Allow All Families to recognize rooms in linked models

[cprettyman]

Currently, the Room tag family can see, and tag, a room that is in a linked model, and a Space family can see rooms in linked models.  But other families cannot.  Since the rooms are typically in the architects model, the other disciplines involved in the project cannot directly leverage the room info.  I work in low voltage, so I frequently need to schedule things like

• What room is this data connection in?
• What room is this display in?

I imagine that lighting designers, furniture designers, etc, have similar challenges.

The work around right now is to make spaces, and match the space names/numbers to the underlying room names/numbers.  But that adds a maintenance issue - space naming and numbering is updated by the architect as the design evolves, and so we are constantly needing to update the spaces to match.  

Spaces offer the ability to create a space-like object that has additional parameters that you control, which is great.  But if all you need is for an object in your model to know what room its in, when the room is in another model, they require too much maintenance.  

Allowing all of the families to recognize the rooms in the linked model would streamline things for me, and I think for many others.

[Anonymous]

When linking an architectural model to an MEP file, room data should pass to the MEP elements' room fields. I would love to see a room name and number for a light fixture updated automatically from the arch model. This would would be a fully integrated BIM system.

[william.klawitter4MJ74]

This is critical information for let say panel schedules, light fixture schedules, etc.  If any discipline places any type of element in a room... someday they may like a report that says what room the elements are in.  This seems shockingly common sense.  I work in the Instrument and Controls discipline.  We place control panels, remote I/O panels, and instruments in our revit project.  Our construction packages for panel installation and instrument wiring ALWAYS have floor and room information so the contractors can estimate cable lengths for bids and so the contractors can actually oh I don't know... KNOW WHERE the TO/FROM locations are for the cables they are installing.  PLEASE add this to Revit!  I should not have to create spaces in my project - the architects have already defined the rooms.  The architects move rooms too often or change the room numbers and names.  It's crazy that this has to be repeated, numerous times, in the MEP projects that link the arch project in.

[davidwilliamedwards]

Currently if you link in an RVT which has Rooms, their information won't Schedule. The same is true going the other direction. 

[tgrantdelawie]

You can schedule room information in a linked file. You just have to check the box for "Include Elements in Linked Files" Is there a specific functionality that you are looking for? 

[Kevin.Bell]

Revit can't schedule room locations of families when the families are placed in one model and the rooms are in another.

For instance, you have a Furniture model (FFE model), and you link this into the building model that contains the rooms.

Revit won't be able to schedule what room the furniture is located in.

Setting up models this way is quite standard. Revit should always be able to schedule the locations of stuff when its located in a linked model.

[scott.a.michaud]

Maybe I am missing something here, is the linked model with the rooms set to "Room Bounding" as an Instance?

For MEP Content we set the Arch link to be room bounding and then when we schedule, we see the Room Properties for the elements that intersect them when scheduling the Room Name and Number. Is this function on MEP Components only currently?

[Kevin.Bell]

Room bounding only affects walls from a linked model, so that room / areas / spaces in the local model will find the walls as boundaries.

The problem I have is where the furniture is in the linked model, and the rooms are in your local model, when you schedule the furniture the furniture objects wont report the room they are in...

Cheers.

[scott.a.michaud]

Ah I see it now Kevin, I use spaces for MEP content hand have the auto function pull in room name and number so I never think about it. While not a perfect solution the automatic place spaces and space naming tool work for most modeling I oversee. While you could use it, or some add in to fill out a parameter (dynamo etc) it is a pain that could just be handled by a toggle revit to view the models rooms as more of a location schedule item. I agree that is not ideal for non-MEP workflows

[challstrom]

Looking to tag custom parameters in a linked room, info will not pass through.

Architect has a custom project parameter added to rooms. There doesn't seem to be a way to get that info into a space tag (even though room name and number is possible). Nor is it possible to get space parameters  to link/equal to a linked room.

[RRM110013]

I fully agree.

This is a functionality which is needed for all MEP engineers (Electrical, Fire Safety, Security, Communication, Data and Mechanical) Most of our projects work with a naming convention what makes it  preferable to work with more parameters to build a name (code) for a Room and a Component. Families do have "the option "Room calculation point. Why is this when it's not used? So what we need is an option that makes it possible to extract parameters from rooms, in a linked model and apply those to the components within the room. When it's on the border for instance in the wall the "Room calculation pint should be functional. Families with nested /shared families should be handled separately.  

[bdavis6MHM7]

Our firm and many others have a model for FF&E that contains all furniture, and some other interior design elements. This could be either to reduce size of Architectural model, or in a scenario where we are not also the Architect but rather a contracted Interior Design team working on another team's Architectural model. This FF&E model has the Architectural Model linked in. The Architectural model contains important data including Room information which our interior designers need when putting together FF&E packages where a piece of furniture needs to have it's quantities scheduled and located per room.

Our team is looking for a first party solution to what we perceive as an issue where an Element in the FF&E Model cannot obtain the data for it's located room from a linked model's rooms.

See below image that further outlines the issue we perceive:

A few "solutions" that we have used in the past leverage either Dynamo or other addons which allow us to collect the data from a linked model and populate some shared parameters added to furniture elements, but those require periodic re-exporting of the data as they are in no way linked to the architectural model. We have also used Spaces like an MEP engineer would to mimic room data, but again those require periodic updating and do not monitor changes to the architectural models

We would find a few options acceptable as solutions:

1. Our first choice would be to allow us to use data from rooms of a linked model when we add that as a field to a schedule. Either by default or as an opt-in option.
2. Allow us to copy/monitor rooms, but this has some drawbacks involving new rooms being created, etc.

3. Allow spaces to be locked to rooms and auto-update with the changes to the rooms they are associated with, but  I expect this to be deviating from the use that spaces were intended to be used for.

 

 

[infoK3R2R]

On a larger project it is common to split the envelope model and the core and shell (base build) model. The rooms are located in the base build model and the windows are in the envelope model. I want to schedule the windows' instance room number using a 'room from' calculation point but referring to the rooms in the linked file. This is possible with third party add ins or dynamo, but wouldn't it be great if Revit could just do this out of the box? 

[cprettyman]

To clarify my original post, just a little.  Tags and schedules can see and report information about rooms, spaces, doors, walls - whatever, from a linked model, so the details about any family in a linked model is visible, and readable in the host model.

But, as far as I know, tags are the only family that has access to that info.  If I link in a model with a room, and place any object in that room, my object does not know that its in the room.  I can tag the room, and see the room name and number - I do that on every project.  But I cannot, for example, create a schedule of things in my model that also lists what room they are in (even if the objects are room/space aware).

There are some good replies about making models room bounding, and about how to add the rooms in a linked model to a schedule.  But they don't address the wish - which is to have an object (not a tag, not a schedule) in one model know what room it's in when the room is in another model.

[philip.valentineYCAEP]

This is extremely important for the likes of COBie production, one key parameter within the component set is COBie.Component.Space, This automatically gets populated in certain element categories I.e. doors and windows, if the rooms are in the same model. However, if you're working on an MEP model and link in the Architect's model for the room information, the Interoperability Tool cannot pick up any room/space data for real-world MEP elements such as fabrication parts.

This leaves the input of that parameter needing to be a manual (and as such risky) process of human data entry.

1. All elements should be able to read the room they are located in.
2. Revit should allow a linked file to be read as if the rooms were present in the open file.

[cprettyman]

One sort of follow up/caveat on this- a method would be needed to clarify which room, from which model.  

There are two common scenarios I see

- Core and Shell is a separate model from Interior Fit out, and both models have rooms in them.  Resolving that is not as simple as not showing the rooms from one or the other.  First of all, not displaying them is not the same as them not being there - we could hide all rooms from one model in a view, or view template, but they might show in another view.  And, it would be great if I could rely on the entire industry to put all rooms on their own workset - but I can't.  

One reasonably frequent iteration of this is that we need to show and tag rooms or spaces in the core - elevator lobbies, restrooms, etc.  But the whole tenant area has a big "room" named something like "Tenant Space."

I'm afraid that I don't have a simple solution to offer for this - there are so many possible, legitimate variants on what the other consultants on a project might do....

- The other reason is, sad to say, sloppy modeling.  I see way to many models with strange extraneous rooms.  In at least some cases, I believe, someone at the architectural or interiors end has deleted a room tag in their drawings, unaware that the room object is staying behind. The obvious suggestion here is better modelling - but if my devices are reporting what room they are in, at least sometimes, they will come back with "Multiple"

[infoK3R2R]

cprettyman is right. My assumption would be subject to some model discipline, the base model has the rooms in it, the linked models do not have any rooms. Basic clash / duplicate detection etc should flag up if multiple rooms occupied the same space within the base model or across linked revit files. I would like to believe the facility to assign a room's properties to linked objects will make it's way into a future update, but the choices for now are pricey add ins, or some lengthy dynamo scripting. 

[bdavis6MHM7]

I believe what you two are discussing is not really relevant to this post. Revit should just use it's default <varies> as the field if there are multiple rooms in the same space. It is not up to Revit to enforce good modeling.

[cprettyman]

I agree, in the second example - the extraneous rooms created by poor modelling.  Better modelling is the answer, and ADSK should not be writing code to work around sloppiness.  

And, in the first example, there is a solution related to phasing - the core construction is typically an earlier phase than tenant fit out.  Personally, I favor a workflow where the TI team places room objects in the core to identify those spaces, for reference and signage.  But I cannot require that.  And for our particular workflow, we often need to identify (as an example) that a data faceplate in room 1 of the fit out is connected to a patch panel in room 2 that is in the core. 

Even so - if I could get all my devices to report what room they are in, even if some of them would report nothing and some would report "<varies>" - that would be huge progress, and would give me a better position to go back to the authors of the background models and push for cleanup of their models.  

[rmartinez-vazquez]

Currently the only way to schedule any MEP equipment with their room they are located in is either 1) use a instance text parameter which you have to manually type in or  2) recreate all the linked model rooms or spaces in the host model to be show the where they are found in. 

This seems like such a simple implementation that should be be default in Revit. It makes to sense to have to recreate all the linked model rooms or spaces in the host model. 1) That is duplicate work, 2) that adds to the host model file size, 3) slows down the response time of the host model. 

Please add this ability to be able to schedule host model elements with their room/space location from linked models. 

[yoshitake-hUDCKT]

I'd like to see this feature improved as well.

"SPACE" does not automatically follow changes in "ROOM".

So, if I can use the parameters of the rooms in the architectural model, I would like to use them.