Elevation Mark Body is showing, but the Elevation Mark Pointers are not

[Anonymous]

The text within our elevation markers was too big for our sheet naming convention, so I opened the Mark Body family and changed the text size. There was no problem for the interior elevations, but our exterior elevations went haywire!

My understanding of the family organization:

1) Elevation System Family (Interior was unaffected, Building is broken)

   2) Elevation "Mark Body" family for exterior/building elevations (interior has a different shape) (this family has a label referencing which sheet the view is placed on)

      3) Elevation "Mark Pointer" nested within the "Mark Body" (this family has a label referencing which view number it is on the sheet)

Symptoms:

• all interior elevations (views, bodies, pointers) were unaffected
• all Mark Body for our exterior elevations are showing
• all existing Mark Pointers disappeared, taking referencing labels with it
• all existing exterior elevation views are still in the model and placed on sheets
• placing a new building elevation acts like normal (Mark Pointers, references and all)
• attempting to delete the Mark Bodies will provide a warning that "View X will be deleted"
• can place a new view in the same direction (if the "hidden view" is facing south I can place another view hosted to the same Mark Body facing south. Deleting the Mark Body will provide the same error that two views are about to be deleted)

Attempted solutions:

• check visibilty graphics/hidden objects - the problem only affects building elevations created prior to the edit
• check phasing, discipline and annotation crop
• copying the elevation families from another project
• checking the nested families and their visibility parameters
• duplicating views - creates another Mark Body with an associated view but without a pointer
• copying Mark Bodies - creates a blank Mark Body without a view attached
• changing the affected elevation markers to Interior Elevations - no change, problem persists
• restarting Revit - this doesn't appear to be a graphical glitch

The attached image shows a building elevation created AFTER the edit, followed by a preexisting building elevation (broken, but I promise it has a view associated with it), followed by an interior elevation created after the edit (no problems here).

I can create new elevations that reference the existing views, but there are too many views and too many people in the office that wouldn't know how it works. This workaround would create more problems than it would solve.

I have a feeling that I may have to recreate each and every building elevation, annotations/view ranges and all. I would rather not because there are several buildings and several elevations per building within this project, but if it's the only way...

Any help is appreciated! Thanks,

J

[barthbradley]

<previous response deleted>

I'm looking at it your screenshot now and wondering what's wrong with it. The text size? If so, is my understanding correct: you can't change it in the family? 

[Anonymous]

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@barthbradleywrote:

Wow! What a mess. 

Some additional questions:

1. What version are you using? 

2. Have you tried creating a "brand new" family and replacing the existing with it?

3. Have you tried a Repair?

4. Have you tried an Audit? 

....more thoughts/suggestions to come.

---

1.  Revit Architecture 2018.2
2. Yes I have, to no avail. I've never created a marker family from scratch, only edited existing families, so I wouldn't be surprised if I missed something...
3. Repair, what do you mean? Reinstalling Revit, or is there a repair function within the model and/or family editor?
4. No I haven't. The problem started earlier this workday, and many people have been in and out of the project. It's a central model, so I didn't want to mess up/restrict anybody else working in the model.

[Anonymous]

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@barthbradleywrote:

<previous response deleted>

I'm looking at it your screenshot now and wondering what's wrong with it. The text size? If so, is my understanding correct: you can't change it in the family? 

---

The text size is NOW correct. It was previously large enough that you couldn't read the leading/trailing characters. I went into the family and changed the label size there (I had to do it once for the interior family and once for the exterior family), but something about how the families got re-imported into the project must have messed up. I'm thinking maybe a nested family got deleted or "unlinked" without me realizing? I'm not sure, I've been through and tested just about every family relationship I can think of. Besides, it doesn't make sense that it would only affect the preexisting instances and not any new instance. 

[ToanDN]

The pointer must be nested in the body family and copy to all 4 sides.  Can you share you revised body family?

[Anonymous]

@ToanDNwrote:

The pointer must be nested in the body family and copy to all 4 sides.  Can you share you revised body family?

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Here you go! I'm praying you find a stupid mistake that I missed.

[barthbradley]

I'm wondering if this is not related to the way these marker types are defined through Additional Settings. I get confused myself.  

...in other words, are they "put together " correctly under Additional Settings. This wouldn't have anything to do with the family per se. You get where I'm going? 

[Anonymous]

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@barthbradleywrote:

I'm wondering if this is not related to the way these marker types are defined through Additional Settings. I get confused myself.  

...in other words, are they "put together " correctly under Additional Settings. This wouldn't have anything to do with the family per se. You get where I'm going? 

---

I've already tried that, and unfortunately it looks like it has the same effect as changing the family type in the Properties tab. It will change the body (recall that our interior bodies are round while the exterior are square), but the pointer remains hidden for the pre-existing elevations. 

[barthbradley]

....I prefer root canal surgery over troubleshooting. How about you? 

[ToanDN]

The family is fine.  You just need to create different Elevation Type that using different Body Mark types, which in turn, using different Pointer Mark types.  

[barthbradley]

I'm with @ToanDN; but not just Types, but how they are assigned. This is done through Additional Settings. 

[Anonymous]

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@ToanDNwrote:

The family is fine.  You just need to create different Elevation Type that using different Body Mark types, which in turn, using different Pointer Mark types. 

 I appreciate the graphic, it's great for showing how the family works! I did what you said and created a new pointer, body, and elevation family, to no avail. The elevation markers respond and change to follow whatever type I assign, but the pre-existing elevations remain "hidden." I've changed the family associations in both the Properties tab and Additional Settings like suggested.

I'm going to attempt an audit while people are out of the office today in hopes that it gets fixed. Will post updates.

[Anonymous]

For what it's worth, auditing the file did not work. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out why this problem occurred, but it looks like the solution is to recreate each view. It's unfortunate, but I've already spent so much time troubleshooting. Sunk cost fallacy, y'know?

Thanks for your help everyone.

J

[cbcarch]

Go back to a previous version of the Revit project, when the elevation tags worked properly.

Copy/Paste into your current project, or Edit the family, and load into your current project and overwrite/parameters.

This should revert the elevation tags back to the previous working condition.

Then, you can try to adjust the label/text size in a Test Project! Get it working, then update your team project.

Always work in a Test Project when making a change such as this, to avoid stress on you and your team!

Good luck!

[ToanDN]

Are the pre-existing elevation views of the same elevation type with the working ones?  If so, make copy of the file, delete everything except for a few non-working and working elevation marks, then share it.

Also, check the phase of the pre-existing elevaion views.  if they are not under the same phase of the plan then teh pointer marks will not show.

[jmarshRBA3K]

My custom elevation family and marker are working well and the label updates to the view on the sheet.

The one problem is I can't figure out how to add the blue endpoints to the view's plan extents. The view depth arrow is showing up but the points associated with elevation right and left do not exist and I'm having trouble figuring it out by reverse engineering the Revit default elevation marker.

Any ideas?

[Mike.FORM]

The blue end point grips only show if the elevation view is cropped.

[jmarshRBA3K]

That's exactly what it was, thanks!

If my goal is to build this into a template file, can I make crop view the default for that elevation type?

[Mike.FORM]

You cannot change the defaults for crop view/annotation crop but the OOTB defaults for Revit are this for elevations.

Being able to set crops within the view type as a default is a requested feature going on 15 years now.

[jmarshRBA3K]

Ok. For some reason when I place a new one, those two boxes are off, but it's a minor issue. It's pretty crazy the amount of tiny quality of life issues get ignored. 😓