Revit Database Optimisation

[Dale.Bartlett]

I am interested in some insight as to optimisation of a Revit project database.

This post highlights that geometry complexity (and size) can be affected by internal structures that are not visible or logical to the end user.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-api/model-size-increase-with-reduced-elements/m-p/5970811#M13488

The one part version of the LeftCurveElementRing has the two curved surfaces represented by Hermite surfaces consisting of 1089 point nodes totaling 2178 point nodes. In the six part version, the curved surfaces are represented by 12 Hermite surfaces of 81 point nodes each and 12 Hermite surfaces of 4 point nodes each, totaling 1020 point nodes.

Specifically, I want to be able to run a QA process for a Revit file. It is easy to look for the obvious: Size and numbers of Groups, Elements, Families, etc. What is less obvious is a means to analyse the geometry and embedded data that may have an impact on the physical size and processing load for a Revit model. It goes beyond geometry; what impact do lengthy parameter formulae have? Complex nested Families? Hosting and constraints? 

Obviously this is a lot to cover, but I thought to start with geometry and see where it ends up. Given the above example, has anyone developed a GeometryDump? Jeremy's post will be a start for me: http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2010/01/geometry-options.html   

Dale

[Anonymous]

I dont have much to add, but its a very interesting topic.

Currently we analyze all our large revit files regularly to see worrying tendencies.

Basically the analsysis deletes different types of families to see inpact on file size.

But there is also one even more complicated matter and that is the responsiveness of the file. That is even harder to measure, but even more important.
You can have a very responsive 1Gb revit file, and a very sluggish 200 mb file.

I hope this post will yield some interesting discussions on the matter at least.

/Erik

[jeremytammik]

Dear Dale,

Thank you for your interesting suggestion.

I have not done much in this area, not often dealing with large models.

I therefore have little to contribute except my interest and moral support.

If you have any questions to ask the Revit development team, please feel free to post them here.

I already passed on your two comments so far to them and will let you know as soon as I hear anything back from them.

Looking forward to seeing where this leads!

Best regards,

Jeremy