topic Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs in Revit MEP Forum

Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

RIPENG — Sat, 20 Mar 2021 22:17:24 GMT

All right Autodesk. Where is the utility to reformat the zillions of Family Type Catalogs that are rendered inoperative due to the Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021?

Revit 2021 should reformat Family Type Catalogs gracefully. That would be looking ahead and taking care of the user base that pays good money for production software tools. Instead, time bombs are going off out here office by office and grinding productivity to a halt.

Jacking around with a foundational item like units of measurement in 2021!? It's no joke. It's Autodesk Revit.

-Jake

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

iainsavage — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 09:53:30 GMT

Well that explains this other post: @isosa9APBT

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-mep-forum/unit-weight-pounds-per-cubic-foot-vs-pounds-force-per-cubic-foot/td-p/10150080

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

RIPENG — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 13:12:01 GMT

Thanks for the reference. It didn't pop up on a cursory search that was framed too broadly.

"Content generated in earlier versions of Revit may need to be updated for compatibility with Revit 2021 if it includes references to certain identifiers."

Probably safe to say at this point that "may" = "must". Based on community observations it was never safe to use the "may" qualifier.

Regression testing would have caught something like this. The community capturing the disparity suggests that regression testing was not done. Either that or regression testing was done and it was decided that the overhead would be laid off on the user base. Not good in either case.

This problem extends to database export operations as well. We don't typically operate directly on the database but those that do may want to run a regression testing regimen to prove reliability across workflow(s).

Best wishes,

Jake

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

RIPENG — Sat, 17 Apr 2021 18:12:04 GMT

Regression testing did catch this problem by 02/01/2021 and the workload was laid off on the user base. The technical support advisory: Families with type catalogs cannot be upgraded to Revit 2021.

Dear Autodesk: Content generated in earlier versions of Revit ~~may need to~~ must be updated for compatibility with Revit 2021 if it includes references to ~~certain~~ changed identifiers.

The technical support advisory solution: Manually edit the type catalogs to incorporate the new unit types.

Unit not on the list of units located here:

INCHES_OF_WATER >> INCHES_OF_WATER_PER_100FT

Dear Autodesk: Please revise list of changed units to include all the units that were changed.

--Jake

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

dthrasher — Thu, 20 May 2021 22:04:30 GMT

I really like how these geniuses think you can just "update the type catalogs to the new 2021 format".........NEWS FLASH TO AUTODESK: As an MEP consultant we have to use whatever model version is sent to us by the architect!

As soon as I "fix" this for 2021, I just broke it for the other 70% of our projects that are still using 2019 or 2020. And as noted above, we have to change this for literally hundreds of families that use simple-enough units like "Gallons" or "Pounds".

Once again, you have proven that you have no idea WHATSOEVER how your clients actually use your product. That has been obvious to most of us for a while now, but every once in a while you pull out a real jewel like this.

Autodesk has to be the worst business out there I deal with on a regular basis. Oh sure, the health insurance companies are always jacking up their rates same as Autodesk, but at least my insurance card works from year to year. EVERY SINGLE YEAR, Autodesk decides to break things that were working rather than fix the things that have never worked. I think it's to distract us from the fact that they never DO fix things that don't work - it is an incredibly effective, if frustrating tactic 👏👏👏👏

I don't really feel like having two copies of every family in our library.........re-identifying the parameters from US imperial to metric seems to be a possible solution as I know they will convert to our project units once loaded, but I need to see how they look when loading in families. No one at our company is going to have a clue what a 151.416 Liter water heater is.........

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

dthrasher — Thu, 20 May 2021 22:11:20 GMT

UPDATE: This will work - as in it will show up correct in the Type Catalog Dialog when loading in the family, but it will require converting all of the quantities in the type catalog since the corresponding units changed as well. (where we had "40" gallons, the number now needs to be "151.416")
I can do this somewhat easily as we created all of our type catalogs in excel.........but I still have to create the formula and then export out to csv/text files again.
X200+ times............our summer interns can't start soon enough! 🙂

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

RobDraw — Thu, 20 May 2021 22:21:34 GMT

So sorry, this is the user help forum. The complaint department is down the hall and to the left. They will hear you over there.

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

RIPENG — Fri, 21 May 2021 12:58:51 GMT

I'm not sure what to call it.

Arrogant? Malignant? Ignorant?

No readily available characterization inspires confidence given the corruption of a fundamental design element. Poor reference point management has destroyed things as advanced as aerospace programs in the past. There should be people at Autodesk that understand this in positions of authority high enough to navigate the ship around disaster.

But maybe it is we who are wrong. There is always that possibility. How about it Autodesk? Is there something so revolutionary waiting in the wings that the units reference point had to be undermined? If so, now might be a good time to let the rest of us down in the trenches in on the plan.

In any event, glad to hear from others out there. Definitely not happy for your trouble. But certainly happy for your solidarity.

-Jake

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

RIPENG — Fri, 21 May 2021 13:13:37 GMT

Didn't think of changing all the units over to metric. What a PITA that would be.

I won't mark this as a solution since it requires a massive amount of compensation on the part of the end user as you've pointed out. Don't want Autodesk to get the impression that this level of compensation on the part of the end user is acceptable.

I agree about not wanting to double the number of family versions. That's just a maintenance nightmare waiting to happen. It's bad enough as it is with no ability to back save Revit families.

I thought about using pyRevit to develop a utility to load families with R21 corrupted units. However, my Python/Revit API kung fu is not strong.

-Jake

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

RobDraw — Fri, 21 May 2021 13:33:19 GMT

Autodesk won't get the wrong idea as they probably won't be reading this. This is a user help forum. Marked solutions are for users to find answers.

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

dthrasher — Mon, 24 May 2021 11:24:19 GMT

Yep - got it, thanks.

You might have missed where we were discussing possible solutions. If I added some extra-curricular bad words about Autodesk, my apologies......the thought of a couple hundred lost man-hours to fix a problem that shouldn't even exist will do that to 'ya.

If you happen to have a solution to the problem, please let us in on it.

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

RIPENG — Tue, 25 May 2021 21:13:03 GMT

Based on this post by Konrad Sobon it seems the churn on Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement may have something to do with what is happening in Autodesk Forge world.

-Jake

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

RIPENG — Tue, 25 May 2021 21:40:45 GMT

Played around with Dynamo in R21 to see what could be done. For Dynamo I envision a two part workflow:

Part 1 - Reformat family type catalog Units of Measurement as required,

Part 2 - Load family against reformatted family type catalog.

Part 1 works well enough at the demonstration stage. See attached for a text file that houses all known Revit 2021 Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement. This text file is used by the attached Dynamo graph to reformat a family type catalog of interest. Please note there is one Clockwork add-on dependency in the Dynamo graph.

Note sure how to package Part 1 and Part 2 together in a single Dynamo graph to keep the family load process as straight forward as possible. I'll have to chip away at that problem next. For those that only have an interest in Part 1 the attached files are a running start where Dynamo is concerned.

-Jake

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

RIPENG — Sat, 10 Jul 2021 19:29:54 GMT

Improved Dynamo graph.

-Jake

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

casquatch — Tue, 30 May 2023 18:31:42 GMT

Not sure if this is still something folks are trying to fix / update, but I ended up making a PowerShell script to batch update multiple .txt files at once. This will find the old version of the unit and then replace them with the new.

In our library, I just create a new folder labeled 2021+ and then copy any needed content into that folder and run the script. Once we migrate all of our content over to 2021, then that will eliminate the need for the script, but it's a handy way to get things upgraded and I don't have to dig through Type Catalog files and try and make the updates manually (I got tired of doing that).

Here's the PS script:

#Find all .txt files in folder of this script, then within them, look for a specific unit definition, and replace it with the unit definition after the comma. $typeCats = Get-ChildItem . *.txt -rec foreach ($file in $typeCats) { (Get-Content $file.PSPath) | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##BRITISH_THERMAL_UNIT_PER_FAHRENHEIT", "##BRITISH_THERMAL_UNITS_PER_DEGREE_FAHRENHEIT" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##BRITISH_THERMAL_UNITS_PER_HOUR_FOOT_FAHRENHEIT", "##BRITISH_THERMAL_UNITS_PER_HOUR_FOOT_DEGREE_FAHRENHEIT" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##BRITISH_THERMAL_UNITS_PER_HOUR_SQUARE_FOOT_FAHRENHEIT", "##BRITISH_THERMAL_UNITS_PER_HOUR_SQUARE_FOOT_DEGREE_FAHRENHEIT" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##BRITISH_THERMAL_UNITS_PER_POUND_FAHRENHEIT", "##BRITISH_THERMAL_UNITS_PER_POUND_DEGREE_FAHRENHEIT" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##CELSIUS_DIFFERENCE", "##CELSIUS_INTERVAL" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##CUBIC_SQUARE_METERS_PER_KILOWATTS", "##SQUARE_METERS_PER_KILOWATT" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##DECANEWTON_METERS", "##DEKANEWTON_METERS" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##DECANEWTON_METERS_PER_METER", "##DEKANEWTON_METERS_PER_METER" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##DECANEWTONS", "##DEKANEWTONS" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##DECANEWTONS_PER_METER", "##DEKANEWTONS_PER_METER" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##DECANEWTONS_PER_SQUARE_METER", "##DEKANEWTONS_PER_SQUARE_METER" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##DECIMAL DEGREES", "##DEGREES" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##DECIMAL US SURVEY FEET", "##US_SURVEY_FEET" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##DEGREES", "##DEGREES_MINUTES_SECONDS" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##DUT_BRITISH_THERMAL_UNITS_PER_HOUR_CUBIC_FOOT", "##BRITISH_THERMAL_UNITS_PER_HOUR_CUBIC_FOOT" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##DUT_BRITISH_THERMAL_UNITS_PER_HOUR_SQUARE_FOOT", "##BRITISH_THERMAL_UNITS_PER_HOUR_SQUARE_FOOT" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##DUT_TON_OF_REFRIGERATION", "##TONS_OF_REFRIGERATION" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##FAHRENHEIT_DIFFERENCE", "##FAHRENHEIT_INTERVAL" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##FRACTIONAL FEET", "##FEET_AND_FRACTIONAL_INCHES" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##FRACTIONAL INCHES", "##FRACTIONAL_INCHES" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##GALLONS,", "##US_GALLONS," } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##GALLONS_US_PER_HOUR,", "##US_GALLONS_PER_HOUR," } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##GALLONS_US_PER_MINUTE,", "##US_GALLONS_PER_MINUTE," } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##GRADS", "##GRADIANS" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##HOUR_SQUARE_FOOT_FAHRENHEIT_PER_BRITISH_THERMAL_UNIT", "##HOUR_SQUARE_FOOT_DEGREES_FAHRENHEIT_PER_BRITISH_THERMAL_UNIT" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##INV_KILONEWTONS", "##INVERSE_KILONEWTONS" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##INV_KIPS", "##INVERSE_KIPS" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##JOULES_PER_GRAM_CELSIUS", "##JOULES_PER_GRAM_DEGREE_CELSIUS" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##JOULES_PER_KILOGRAM_CELSIUS", "##JOULES_PER_KILOGRAM_DEGREE_CELSIUS" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##KELVIN_DIFFERENCE", "##KELVIN_INTERVAL" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##KILOGRAMS_MASS_PER_METER", "##KILOGRAMS_PER_METER" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##LITERS_PER_SECOND_KILOWATTS", "##LITERS_PER_SECOND_KILOWATT" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##METERS AND CENTIMETERS", "##METERS_AND_CENTIMETERS" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##MICROINCHES_PER_INCH_FAHRENHEIT", "##MICROINCHES_PER_INCH_DEGREE_FAHRENHEIT" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##MICROMETERS_PER_METER_CELSIUS", "##MICROMETERS_PER_METER_DEGREE_CELSIUS" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##NUMBER_FIXED", "##FIXED" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##PERMILLE", "##PER_MILLE" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##FORCE##POUNDS", "##FORCE##POUNDS_FORCE" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##POUNDS_MASS_PER_SQUARE_METER", "##KILOGRAMS_PER_SQUARE_METER" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##RANKINE_DIFFERENCE", "##RANKINE_INTERVAL" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##RATIO1", "##RATIO_1" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##RATIO10", "##RATIO_10" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##RATIO12", "##RATIO_12" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##RISE_10_FOOT", "##RISE_10_FEET" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##RISE_FOOT", "##RISE_1_FOOT" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##RISE_INCHES", "##RISE_12_INCHES" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##RISE_MMS", "##RISE_1000_MILLIMETERS" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##SQUARE_METER_KELVIN_PER_WATT", "##SQUARE_METER_KELVINS_PER_WATT" } | Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##SQUARE_METERS_PER_METER", "##SQUARE_METERS_PER_KILONEWTON_METER" } | #Foreach-Object { $_ -replace "##INCHES_OF_WATER", "##INCHES_OF_WATER_PER_100FT" } | Set-Content $file.PSPath }

Just throw it into a text file and rename the extension to .ps1, copy it into a directory with any Type Catalogs you need to update, right-click on it and select Run with Powershell. It'll do the rest.

P.S. I'm not responsible for any breakage on your system 😉 But I have used on my end without issue...yet! In my opinion, this is something Autodesk should have made available to their users when they made this change. Pretty inconsiderate if you ask me to change something that could potentially cause their users a TON of time to fix and just act like it's a great new feature!

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

casquatch — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 17:55:42 GMT

Updated my original post/script with a slight change for "POUNDS". Originally it was just searching for "##POUNDS" and replacing with "##POUNDS_FORCE", but I've updated it to look more specifically for "##FORCE##POUNDS" and replace with "##FORCE##POUNDS_FORCE".

Also, a word of caution on this script, which should be obvious, but just throwing it out there: don't run this on the same .txt files (or a folder of files) more than once.

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

RIPENG — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 18:11:55 GMT

Cool man. Thanks for the original power shell script & conscientious update + guidance.

It appears the unit bomb went off in another design office today.

Ditto for my Dynamo Unit Identifier script. Running it more than once against one family catalog will produce poor results. The Dynamo script does not overwrite the original family catalog so users can revert and try again as required.

-Jake

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

vewright — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 20:48:59 GMT

I see that I am not alone - a year or two ago I started getting the message "ERROR-LOAD TYPE CATALOG" when I tried to load a vendor furnished family. One vendor explained the problem - Autodesk changed the format(?) of the type catalogs, and type catalogs would no longer load properly. That change was the root cause of this problem. The families furnished with new Revit releases work fine, supposedly because Autodesk converted all of those families. However, it's difficult to produce an accurate model without using vendor families. By accurate, I mean models based on real products, not Autodesk produced imaginary products, many of which have to be modified before they are useful. Perhaps Autodesk made the change for valid reasons, at a reasonable cost, but the total cost to all of the vendors that furnish families must be astronomical. Remember, Autodesk, Revit families are important to savvy vendors, because those families make it easier to produce accurate and effective contract drawings.

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

RLY_15 — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 20:56:08 GMT

@vewright wrote:
Remember, Autodesk, Revit families are important to savvy vendors, because those families make it easier to produce accurate and effective contract drawings.

Keep in mind that Autodesk employees rarely comment on wants/needs in these forums, and the ones that do offer responses in the forums are generally doing so in the role of providing solutions within the existing framework of the software.

Revit Ideas is apparently where we're intended to offer suggestions/support popular ideas/vent/chide, so if you see ideas you like then upvote them; if you don't see ideas that match your wants then make your own post and try to get some visibility to the issue.

Re: Change to Database Identifiers for Units of Measurement in Revit 2021 Trashes Family Type Catalogs

casquatch — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 21:02:27 GMT

Vendors will just need to update their content and essentially have multiple libraries (just like the rest of us), or really multiple Type Catalog files, to support their customers. It's a simple fix, but still must be done. The family itself doesn't need to be touched, just a different Type Catalog text file to go with it depending on the version being used.

Like most things that Autodesk does, they could handle it a bit better and help out their users and EVERYONE who relies on their software a bit more. Instead, they take the selfish approach and assume it's our problem for not just updating our content library and projects to the latest version of Revit and forgetting anything previous. Even still, they didn't even offer up a process to update the content Type Catalogs to a new version, they just tell you what changed and that's it.

At least I can hope and wait for the day when our content library is past this, and I don't have to deal with maintaining both versions...