Constraining a circle to reference lines in vertical planes

[stefanome]

This page describes how to constrain a circle center point to reference lines.

I was able to constrain the center of a circle to a line (not necessarily a reference one) on a horizontal plane, but I wasn't able to do the same on a vertical plane (during in place mass editing).

Am I doing something wrong? 

Or is this a known limitation?

If this is a limitation, can you please elaborate about why there is such limitation (so I can better set my expectations in the future)?

[barthbradley]

I think you might be doing something wrong.  Can you walk us through your workflow step-by-step? Maybe post a picture or two?

[GustavoUbriaco]

Hi those steps would be like this

 Here lock the padlock

 Do the same with the other Reference Plane or Reference Line

 In this particular case I drawn the references planes out the mass editor

 And works I have different reference planes in top and bottom

[barthbradley]

Looks like you have properly constrained it in both the x and y direction.  If you try to move the circle in the x or y direction, does Revit throw an error?  

Also, what is going on the the bottom screenshot which shows 2 circles?  

[constantin.stroescu]

you can use either :

• Align Tool , select first one Line (or Reference Plane ) and then the Center of the Circle to align to that Line...repeat the operation for the second Line
  • use Move Tool :  SC  (select the border of the circle ) and then SI to select the line intersection..

[stefanome]

I did some more testing and I realized that the problem is not on the orientation of the current plane, but in the sequence of the clicks. I would call this a bug, but I hope I was wrong and someone can help me understand what's going on.

In the screencast the Align command is executed a few times:

1. On the Level 1 view and it works
2. On the South view and it works
3. Start on the South view, hover over the circle center point, then switch to the 3D view, select the center point and it works
4. Start on the 3D view and try to select the circle center point, but it doesn't work
5. Start on the 3D view, switch to the South view and try to select the circle center point, but it doesn't work
6. I do the same on the Level 1 view

Summary: the Align command can select circle centerpoints both on 2D and 3D views, but only if the command starts on a 2D view. I can't think of any reason why a command would work when started on a view and executed on another, but shouldn't work when started on the same view where it is actually executed. This smells like a bug to me. Am I missing something?

Then I kept going and I show another weird (wrong?) behavior: I modified the orientation of the mass face so it is not parallel to the South view and executed the Align command again. It works, but the alignment is off.

What is going on here?

I would expect either the alignment to work correctly or Revit to refuse to do it, but I don't understand why I am getting the wrong result.

PS: I tried to embed the screencast, but it was telling me that the HTML was not valid, so I just put the link.

[GustavoUbriaco]

Hi master! Oh yes the circles change their size, but you can use global parameters to improve that. here you are the file.

Also If the geometry doesn't follow the reference planes you can edit the profiles inside the mass editor, and constraint them again, or draw the circles again.

I highly reccomend to do this for the correct functionality

[ToanDN]

Not an issue here. You can always place a dimension from the line to the circle centerpoint, set it to 0 and lock it.

[stefanome]

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@ToanDN wrote:
Not an issue here. You can always place a dimension from the line to the circle centerpoint, set it to 0 and lock it.

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I understand the workaround you are suggesting, but I am trying to learn Revit and to set the right expectations.

Are you saying that this is a kind of bug that I need to expect and I need to learn to live with?

Or this is not a bug... but why? What is the logic behind Revit's behavior here?

What about the other issue with the wrong alignment when the workplane is not parallel to the view?