Revit File Size Management

[ttaylor47TR5]

I'm having some trouble with a Revit file we received from an architect.  The file was 900 MB and my coworker managed to get it to 500 MB somehow.  I believe they ended up sending us a different version.  Anyways, in my attempts to make it more manageable so we can export it, I've deleted all the sheets and the views in a local/detached copy per a tevit tutorial I found.

But the geometry is still the issue.  There's probably thousands of chairs in this space.  It's an academic building so there are classrooms/lecture halls.  It's getting very aggravating that we can't export a small enough dwg for us to work with.

Does anyone have any more tips on making the file smaller.  I'm about to have to go through VG one by one and export individual elements (walls, doors, curtain walls, etc.) so we can use them in SketchUp.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

T.

[Alfredo_Medina · Accepted solution]

In my opinion, the BIM manager of that office should have split this project in two or three files. There is a certain functional limit that is considered best practice. I would say around 300 mb you should consider braking the project in components. It increases productivity. If that is not possible at the moment, at least you could ask that architect's office to give you a file in which the option to "Specify" worksets is set, so that you have the choice of closing the worksets that you don't need for your scope of work, before loading the project. Try those two suggestions instead of manipulating the model of the architect by deleting things that surely contain useful information, such as sheets. That is not a good idea. 

[Viveka_CD]

Hi @ttaylor47TR5

Apart from the regular purge, compact and deleting unnecessary views/sheets - please optimize wherever possible.

You mentioned using a lot of chairs in your model, are these from a manufacturer website or custom built with splines etc? Use a workset and model your own to reduce the complexity of these.

Do you use groups? or have any embedded CAD files? If you have links, put them on individual worksets. Turn 'off' snaps to prevent Revit from looking for new geometry.

Let me know if any of this helps.

Regards,

[ttaylor47TR5]

Viveka,

It appears that these were probably manufacturers models.  Since we received this file from an architect instead of building it ourselves I can't really speak to it.  But the ones we managed to get into SketchUp were pretty realistic so that's what leads us to think that.  And this is an Academic/Engineering building so they included gas bottles, lab equipment, etc. into the model.  There are a lot of furniture sets in this file.  We cut them and the casework out of our SketchUp files because they were just too heavy to deal with.  We couldn't even get them to import in a reasonable amount of time.

At Advent, I'm the SketchUp guru so I can trouble shoot it all day.  My coworker is the Revit guru and since this is still so preliminary in our process and our  new Revit workflow we're implementing we're all kind of stuck.  Plus our revit guru is a part time contractor so he's not in office every day.  Which leaves me....  And I'm still very preliminary in my Revit knowledge.  

I appreciate the info you guys have given.  

[Viveka_CD]

Hi @ttaylor47TR5

I've sent you an upload link.

Let me know if you have trouble accessing the folder.

Regards,

[ttaylor47TR5]

This will be private correct?  

[ttaylor47TR5]

Hi Viveka,

Upon further council I regret to inform you that I can't share this file
with you. Since we're not technically the owners of the file, the
architects are, I don't feel like I have the ability to share this file
legally. I'm just a lowly Technical Designer here at Advent and that
really is a decision that's best made by someone way above me.

Let me get back to you once we have a few more discussions about it and
then we can decide if we need an Autodesk rep to audit it further. I
believe we currently have enough done to get it into SketchUp and ready for
the designers to work in. Once my Revit expert coworker gets back I will
consult him and then see what we can do to figure out a way to clean it up
for our scope of work.

Thanks,

T.