phasing & annotations issues

[horatiu.ferchiu]

Hello everybody - I'm out of my depth with frustration and annoyance and i have exhausted the number of people i can ask for help or guidance. Here's a description of my problem (i've been going through the forums but was unable to locate a similar question/answer)

I have a phased project - existing and new construction. I have existing walls and existing windows. the windows are set to be demolished in new construction, and they are replaced in the same position with new windows in the new construction phase. 

I have to generate sheets with the existing situation + demo, and proposal. I have a new plan view set to phase existing, phase filter "show complete". when i try to annotate a wall i get one or two dimensions showing up in this instance and the rest of them actually show up in phase new construction, phase filter "show complete". I have managed to figure out that in some instances this cand be resolved by moving the existing window slightly to the right, selecting the infill created after demo (which in my mind shouldn't even show up in existing) and hiding it in view by element, then moving the existing window back in position.  

However the above workaround only works now and then and it has become a serious impediment to me getting my job done. 

any ideas?

[Alfredo_Medina]

Some questions:

1. Is it necessary to show an existing view? Usually "demolition" and "proposed" views should be enough.
2. If question # 1 were true, is it necessary to add dimensions to that view? 
3. What purpose does it serve to have an annotated existing view on sheets?

[horatiu.ferchiu]

1. the existing and demolished sheet is a combination of an existing plan view, annotated, with a demo plan view with some graphic overrides super-imposed on it.

2. i have tried to have just one plan view for the existing and demo sheet, using the new construction phase and show the previous+demo phase filter (which in theory works faster as it eliminates one step of the work, but for the graphic overrides it is easier and faster to do it 2 steps) but the annotation behaviour is still off, as per my initial post

3. by law i'm required to have a 3 set sheet for every plan view - existing, demo and proposal. we managed to squeeze the first two together as it is enough for permitting to just show the demo parts without further detail over imposed on an existing plan with full annotations.  

as i mentioned however i still get the weird behaviour for the annotations. 

[Alfredo_Medina]

What version of Revit are you using? I´d like to post here a sample Revit file, to study your case.

[horatiu.ferchiu]

hi, I'm using Revit LT 2021.1.3 but due to client restrictions, I can't share the file. 

[Alfredo_Medina]

Please see the attached file (2021 version). I could not reproduce the problem. I did only plan views, but the same settings could be extended to 3d views or elevations if needed.

[RDAOU · Accepted solution]

@Alfredo_Medina 

What you are using is individual references .. what he is trying to use is Entire walls. If you try to use Entire walls on the 2 plan views you have created

1. you will notice that there will be a gap where the infill (depending on the phase) interrupts the Entire Wall dimension string.
2. If you continue to place the Entire Wall dimension, strings will be placed; however, not visible until you switch phase filters to show all or None
   • If Phase is set to New Construction filter has to show demolition

Several ways around it...easiest is to use Individual Reference dims

[Alfredo_Medina]

Is there anything in the original question saying that the user needs to use the "entire wall" method of dimensioning? I assumed that the priority was to be able to show the 3 views with dimensions for openings, new, demolished, or replaced.

[RDAOU]

@Alfredo_Medina 

See highlighted...this is the behavior of Entire Wall. And you mentioned that you want to start a study case so I thought I could shed some light on what is happening.

[Alfredo_Medina]

I see. Thank you for your feedback. I think the bottom line here is that it is possible to document something like this without problems. If the user is using the "entire wall" method of dimensioning and having issues with that, that's probably not a good option for dimensioning this set of views.

[horatiu.ferchiu]

Thank you for your time and effort - it is indeed a case where individual reference works as opposed to entire wall and I still can't wrap my head behind the logic of it all. 

[horatiu.ferchiu]

Thanks this indeed worked like a charm. I got so bogged down on the entire wall annotation not displaying properly that I completely ignored the individual reference function. stuck in tunnel vision mode when the answer was right there. I still can't understand why entire wall annotation won't show up, but I'm moving on. 

[RDAOU]

@horatiu.ferchiu 

There is a way to fix that behavior for New Construction - Complete...where Entire Wall dim will pick up everything.

But for the Existing + Showing Complete it is only Individual Reference that would work. When phase is set to Existing, it is not possible to get Revit to see Previous considering that nothing exists pre-Existing phase