Copy/Monitor of walls

[David_Knight]

We are using a structural engineer for a project we're working on that has drawn his structural shear walls, shaft walls, and columns in revit.  We have copy/monitored all the columns, shear walls, and shaft walls.

What doesn't seem to work for us is when we try to change the wall to a different type (even though we keep it "core centered" - AND keep the core the same) the wall moves and changes "wall centerline".  It's then reported as a coordination issue to be resolved.  if you tell the wall to update to match the linked file - the wall is then moved and the core centerlines do not match.  If you ignore the error how do you keep track of what walls your supposed to update?  The update could have been from when the engineer relocates the wall  versus from when you changed your wall type.

This behavior seems to be standard in both 2015 and 2017.  

As a result, we are copy/monitoring structural walls, apply an "exterior partition" and an "interior partition" to each wall.  This means each wall type is potentially 3 different wall types when it comes to tagging.  We've got an in-office work around in which we are only tagging one of the walls... however, what is the point of using the copy/monitor feature if all we can do is use the exact wall that is originally drawn?  

Is this normal? Am i doing something wrong here?

[Alfredo_Medina]

And what is the reason for copy-monitoring the structural elements in the first place? If I link a model from a consultant, I copy-monitor only the elements from that model that I need to replicate in my own model, such as levels, so that I have the same levels, and because I want to be notified if the levels are moved. But I don't see why this concept needs to be extended to columns and shear walls. If I am working in the architectural model, I need to see the structural elements, but I don't need to do much with them after a certain point in the process, when the control of those elements has been handed over mainly to the structural consultant. If something as important as a column is moved, the team should know about it not only by using the software but most likely but normal communication between the parties involved.

[David_Knight]

Alfredo, thanks for the reply.

I copy/monitor the structural walls because this is a very large project.  To coordinate every single shift is very difficult.  I understand that communication is a key part of the job, but lets be real...  We're dealing with (2) 13 story towers, a 7 story residential wrapper around a 6 story parking deck, an open plaza with a sky-walk and an exterior elevator.  There is just a lot to coordinate.  The point of this tool is to help ease that burden.  

I have to copy/monitor shear walls because we are putting openings in them and you cant put doors/openings into a linked file without copy/monitoring it.

I choose to copy/monitor columns because it makes my plans look cleaner when the walls clean up with my columns correctly.  However I have no complaints with the way the columns are working in regards to copy/monitoring them.

I understand later in the project you don't have to worry about movement in the plan.  But during SD/DD there was tremendous amount of changes weekly that I was coordinating with structural.  The copy/monitor tool made it very easy to track down the changes.  The only real problem arises when the center-line of the wall changes.  This is where copy/monitoring walls seems to be very cumbersome and difficult to work with.

[Alfredo_Medina]

As you just said, copy/monitoring walls seems to be very cumbersome and difficult to work with. On top of that columns, and shear walls. What about beams? I would not recommend that. I would rely more on weekly coordination meetings, online, using the 3d scenes exported from all the models, and assembled in Glue or Navisworks. That's is a more efficient way to do coordination than copy-monitoring the structural elements in your model, and that is also more important than making the plan look cleaner. Even for cases such as the opening in the shear wall. Shouldn't that opening be in the structural model? During the initial stages of the design process, I recommend that the structural elements that are modeled by the architect's office be put in its own worksket. If at some point during the initial stages you need to compare the two sets of elements, you can handle do that by manipulating worksets and view filters and view templates. The content of that workset can be/should be deleted eventually at the point in the process where you hand over those elements completely to the structural model. 

[draft1]

Hi- I work for a not large structural engineering office and I am the main-guy for their Revit projects. The projects tend to be smallish at less than 50,000 sf. In two years, I’ve done 7 projects, so… I’m green. During my crash course on Revit, the trainer warned us off of using the Copy/Monitor tool for much more than grids and levels. Consequently, I have tended to COPY the architectural walls from the linked file and paste them into my model. Then I edit them to remove what we (structural) don’t want or need to show.

But my Revit process is not efficient enough on these projects, we’ve considered hiring some additional training. We met with a trainer who alluded to using the copy/monitor tool on walls. He made it sound as though I’d click-click and be done.  I began to dream about all the possibilities of using that saved time.

So, I started experimenting with copy/monitor walls, and it wasn’t going too smoothly. I did a search and found this posting that seems to reaffirm the original warning I was given about performance of this tool.

Can you folks recommend an efficient work flow for the structural representation of the walls in a Revit model? In my experience, we always need to provide walls at the locations shown by the architect.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[ToanDN]

There is a big difference between a Revit software expert who is fluent with commands and an experienced  Revit user who understands collaboration, coordination, and responsibility of a working project.  If your trainer encouraged you to copy monitor between the architectural and structural models, then I am afraid he or she is the former.

You should only copy the walls from the architectural model to structural model ONCE.  Don't even need to monitor them.  When you done with calculations and redesign those walls to work structurally, you should tell the architect to link the structural model in, and delete/ modify the architectural walls where they overlap and conflict with structural walls.

The idea is make it crystal clear the scope of modeling among all consultants.  That creating structural elements are the responsibility of the engineer, and so are creating architectural, HVAC, electrical, low-voltage, etc... items, the responsibility of the architects and other consultants.

[draft1]

Ah yes. Collaboration! That’s the part I really have not experienced. I can confidently say that I don’t know how our model is used once it leaves our office. Perhaps we (arch and struct) have both been using Revit as a drafting software? 

If I have copied the architects’ walls and stripped them of non-structural elements - do they then link our walls into their model and strip theirs of the structural elements? Probably not. It seems as though there should only be ONE version of the walls but the visibility requirements are quite different. How do you "share" and control (position of) this element when you are not in the same office?

[ToanDN]

For example, if a concrete shear wall with exterior rainscreen and interior
furring then you model only the concrete wall, the architect models the
rainscreen and furring on top if your wall. For the same wall but not a
shear, the architect can model it entirely as one assembly.

[David_Knight · Accepted solution]

This project was just submitted for permit.  So now I have some experience with it.  Here is what I found...

I do prefer to copy/monitor the structural walls.  It's a bit more work, but its valuable.  We also copy/monitored Structural Slabs.

 a

The process that worked for me:

1. Copy/monitor structural walls
2. Create new walls lacking the structural elements (Perhaps 1.5" Rigid Insulation, 1 7/8" Air space, 3 5/8" Brick")  
3. Join the Architectural Exterior Finish with the Structural wall
4. Create a new "interior" piece of a wall that represents what is happening within the interior
5. Join those walls.  Now it should look clean.

Wall Tagging.

This gets complicated.  We opted to use the exterior wall to tag the wall.  But you could argue you use the interior.  Or you could tag all the walls separately if you really wanted to go crazy (this doesn't seem like a smart method to me).  We use the "legend phase method" to do our wall type sheets, so it works really well.

Some issues we ran into... 

1. Occasionally structural had a wall 1/32" off from ours - typically a small dimensional bust.  Getting it back in the right spot with them proved difficult, especially when it was a curved wall.  Sometimes I found it easier to just adjust my wall, then run the collaboration tool and forced it to accept the difference.
2. Sometimes Architectural and Structural don't agree on how the edge of slab appears in plan view.  For example, structural runs the edge slab to the interior face of concrete wall, where architectural ran the edge of slab to the exterior face of concrete wall.   Yes - we do create edge of slab plans at our office for coordination.  But structural doesn't always update their plans to match exactly the same way.  So I usually have to break these special slab conditions and monitor them manually.
3. End of wall cleanups can be a bear sometimes.  I always figure them out, but occasionally I do have to do a manual join and call on some voodoo magic.

In the end our office will keep doing it this way.  While we struggled initially, by the time we were finished it saved us a lot of time.  We often found walls had been broken into 2 pieces and/or heights adjusted, and never told.  The way we copy/monitored these walls it brought these problems to light.  I would also recommend setting up some specific 3d views for structural wall, slab, and column coordination. I've attached a screenshot of what I mean below.   We set all of structural's model to be "Solid Grey" color.  Then all of the structural walls in our model to be white with a blue hatch pattern on it.  It takes a little bit of work to set the view template up right - but when it's done, it's well worth it.  Its very quick and easy to move around and spot problems.

Structural Beams were simply linked from the structural file.  It posed its own issues of cleanup, but it's all manageable.

I hope this helps!

David.

[ddevlin]

Hi-I'm in a similar situation. I have to learn Revit solo in a structural eng office. I've done some small jobs w/ a steel beam & column structure. Starting a very large project w/ primarily bearing walls and joists & i'm struggling how to show them. I will have to use the copy monitor tool because of the size of the project but i'm having some issues.

1. When I select the linked level & filter for the walls, nothing is selected. It only likes it when I select a couple at a time.

2. When it does copy the wall it copies it as a generic 8" wall, not the 6" metal stud w. siding the arch has. I know I can change how the type comes in. However that seems cumbersome. I am hoping there is a global fix.

Any suggestions are welcome, I'm in the weeds over here, its only my second job in Revit & this one is a beast!

[David_Knight]

when you go into the copy/monitor mode, click on "Options" on the left.

it will bring up a menu for you to set the types.

[draft1]

If you can get the architect to designate "your" walls as Structural, that may help. As yet, “our” architect does not do that and I haven’t asked them to do it either. (I’ve heard or been told that this can be very helpful when viewing their walls thru a linked file).

Here is the procedure I’ve been using, although I’m not sure that I’d recommend it (more later):

Open a copy of the architectural file and create a view of the walls you need. Create a filter to screen out the partitions, etc. that you don’t want. Select and group the walls you do want. Save the group as a rvt file. Once isolated (in this or a similar fashion) you could use this file as your own linked (walls only) file (or link and bind it into your main file). THIS procedure allows me to take CONTROL of the graphic appearance of walls in ways that I have not been able to achieve when I’ve been limited to viewing the walls in the linked architectural file. For example, you can edit the walls to eliminate insulation hatching etc. and keep the architect's wall naming. This can be useful when making future changes.

The down side of this process is this:

There's no monitoring going on here. Projects go thru many change cycles. By copying a version of their walls in order to control their appearance, be aware that you are taking on a larger responsibility for ensuring that the changes they make in their file are correctly represented in the walls, etc. that you just copied.

Now that I think about it, keeping those walls in a file that you link into your main project file has these two advantages: When you get a new file from the architect, it can be easier to compare the updated walls (in the arch file) when you link that into your walls file (no other model elements in your file to get in your way). And, when you share your project file, you can simply remove the linked file (with your version of their walls). After all, when it comes to the walls that the architect has already modelled, they don't need  another copy of them when they link your file into theirs.

Hope this helps.

[aolivieriPPG7E]

@David_Knight hello,

I am being asked to copy/monitor from a linked arch. model into my structural model. The arch. has separated the arch. facade walls from the main, cmu walls.   I would like to copy the facade walls into my model only.  I would then like to copy/monitor the CMU walls into my model.  I am not having any success.  I go through the steps, Select the link, pick my walls, respectively, and click "Finish" but no walls are copied into my model.  I am not sure if the way the Workset setup is causing the issue? Would worksets have any impact on copying from a linked model?  Right now my Workset is set as:  "Workset 1 (not editable).  (Just FYI, my project is a Cloud project).  Would it be a good thing to create a separate workset from the architect's first when working with copy/monitoring?  

[ToanDN]

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@aolivieriPPG7E wrote:

@David_Knight hello,

I am being asked to copy/monitor from a linked arch. model into my structural model. The arch. has separated the arch. facade walls from the main, cmu walls.   I would like to copy the facade walls into my model only.  I would then like to copy/monitor the CMU walls into my model.  I am not having any success.  I go through the steps, Select the link, pick my walls, respectively, and click "Finish" but no walls are copied into my model.  I am not sure if the way the Workset setup is causing the issue? Would worksets have any impact on copying from a linked model?  Right now my Workset is set as:  "Workset 1 (not editable).  (Just FYI, my project is a Cloud project).  Would it be a good thing to create a separate workset from the architect's first when working with copy/monitoring?  

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You have to click Finish twice, two different buttons: 1st finish is to finish the selection, 2nd finish is to finish copying.

[draft1]

You have to click finish on the options bar. Then click finish on the ribbon.

If your view navigated away from the copy/monitor tab, click that tab, then click finish.

When finished the ribbon is no longer green.

[aolivieriPPG7E]

@draft1 yes thanks i found out.  However copy monitor ended up not being useful 😞

[aolivieriPPG7E]

@ToanDN thank you. Yes it works only when i turn my view templates to Coordination and even then, non of the windows, doors copy in although i went through the options and checked them to be copied in.  

[draft1]

Sorry to hear that.  It's a less than ideal tool.

Consider it a success if your C/M’ed door opening sizes are a match to those in the architectural model.

[ToanDN]

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@aolivieriPPG7E wrote:

@ToanDN thank you. Yes it works only when i turn my view templates to Coordination and even then, non of the windows, doors copy in although i went through the options and checked them to be copied in.  

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Doors and windows themselves will not be copied but their opening will.