topic duplicate instance of CAD links (visibility graphics) in Revit Architecture Forum

duplicate instance of CAD links (visibility graphics)

JF.K — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 16:21:39 GMT

Hi all!

We have the following situation:

In the Visibility/Graphics ALL linked DWGs are duplicated, without exception.

Imported objects styles happens the same.

The duplication happened once to all the links.

We noticed that:

When turning the visibility OFF of one of the linking instances (the second represented in the picture above), the dwg was still visible, whereas when doing this to the other, the dwg visibility behaved as expected (not shown).

We know that:

We only have one instance of this linked dwg. We ran one simple Dynamo script and used BIMlink to confirm that.

No one created similar instances of the links. We would have seen the “name of the file + (2).dwg” inside the imported categories of the Visibility/Graphics.

BUT:

When the dwg was completely removed from file and loaded again, the problem disappears. However, this is a project that heavily relies on CAD underlays (yes it is a bad practice) therefore we want to avoid remove/add solution since our visibility settings will disappear as soon as we remove the link from the file.

Has anyone had the same problem with DWGs and was able to solve it without the remove/add solution?

Thanks in advance

Re: duplicate instance of CAD links (visibility graphics)

Corsten.Au — Fri, 16 Nov 2018 04:26:52 GMT

There are two ways to link CAD. ( we wont talk about imported CAD )

1. Link, in which CAD is visibile in 3D and all view, as long as view range captures it..

2. Second is view specific.. ( this option is available while linking the CAD , " current view only"

in this case CAD is visible only in one view ( Plan, elevation, section etc ) and can be copy / pasted

in another views...

sometimes there are two instances of the Same CAD file, one in 3D and other are in 2D ( view specific )

Check whether the linked CAD is in 3D or just view specific ( 1 & 2 as mentioned above )

and take it further to resolve it..

Re: duplicate instance of CAD links (visibility graphics)

JF.K — Fri, 16 Nov 2018 07:47:50 GMT

@Corsten.Au thank you for your answer.

I am aware of the different methods of linking Cad files, and this specific one is placed in 3D so its visible in all views if we want it to.

We know for a fact that there is only one instance of the link. As I said, this was confirmed by two methods (Dynamo and BIMLink), but somehow Revit is displaying a copy of every single link (including the one shown as example) in the VG - imported categories. How that can be possible?

Re: duplicate instance of CAD links (visibility graphics)

ruben3 — Wed, 26 Dec 2018 17:02:04 GMT

Apparently the only solution by autodesk is to un-link the instance and re-link it again in the project.

There are duplicate instances of a linked CAD file in the 'Imported' category for Visibility Graphics in Revit

Re: duplicate instance of CAD links (visibility graphics)

SteveKStafford — Wed, 26 Dec 2018 17:54:08 GMT

Did you try Purge Unused? If a DWG file is no longer in use (for example imported and exploded) it will be listed among elements that can be purged. Whenever I see DWG files listed in V/G that aren't expected I run Purge Unused first to see what I find.

Re: duplicate instance of CAD links (visibility graphics)

JF.K — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 12:24:19 GMT

@SteveKStafford, purging and auditing were the first things to do after we discovered this issue but nothing worked. It was like a ghost dwg.

@ruben3 I also read that suggestion from Autodesk and that was how we end up doing. We solved the problem some time ago only by removing and re-linking the DWGs again. Was a bit time consuming though...

Thank you all for your inputs.

Re: duplicate instance of CAD links (visibility graphics)

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 03:33:36 GMT

This one did it for me. Thank you!