Best practice when producing slab edge plans.

[rspierenburg]

Hi everyone,

We've been using Revit for a number of years now, and I'm constantly trying to find new and better methods of producing models/documents.

We are an architectural firm and in our scope we produce slab edge drawings for concrete work.  We coordinate with Structural who determines slab thicknesses, column sizes, reinforcing steel etc.  We however show in our slab edge drawings things like concrete wall dimensions, curb locations, penetration locations etc.  The structural firm we deal with most usually produces CAD & PDF drawings, no structural models.

Our current work flow consists of us modeling all walls, including structural walls, complete with furring and drywall etc.  And then we duplicate a floor plan, turn all the relevant walls to parts and filter out all the non-concrete parts/walls etc.

This works relatively well except that parts seem to be rather finicky.  Usually the part isn't quite the right size (usually due to wall join conditions) and so we have to adjust manually using shape handles.  Then to clean up the drawing we merge the adjoining the parts together.

However, we are finding that parts are very fragile pieces of modelling.  If in plan a nearby wall changes then we get an error saying that it will change a part (doesn't usually clearly show the part in question) at which point we click on "ok".  This will either break the merge, change the part extent or worse, remove the part all together.   This in turn will delete any dimensions linked to the part in which case we find we have to go over the slab edge plan with a fine-toothed comb everytime we go to produce a pdf to ensure all the dimensions are still there and valid.

I guess what I'm wondering is, has anyone come up with a better solution to producing these drawings?  Would a separate concrete model be worth creating and linking into the architectural model?

I would be interested in hearing how other people are dealing with this.

Thanks,

Robert

[RDAOU · Accepted solution]

@rspierenburg 

Upgrade your revit and

1. you will be able to switch off Non-Core layers from Visibility graphics...
2. instead of shape handles of parts, you can unlock and use wall layers under edit/structure
3. However, when you to dig deep into detailing, sometimes there is no escape from using Parts. They might not be the easiest to handle but personally I like em

[rspierenburg]

This is absolutely INCREDIBLE.  How did I not know about this.  What version did this happen in?  Thank you so much.

[rspierenburg]

So the only caveat is that it only works when walls are cut.

[syman2000]

I still find if you want to keep structure as different element rather than combining with the furring. If you combine it, you have to it for various thickness and that can lead to huge list of wall types and user will be confused. You may even have different wall finish on both sides. This is a big challenge if you working on standardization. Most often I kept the structure wall separate from finishing. That way you can have different furring finish on both sides and maintain the structure on the inside. Our structural consultant like this method rather than turn off wall core component manually. As well for curbs, I use floor instead of wall. Wall on top with another wall create lots of joining issues. You can use stack wall, but I find this method is very cumbersome when you have various curb height. Floor actually help simplify the process and you can create various width curb to suit your condition. If you have weird angle, having floor as curb helps you shape those. As for built up, I use roof for the outdoor pavers finishes and only use floor for structure. That way when you want to generate your slab edge drawings, you can easily turn off roof and only show floor.