Revit MEP Forum
Welcome to Autodesk’s Revit MEP Forums. Share your knowledge, ask questions, and explore popular Revit MEP topics.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Help with Revit 09 Spaces and Trace

13 REPLIES 13
Reply
Message 1 of 14
bas1
416 Views, 13 Replies

Help with Revit 09 Spaces and Trace

I am having a hard time convincing that there is a difference in interior walls and exterior walls. In Revit 08, this was determined by Room adjacencies. If a room boundry was not touching another room boundry, the boundry wall was considered exterior. When I generate Spaces in 09, none of the spaces actually touch each other as they are bound by the interior faces of walls, thus the depth of the wall leaves a gap which I believe Trace is interpreting as an exterior wall. Can anyone tell my how to fix this so Trace recognizes the difference in interior and exterior walls generated by Revit 09 spaces? Thanks.
13 REPLIES 13
Message 2 of 14
wilsonmm
in reply to: bas1

The walls that the Revit model has is the problem, if you check the interiior walls properties they say exterior walls on the assembly description, to fix this you have to open the architectural revit model and right click on an interior wall and select "select all instances" to select all interior walls on the model then click properties, edit, and change the assembly to read interior partition, see my picture.
Message 3 of 14
bas1
in reply to: bas1

Thanks for the information. I think I have everything working well now except the roofs. Many roofs are coming into trace with a roof direction of 180 or 360 degrees. Any idea what can be the cause of this? It does seem to affect the results of the load calculation.
Message 4 of 14
wilsonmm
in reply to: bas1

I have a model with the same problem, I think Revit doesn't fully speak gbxml, and if you have columns on your model Revit also add them as exterior walls, I haven't come up with any fix yet, but I'm looking into it. I am really tired of this Revit crap, they don't even have flat oval duct.
Message 5 of 14
KyleB_Autodesk
in reply to: bas1

The Interior and Exterior setting for Walls should have no impact on the gbXML that we produce for the Spaces they bound, it is the same adjacency concept previously mentioned.

The gbXML surfaces produced that are consumed by Trane Trace are always produced at the Centerline of the Revit Wall.

If you have a reproduceable case of this issue, of which this is the first report I have seen, have you reported it to our Subscription Support team?

Cheers,
Kyle B
Revit MEP Product Manager


Kyle Bernhardt
Director
Building Design Strategy
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 6 of 14
wilsonmm
in reply to: bas1

What about flat oval duct? this is a big thing you know; and when exporting gbxml the name I get for the room is the same name as the property of the space itself, ie: space 1, space 2, space 3, when linking the space tag with the architectural tag as you expalined in your video that was really nice, you still get the space name "space 1 etc" and not the space tag that is reflecting the arch. tags, any fix for this?. thanks
Message 7 of 14
KyleB_Autodesk
in reply to: bas1

I'm not sure what Flat Oval Ductwork has to do with Trane Trace and this discussion. Nonetheless, you are correct that you cannot model this type of ductwork system today in Revit MEP. That type of capability would need to come in a future release.

As for your question that is applicable to this discussion, there is no automated way to do this today. You will need to manually name and number the Spaces according to the Architect's Rooms. I highly recommend that you carry this our in a Space Schedule, where it will be much simpler to make these changes for multiple Spaces in rapid succession.

Cheers,
Kyle B
Revit MEP Product Manager


Kyle Bernhardt
Director
Building Design Strategy
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 8 of 14
wilsonmm
in reply to: bas1

kyle thanks for your answer, and I apology for any rude comments, it just that we are starting a big hospital in Orlando Fl. and there are so many question a so litle answer, we hired Avatech for training but stil not a solid answer from them, the training that they are teaching us is with the MEP tutorial which is completely wrong, now when we and any architectural and engineering film design a building; the architect is the one who put the plumbing fixtures in their model not the plumbing engineer, now how do we engineers use those toilets and sinks in our model, we cannot make a plumbing system; the program won't allow it, I am dealing with 2500 rooms and spaces and space names, do you see how bad it is for us. PLEASE HELP. TOMORROW i WILL TRY TO CALL AUTODESK, do you have any plumbing model with a lot of pipe that you can send me and hvac models too. thanks, wilson_augusto@ellerbebecket.com
hvac designer.
Message 9 of 14
wilsonmm
in reply to: bas1

The training book they gave us is 2008 revit mep.
Message 10 of 14
bas1
in reply to: bas1

I have yet to get all of the exterior walls to come in correctly. I eventually just used what I could and made corrections in Trace. As long as the wall is simple, it comes in fine. If the wall is curved, there is a problem. If there is a curtainwall, there is a problem. If there is stacked wall, there is a problem. I will never be able to tell an architect how to design a building in order to save the mechanical engineer effort. The old espaces were far superior to this system. The engineer needs to have the ability to tell the software what is an interior wall and what is an exterior wall. The increased intelligence of detecting adjacencies is a step back IMO because engineers will always be at the mercy of architects. An option to autodetect adjacencies or assign interior/exterior values to all walls would be a big addition to this software.
Message 11 of 14
KyleB_Autodesk
in reply to: bas1

I definitely feel your pain here. We are in the process of overhauling our courseware to be more appropriate to the product usage. The updated version should be out the next couple months. We are also working with our reseller channel to better provide information to MEP users.

As for your situation, the workflow to solve the matter is either placing duplicate Plumbing fixtures, or using Face-Hosted Connector Families, which you place on the linked Plumbing Fixtures.

But before going down that road, are you planning to model all of your plumbing just to produce the same one-line drawings you always produce? If so, I would evaluate whether the coordination needs for those systems require modeling the entire plumbing network, or if you can use your existing drafting workflow to produce Plumbing CDs, and then model specific sections that have coordination concerns like large sloping drain piping.

Modeling an entire building it great and can be done in Revit MEP, but if this is your first project, it sounds like your firm may be biting off more than you can realistically chew, and still complete the project in the standard timeframe.

Remember, it's a road to BIM, not a street to cross.

As for the Space naming issue, like I said, using a Space Scheudle is the most productive way to accomplish this task today. The only other option would be to write an API application that does this automatically for you, which is entirely feasible (we're looking at the same thing ourselves).

Cheers,
Kyle B
Revit MEP Product Manager


Kyle Bernhardt
Director
Building Design Strategy
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 12 of 14
KyleB_Autodesk
in reply to: bas1

Since Trane Trace is not a model-based analysis application like IES or Ecotect, the best way to check your model before exporting it is examining a Shaded view in the Heating and Cooling Loads dialog. That is a visualization of the gbXML output. You can isolate individual Spaces and see the surfaces that define their boundaries.

Our strategy here is to support a Model-based approach to Building Performance Analysis, which requires Architects and Engineers understanding that their Revit Model is not just going to be used for visualization and construction documents.

Cheers,
Kyle B
Revit MEP Product Manager


Kyle Bernhardt
Director
Building Design Strategy
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 13 of 14
wilsonmm
in reply to: bas1

To fix the Room name problem all Autodesk has to do is export the room tags and number and not the space name and number to the gbxml file, Right?
as for plumbing; if Revit is a tru 3d modeling or bim Application why you cannot create a system with the architect fixtures, and on your tutorials or training books, why don't you guys give your partners the pdf on the Autodesk web page "documentations, I don't know if you have looked at them but they are updated for 2009 in all disciplines and they are really good tutorials, I when though them and completed them and now have a big understandind of Revit MEP, Arch, and Structural. On the plumbing side, can you a least make the program copy monitor the plumbing fixtures from the arch. linked model in that way maybe you can select them for your system. Autodesk should now that the architects are the ones that put the plumbing fixtures and even the lighting fixtures on the plans, and the engineers just use them. putting plumbing fixtures in your model is not good, to do double work, like 6000 fixtures min. on this project. I think that Autodesk is using their power of been the number one on the design world to make you buy more products from them and their partners, I don't want to buy another ies Apachi, I want to use Trane, trace 700 I've been using it for more than a gazillion years. We took 3 days of training with Avatech which gave us old books and know everyone in the office knows a litle bit less than before, I don't think Avatech is being a plus sign for Autodesk I had to teach the instructor a lot of things myself. as for the model; not the client want Revit models, videos, animation and all in real 3d. can you make a video on how to put the connectors to the plumbing fixtures on a linked arch file? please.
Message 14 of 14
Anonymous
in reply to: bas1

Wilson

I am in Tucson, AZ and I can't tell you how many times some firms start their first project in MEP with hospitals! I tell architects to get started on a smaller and familiar project type with their MEP and Struct consultants before tackling a bigger project like a hospital. So I feel your pain since you are problay being pressured by the architect to use MEP on this project for the first time. That is patently unfair to your firm and doesn't allow the transition for the MEP engineer to use Revit MEP on a smaller project with a long lead time.

All I can tell you this happens too often and wish you the best in this transistion.

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Rail Community


Autodesk Design & Make Report