Best way to glue/join co-planar exterior walls

[ldaenen]

Hey first time posting a question about Revit! ,

I'm new to Revit drafting and the architects at my office don't like the way the exterior walls I've drafted are in segments, which I've done more on walls that have recesses and protrusions at different levels (Its a 4 of 2/ 6 level project)

The way they have shown me how to fix it seems complicated and time consuming, it seems like there should be an easier way to do it than take the wall segments off the building, trace over them to form a wall, then stick it back into the building. 

The way I deal with this in Sketch up for instance is group the wall sections I want to make one, explode inside that group  , delete redundant geometry then ungroup if necessary. 

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated ! 

Also any ideas of other good forums to post in. 

Thanks 

[barthbradley · Accepted solution]

Just use the join geometry tool.  It will remove the visible edges between co-planar surfaces as long as those surfaces are like materials.  

...note also that Join Geometry will remove geometry at the union.  So, in those instances where there is overlapping walls (as it looks like in your screenshot), Join Geometry will remove the overlapping portion of wall.  Use Switch Join Order to change which Wall portion is removed.

...One other point I'd like to stress FWIW: Revit is not Sketchup.  With Revit, you are actually building the structure in a digital world much the same as it will be constructed the real world.    

[ldaenen]

Hey thanks Barthbradley! Thats very handy and I didn't know how to use that Join Geometry tool before and yes that cleaned up the parapet,

but,

I think the architects have a different problem with it; Most of my coplanar walls already have Joined Geometry, I think they want the wall to actually be one wall so the whole wall can be selected with one click instead of multiple clicks. Its not that it doesn't look right , more that the model isn't organized how they want (I think for cost estimating but I'm not sure).

Duly noted on the sketch-up point.

[ToanDN · Accepted solution]

@ldaenen 

You can only merge multiple walls into one if they:

- same wall type

- align on plan

- same location line

- same base constraint

- same height

When these requirements are met, you can drag an end grip of a wall to touch the end of another wall and they will merge.

[barthbradley]

You can Group elements together. You can Select Joined Elements via right-click menu.  You can Isolate Elements and Categories in a View. 

But I guess the method would depend on what happens next. What is the purpose of selecting a bunch of Walls in one fell swoop?  

...BTW: "Cost Estimating" is done through scheduling. Walls can be Grouped and Sorted and Filtered in the Schedule.  

[ldaenen]

Hey thanks but that process doesn't seem to work for me in this situation:

In the image attached here  I have all the wall segments I want to be one wall selected and in the property window I can see they all share the same attributes with nothing saying 'varies' .

[ldaenen]

I just asked them again and they say the reason is to avoid errors in complex projects.... If the wall needs to move or is accidentally moved a tiny amount its more difficult to make the changes / fix or to notice problems.

So in general the reason is make a cleaner and more organized model that wont break when it gets passed of to someone else.

[ToanDN]

Are the profiles edited?

[barthbradley]

Pin the walls. That's a safeguard against accidental movements. 

[aghis_no · Accepted solution]

If i understand your request, you need to replace several coplanar walls taht reside on several distinct levels by a unique wall spanning from the lowest level to the top level. Since this is done late in the project, the challenge here is not to lose the windows. You can do this by:

1. selecting the windows and copying them to the clipboard.
2. erase the walls you want to replace (the windows are going to be erased as well)
3. create the new spanning wall from the lowest to highest level
4. paste the windows "to the same place". this will place them to the correct levels and locations.

However, it is strongly recommended to keep the walls separated by levels because it is a "better practice" for the future development of the project. The suggestion og @barthbradley to lock the walls is a better solution.

[ldaenen]

Some of the profiles are edited not all

[ldaenen]

Thanks I do forget to pin the walls and that does help... Though on a similar note if theres lots of wall segments you have to pin each one or if you needed to move it you need to find and unpin all the segments.

[barthbradley]

There's a bunch of ways to go about it.  One quick way would be to Temporarily Isolate Wall Category in View, do a Crossing Window Selection of everything in the View, press UNPIN and then reset Temporary Hide/Isolate and continue chooglin' along.  When your done moving Walls, PIN 'em all again.  

Check out Selection Set Filters too.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2019/ENU/Revit-D...

[ldaenen]

Thanks the windows were the hardest thing to replace last time I had this problem so that really speeds things up.

The Architects requested that all exterior walls of the same type are the same continuous wall which probably has to do with our specific process I'm not fully clear on yet . So first two levels have concrete walls then its wood framing or something.

Thanks again for all the responses very helpful.