HELP! Complex Linking - I really need Advise Please (attached image)

[bmwm3owner]

All,

I have a complex linking issue that I could really use some advise on. Part of me thinks that I am overthinking things and part of me thinks otherwise.

I have a large building in which I have recieved some AutoCAD files from the owner. The final deliverable is in AutoCAD. We are not going to be doing a whole lot of modeling for this project, but the whole building will have work done to it. The building is approx 12 acres in size.

At a higher level, it was decided to do this projet in Revit, so no AutoCAD will be used. My thinking was to break this building up into 5-8 pieces and then link all of the pieces into one master file. This is where I am thinking I can do the export of the dwg files to compile the new delieverable for the owner.

Since these DWG's are big and there are 5 of them, linking them into one Revit file slows the model down, which is one of the reasons why I am wanting to break the Revit file up into pieces and then re-compile them into a master file.

Here are the issues that I am running into:

1. When I link the AutoCAD files into each of the individual Revit files, there is no option to link the AutoCAD files as an overlay or an attachment. They appear to be an attachment.

2. When I link each of the individual files into the master, compiled file, it brings in the AutoCAD file with them. Since each individual Revit file has 5 CAD files, I am looking at (or am I not?) 40 AutoCAD links in the master file. The AutoCAD files are not broken up into pieces.

3. If I manage to make this scenario work, how do I reference details, sections, etc that are common throughtout the project if the details are done in the individual Revit files. For example, If I draw a detail in the Building A file, how do I reference this detail in all of the other Revit files?

There will more than likely be a lot of issues. I need some help in establishing a best practice for this. It is a large project and I need to get it right from the start. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have an attached image of a diagram that I came up with. Thanks

Sash

[Lance.Coffey]

For number 1, there is no attachment/overlay option, as DWG is not a native format, Revit doesn't try to access nested links in the same way.

For number 2, it sounds like you have the same 5 CAD files that you need to bring into 8 separate Revit projects, and you are concerned about bringing these same 5 CAD files in 40 times (8x5), when you eventually link the 8 Revit projects into a master file.

To avoid this, you could link the 5 CAD files into one or more empty Revit projects, and then link these Revit projects into the 8 other Revit projects as necessary. This way if you link the 8 Revit projects into a master file using Overlay, the CAD files within the nested Revit link would not be displayed, and could be linked separately.

For number 3, scheduling can be done through linked files. I would suggest creating a sample setup and test what you are able to do. If you run into difficulties, then you can post a sample file to a new thread describing the specific issue encountered.