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Constraints like Inventor

Constraints like Inventor

If a Revit (Family) Modeler will have the same possibilities to constrain sketches or geometry like Inventor does, it's easier and faster to model complex geometry.

Vertical/horizontal and point constraints will improve sketching in Revit. If Revit can tell you if the sketch or piece of geometry is fully constraint, it will prevent you from "over contraints" or other constraining errors.

7 Comments
Anonymous
Not applicable

Bonjour, 

Plusieurs programmes utilisent les contraintes (Inventor, SolidWorks, CATIA, PDMS, …) tel que : parallèle, perpendiculaire, concentrique, coaxial. Cela représente une grande aide au modeleur à la manière de l'accrochage aux objets sur AutoCAD.

 

Cette aide peut-être déployée lorsque nous éditons une famille pour créer une extrusion par exemple "contraintes 2D : concentrique" ou lorsque nous insérons une famille imbriquée "contraintes 3D : coaxial".

 

Bonne journée

 

 

Anonymous
Not applicable

Good afternoon.

I spent the first 14 years of my engineering career using proE and Autodesk inventor for an engineering firm.

3 months ago I made a change to work for an architecture firm where I just picked up Revit.

 

Coming from Inventor I am truly confused on the lack of drafting control for features in Revit.

It is possible that I am missing something, but the inability to lock the edge of a wall to a point, make 2 arching walls concentric, or assign and lock a wall to be tangent to an arch are all concepts that are available in Inventor. However in Revit everything moves relative to the item next to it.

 

Is there a reason that the same robust drafting tools that work so well in inventor are not available in REVIT?

 

Tags (1)
wr.marshall
Advisor

Please Autodesk add parametric constraints in project and family editors.

took screen shots of AutoCAD & Inventor parametric constraints. This are quite handy to lock related geometry together.

Example how used.

I was working on a model where I created a dormer roof and attached the wall to the roof. I then created a custom opening on the wall face that was running parallel to the triangle formed by the dormer roof.  I then changed roof pitch and now triangle in opening is at a different angle. I know there ways to lock two together, but seem long winded when a parametric constraint like the parallel one, would easily resolve issue.

parametric constraints.JPG

Same wish as this by others

  1. https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/revit-family-geometric-constrain/idi-p/6519036
  2. https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/drafting-tools-constraints/idi-p/8129941
wr.marshall
Advisor

see wish at https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/constraints-like-inventor/idc-p/8385400#M23658 which same thing asked here, has most votes so if add yours can strengthen necessity 🙂

wr.marshall
Advisor

@kimberly_fuhrman-jones please combine with above link

wr.marshall
Advisor

Really could do with the tangent, parallel & circle concentric constraints as found in inventor and AutoCAD right now (see my post above dated 11-07-2018 with the other program screenshot). Trying to get family to work, but it keeps breaking a particular part when I test for a different configuration. Revit warning me and not allowing me to constrain, but without the constraints  the family breaks/distorts.

Landed up having to split the part into basic elements and join them in order to get the part not to break and the geometry of the part wasn't even that complex to began with.

Get extremely annoyed having to fight Revit. What's taken me about 4-5 hours to resolve including having to work out complex formulas in order to make the family work correctly would have taken me 10 min in inventor without the need for complex formulas. 

Hope when the factory finished with their current big projects of topography and walls they then move onto Legends & Family editor!!!

cprettyman
Collaborator

This idea seems to have been languishing - and I think its a good one.  In fact, I was about to post a similar idea but then saw this one.  I had already voted for it.  So I'll add some thoughts

 

I find the inferred constraints in Revit frustrating.  If, as an example, I create a reference line, and if I start it at the intersection of 2 reference planes, Revit will probably infer that the end point of the reference line should stay at that intersection - which is great, except for the "probably" part.  And what if I created the reference line, and then moved it - what will Revit infer?  Probably nothing.  What if I intended for my line to always be at the midpoint of one plane, regardless of where the other plane moves.

Instead, I end up creating lots of dimensions and locking them to make constraints - a linear dimension in X, and another in Y, carefully, with lots of tabbing, set to dimension distance from a plane to the end point of a line.  

 

I'm less familiar with Inventor - but I've always had the impression that the AutoCAD team based the constraints available on Inventor - regardless, the constraints tab in the ACAD block editor has two sets - Constraint parameters, and Geometric Constraints.  The Constraint Parameters are basically the things we can do with dimensions/parameters in Revit now - I am arguing that we need the Geometric Constraints as well - for the same reasons, I suspect, that ACAD also needed them.  We need them as explicit constraints, that we can see and select in the editor, that we can delete, that we can add - no more relying on inferred constraints that may or may not  happen.  Maybe make the inferred constraints visible, like automatic sketch dimensions, so we can change them, delete them, or convert them to explicit constraints.  

 

For reference, for anyone not familiar with them in ACAD (or Inventor), the available explicit constraints available in ACAD (at least, in 2019 which is what I have open at the moment) are 

  • Coincident
  • Perpendicular
  • Parallel
  • Tangent
  • Horizontal
  • Vertical
  • Colinear
  • Concentric
  • Smooth
  • Symmetric
  • Equal
  • Fix

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