Splitting Model - Main Model and Equipment Model

[kevincoffey]

All,

We are currently investigating splitting our model into a main model and an equipment model.

The main model would contain almost all the Revit information. The equipment model would just contain furniture, electrical equipment, taps, etc. in the rooms. We are currently looking at populating all 500 rooms in the project and creating room information sheets based on each room and need to schedule out the information from each of the 500 rooms as well. My worry is that this information will require 500 sheets containing 500 schedules, 500 floor plans and 2000 elevations. You might be able to see why I would like to contain this bulk of information in a separate equipment model!

I have looked at a few options and what I can come up with is:

• Make the main model 'room bounding' as a linked file and recreate the rooms within it. I will end up with two sets of room information in this case which are not communicating
• Remove room information from the main model and create within the equipment model. This will reduce my ability to schedule out useful room information in the main model, e.g. floor finishes, etc.
• Create a new equipment workset in the main model and hope that the model filesize won't get too large and that the performance won't reduce.

I have previously read that sheets can be very computer intensive once you reach a certain number so I'm treading carefully.

I am currently running Revit 2016 with 16GB RAM.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

I find linked models very difficult to work with and don't see a need to do what you are proposing.  As long as the equipment is on its own workset it can be selectively opened and closed.  Make sure your view templates are set up to have filters turning off the equipment in views you don't need to see it. IE elevations, overall plans etc.  I have not noticed significant slow downs on hotel projects, healthcare, and higher ed projects with 100's of rooms and all the furniture/equipment in the model.  I do have major slow downs in view regen, section creation, etc with a linked model.  the issue is graphical and you will still have the graphical issues wether its linked or not.  So unless the company doing the equipment was a separate company I would just manage the equipment with view templates and worksets.

[L.Maas]

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We are currently investigating splitting our model into a main model and an equipment model.

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What is your problem and what are you hoping to accomplish?

[kevincoffey]

Hi EnlInt,

I had read a Revit performance note before that noted that a large number of sheets (100+) will affect the overall performance of the model:

....ideally files shall not exceed 200MB; for project containing more than 1200 sheets within a single project, the performance of the 'synchronize with central will dramatically decrease'...

This extract is from the latest protocol from AEC UK: https://aecuk.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/aecukbimprotocolforautodeskrevit-v2-0.pdf

Currently, we're looking at 500-700 sheets just to cover our room layouts. On top of this are all the other sheets used to describe the project so I am worried about two things:

• Model is already over 200MB and there is a lot of information to be added to it
• Sheets look like they would be ~1200 sheets if they are all in the same model

Perhaps the performance decrease would be worth the hassle but I know the team here will start complaining if the sync times are taking a long time.

Thanks.