I've been trying to use the Model Review tool lately and I was quite happy with some of the built in checks. However, when trying to apply our company standards, I found a lot of issues and bugs.
1) Selecting/Verifying
While selecting an object and verifying it's properties is quite easy with the "Retrieve From Revit" button, selecting abstract or universal items is very difficult, if not impossible. I've been unable to verify the compliance of these items to our naming standards:
I'm also unable to find a way to count the number of warnings in a model.
2) Another category I've been unable to tamper with is the light fixture photometric parameters. For example, if I do a "Family Parameter Requirement" check and select a light fixture family using the "Retrieve from Revit" button, many of the parameters will come up as "Invalid". Selecting these invalid parameters will immediately crash both Revit and Model Review. If I use the "Parameter Requirements" check, the units are not recognized and all tests come back as failed or passed (ex: checking luminous flux not being equal to default of 1380 lm). For some reason, the category does not allow the use of regular expression, which would solve the issue altogether.
Unfortunately, many of these parameters must be checked since they are often wrong (light loss factor left at 1, generic light sources instead of photometric file specified, initial intensity left at default, etc), see attached.
3) I've seen references to a prior list of elements and their description in the help file, but these descriptions seem to have been purged from the online help section. A descriptive list of the elements and their significance would help speed up the trial and error methodology.
4)Some parameter simply do not "stick". For example if I set a Luminous Flux parameter to "Must NOT be 1380" and then go on to another check, the parameter automatically changes back to "Must be 1380" when I come back to it. Saving does not make a difference.
5) Filtering does not work. If I select all elements types with a Family Category Filter to only select Light Fixture families, it still check every single family, whether it is a light fixture or not.
While the model checker is a very powerful tool, it seems that its development has been stopped short once it got acquire by Autodesk and there is an unfortunate lack of published knowledge online. I would suggest the developers try and create a full check of an office standard and to experience all the hurdles the Model Review tools presents in a real life scenario. Additional checks such as "Workset Names", "Shared Parameter Names", etc would be a welcomed feature.
Any help with the above issues would be greatly appreciated.
In case this is still actual would you be able to detail 4 and 5 more? I have worked developing some rules in the past few weeks for my project and I'm mildly happy with the Revit 2015 version of the Model Review.
I simply found the tool to be half-baked. It was not stable, well documented or supported by Autodesk.
It's a bit like Ecotect, they bought the tool from someone and did not really know how to run it or update it then released it to clients as a "complete tool" with no support. The same can be said of Site Designer from EaglePoint.