence here in NZ) just looks ridiculous. I am in the middle of attempting to use reference planes as someone suggested on RevitCity. However both these methods (and the one of creating a series of floors under the topo surface) take a long time, which could be better spent actually producing meaningful work. I mean, whats the point of creating a topo surface if you then have to go and effectively re-model it as something else to get something else to work? Fences are hardly out of the ordinary, most properties have one. How hard would it be for Auto Desk to create a railing than can be hosted to the topography? Maybe it's something they can figure out instead of mucking around with the UI and putting command icons in illogical places.
While we're on the subject of topography, I find Revit does not deal with contours around retaining walls very well. We insert survey drawings, which have contours, which, of course, are usually 3D polylines. Unfortunately Revit, being a model based program, does not read these very well and I often find it ends up making up its own contours which do not necessarily bear much relation to reality. This then results in the contours being redrawn with many, many points to get the contours working correctly. What's the point of having automatic surface generation if you have to re-draw it to get it looking correct? I read in another posting that perhaps a 3D polyline component should introduced to Revit to help with the fencing issue, perhaps this would also help it to read and translate survey drawings. After all ArchiCAD managed to do it!
I have been searching for the current wishlist on the AUGI website, but there does not seem to be one. So, please AutoDesk, give us a railing that can be hosted to the topography so we can stop wasting our time, and give your topography tools a few more translation skills.
