Worksharing & Point Clouds

[tim.knappSO]

I have dilemma . . . I was told that putting the.rcp file on your hard drive is the most efficient way of using a point cloud.  So when user "A" links in a point cloud to a workshared Revit file, they link it in from their hard drive. Then user "A" synchronizes the Revit file to the Central file.  Then user "B" needs to work in the same Revit file.  They open a new local copy, but the point cloud is no where to be seen.  So user "B" repaths the point cloud from their hard drive, synchronizes with the central.  Then user "A" needs to do some work within the Revit model.  They get into the Revit file & yep . . . . you guessed it, no point cloud.  So they repath the point cloud location.  Seems like a big circle here . . . . .  Obvious solution is to let the point cloud reside on a server somewhere . . . right.  But with the point cloud on the server you run into (2) issues.  1. The point cloud eats up lots of valuable server space.  2. The latency from running the point cloud from the server is significant & really slows down the users.

So do I deal with the latency or have the users repath every time they need to view the point cloud.  What happens when user "A" & "B" are working simultaneously & are synchronizes their indiviual hard drive pathing back & forth with each other?

Looking for a better workflow. . . .  any ideas?

[KyleB_Autodesk · Accepted solution]

The "Root Path for Point clouds" path within the Options dialog is designed to address this exact issue.

As documented:

Using point clouds in a worksharing environment: To improve performance and reduce network traffic, the recommended workflow for users who need to work with the same point cloud files is to copy the files locally. Because file systems may differ between local machines, there is a Point Cloud Root Path specified on the File Locations tab of the Options dialog. The path that is saved within the workshared Revit project is relative to this path. So, as long as the relative path to the local copies of the point cloud files is the same for each user, the link will remain valid when you synchronize with Central. The relative path is displayed as the Saved Path in the Manage Links dialog.

That should get you going.

-Kyle

[tim.knappSO]

O.K.  Thanks Kyle!  I wasn't aware of what the root path for point clouds was for.  This helps out a lot!