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Revit 2013 - Top Rail and Hand Rail Not Visible

16 REPLIES 16
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Message 1 of 17
ericsimon9117
10963 Views, 16 Replies

Revit 2013 - Top Rail and Hand Rail Not Visible

We have a project that has been upgraded to Revit 2013.  When creating railings using the new railing types, top rails and hand rails disappear/are not visible seemingly at random.  For instance, when a railing is created that contains railing profiles in the non-continous rails dialog box in addition to a top rail, the top rail and extensions are not visible in plan, but the rails created in the old non-continous dialog are visible. 

 

This seems to occur only in our upgraded file.  New projects seem to display the top rails and hand rails consistently.

 

Can someone suggest what might be causing this and whether it is possible to fix it?

 

Also, with railings that contain a "Wall" type extension, the extension return occurs at a 90 degree angle even if it is set to have a fillet.  Further, in some instances, regardless of whether the rail is flat or sloped, the end wall extension return will display as two separate rectangles overlapping (i.e. it looks "broken"), instead of a clean, continuous railing.  This seems related to the "direction" that the rail sketch line is drawn (a line drawn from the bottom of the screen to the top will have a broken railing, one drawn from the top of the screen to the bottom will not).

 

I know that scolding the Autodesk software developers isn't going to change anything, but I feel the need to blow off a little steam.  The railing and stair "improvements" for this release are really not worth much.  It's still much more time consuming (and frustrating) to model these elements, and with poorer results graphically, than it is to simply draw them.  It's still not possible to dimension them properly, place balusters where you want them, make multi-level stair towers join properly, get the up/down arrows to display correctly, and a host of other issues. It's incredibly frustrating and baffling that there are so many issues with such a core component of the software's functionality.

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16 REPLIES 16
Message 2 of 17
LisaDrago
in reply to: ericsimon9117

Are you on Subscription? If so put a support ticket in with Autodesk... If not contact your reseller and have them put a ticket in for you.

 

LD


If this helped solve your issue - remember to 'accept as solution' to help other find answers!
You can't think AutoCAD and run Revit.
Email: LisaDragoEE@gmail.com
Message 3 of 17
loboarch
in reply to: ericsimon9117

On files upgraded to 2013 you may need to update the railings manually.  Here is the text from a page at the wiki help on upgrading files.

 

  • Railings: When you create a railing in an Autodesk Revit 2013 project, new railing types are available that include top rail and handrail properties. When you upgrade a project, if the new rail (top rail and handrail) properties do not display in the railing Type Property dialog, duplicate the existing railing type, and the new rail properties will be available in the duplicated type.

You can find more information here.

 

http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Revit/enu/2013/Help/00001-Revit_He0/0001-What%e2%80%99s_N1/0003-Upgrade...

 

This may help resolve the display issues you are seeing with the railings in your upgraded file.



Jeff Hanson
Principal Content Experience Designer
Revit Help |
Message 4 of 17

Sorry if this was not clear, but this is an upgraded railing.  It is a new type that was created after the upgrade to 2013.  The top rail has been created and is visible in some views, but not in others.

Message 5 of 17
krisweeks1
in reply to: ericsimon9117

I'm having the same issue. See attached. This was not an existing handrail from a previous install; this was a new project from scratch on a clean 2013 install on a new machine.

 

Any ideas? I've tried view overrides, and line modify doesn't work on it.

Message 6 of 17
ccollins
in reply to: krisweeks1

Make sure the railing is properly hosted by the ramp. Also, check View Range settings in the view.

Go to a 3D view and make sure the railing looks correct. Sometimes it may "disappear" in a plan view because it is "floating" above, or the View Range is set incorrectly in the Plan View.

 

Hopefully it is a display problem, and not a bug in RAC 2013.

Cliff B. Collins
Registered Architect/BIM Manager
Thalden Boyd Emery Architects
St. Louis, MO
Message 7 of 17
krisweeks1
in reply to: ccollins

Aha! Found the answer on an AUGI forum. Change view from Coarse to Medium, and voila. There they are. Not sure why that is, but it works.

Message 8 of 17
AntMc
in reply to: krisweeks1

I have just had the same problem.

I copied and pasted example rail content from Railings.rvt in the sample files folder in to an upgrade Revit 2012 project file.

These were not visible in any 3D views, nor were the new railings I created that had handrails.

Old railings were visible.

Changing detail level makes no difference.

 

This must be a bug!

Message 9 of 17
IjL
Explorer
in reply to: AntMc

I have an upgraded project with newly created 2013 handrails, in which handrail elements are appearing and disappearing at random and showing differently in different views.

 

A whole railing disappeared after clearing the balusters, and another time after clearing the non-continuous rail, but only in one 3D view, it was there in identically set up other views. The top rail failed to show on a handrail type on several levels of a stair, but was present on others. I now have railings all showing in a 3D view, but in the stair section the balusters and top rail are missing from some levels but not others. It is nothing to do with legacy railings or view detail.

 

Sometimes remaking the view restores it, but mostly the whole handrail needs to be deleted and replaced. Trying to get a multi-storey stair drawing done could be impossible.

Message 10 of 17
novelh
in reply to: ericsimon9117

I am having the same problem. The two windows on the right is a new 2013 project I created as a sample to create the railings. The handrail is from the Railing sample file provided by Autodesk. When I transferred them into my project (which was recently converted from 2012 to 2013) shown in the two windows on the left I can't see the handrail in 3D even though I have all model categories turned on under Visibility Graphics. You can see the missing handrail in plan just fine though.

Another issue is that new stairs show two UP designations as you can see on the bottom left pane. Right above that you can tell that this is a simple single stair. There are not two stairs on top of each other.

 

Message 11 of 17

I have the same issue with Revit 13 but it isn't a project that has been upgraded. The other suggestions above do not fix the problem. See attached screen shot showing handrail in plan but not in section or 3D. Has anyone heard of a fix yet?

Message 12 of 17
rkuffel
in reply to: dannelson2000

I'm having the same issue as well. Again, from the Revit Sample Project. I wonder if that sample file is corrupt - has everyone started with a railing from the sample file?

Message 13 of 17
lindaboylan
in reply to: rkuffel

It's not just the sample railings. I'm having the same issue with Viva glass railings as well. It's very random and the only fix seems to be to recreate the railing.

lboylan
Message 14 of 17
paul
in reply to: ericsimon9117

I found a possible source of the problem here:

 

http://whatrevitwants.blogspot.ca/2012/11/extents-of-revit-2013-railings-bug-when.html

 

Turns out when you remove all the balusters from a rail the "flip orientation" arrows don't know where to go and end up far away from the railing. I had problems with the railing not showing up at all in section views but when I flipped the elevation to look the opposite direction the railing would appear. The railings dlip arrow was behiond the section cut line so the rail wouldn't show.

 

Possible solutions:

1) add in baluster and then shut the balusters off in the section views

2) create small blusters that look like wall mounts.

Message 15 of 17
IjL
Explorer
in reply to: dannelson2000

Thank you Paul - that's it.

 

I've got a model now started in 2013 with railings created in 2013 and have been having the issue again. I have already noticed that non-appearance in 3D views is dependent on using a section box (as I usually do for viewing stairs within the building) so I had guessed there was some rogue geometry flying around somewhere, but had been unable to find out how to stop this in a section.

 

I have now checked that flipping the stair section brings disappeared rails back as described, and by making an entirely empty baluster family and including it in the railing visibility returns to the top rail in all views so far.

 

Thanks again.

Message 16 of 17
SkaMan40
in reply to: ericsimon9117

I was dealing with the same issue with the railing not showing up in a section view.  Nothing I tried from this thread would work.  I finally tried chaning the order of the railings in the railing family and I got the rails to appear...

 

  1. Select railing
  2. Properties, Edit Type
  3. Rail Structure parameter, Edit...
  4. Select the rail at the top, bring it all the way down (click Down button), press Apply
  5. move the rail back up to the top (click Up button), press Apply
  6. OK, OK

It worked for me, I hope it works for you Smiley Happy

 

Scott MacKenzie
BIM Manager
Stantec Architecture
Columbus, OH
Message 17 of 17

I had the same issue, i selected the railing and put reset railing.  It came back.

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