do not delete dimensions

[jromkes]

Sometimes when I change a family and reload it into the project I get the warning that Revit wants to delete my dimensions. Right now there is only one thing I can do, just delete them. Otherwise my family will not load.

Is it possible to just keep the dimensions and flag them in the corresponding views, mark them red or with a big exclamation mark connected to them?

I am getting tired of shifting to all of my views to find which dimensions have been deleted.

[pieterschiettecatte]

I like the idea of dimensions being consistent with tag behavior: when it loses its host, it should become orphaned (with an option to rehost each witness line).

I would like the same behavior even if the lost element is in the main model (not in a link). It should display a ? (so you can see it's unhosted) and it should come with an option in the print dialog to not print orphaned tags and dimensions.

There's a lot of liability with the current system. It's easy to lose dimensions and tags which could have big repercussions (change orders or worse).

[roelie_oelofse]

This is such an annoyance when Revit does this, because it might happen from a lost link and now you don't have the option of repairing the link before it removes you dimensions.  The danger about this is that you have no idea which dimensions were removed and this causes people not to trust Revit anymore because now your drawing output differs from a previous revision.

[Kevin.Bell]

Agreed.

There should also be a button or some sort of warning which allows the user to find unhosted tags and dimensions easily.

At the moment the only way to find an unhosted tag is to look for a small ? symbol which can be very difficult to find...

[Anonymous]

@Kevin.Bell That's a great suggestion! Perhaps a warning would be best as the system for tracking and finding those is already in place.

[Anonymous]

120 votes from us, we need this as well

[jagostinho74]

@Anonymous where are those 120 votes? this idea only has 11 so far. 

[Anonymous]

actually just 1 vote virtually delivering all the 120 users that we have

[jagostinho74]

@Anonymous thank you. 🙂

Don't they have an Autodesk account themselves?

[Anonymous]

I agree. Sometimes we make some modifications on the plans passing from one phase to another and it is not easy to review all plans looking for the lost dimensions. It would be better to highlight the zones where changes have happened and to work on it (question of prodictivity and not losing the concentration)

[jagostinho74]

thanks @Anonymous

[FinearcLtd]

When making changes to the model Revit often announces that it will delete related dimensions. It does not show which ones. This results in a time-consuming search for the missing dimension lines. Better if these could be indicated clearly.

[MichaelWarwick7522]

Duplicate idea to https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/do-not-delete-dimensions/idc-p/7495255#M16023

[JOfford_13]

Stand-alone dimensions are a necessity for us and should be a foundation for any CAD platform, indeed AutoCAD and Inventor are shining examples.  Associating dimension elements to geometry references as Revit does is very useful, however there are so many situations where family geometry/references updates unexpectedly and all the long hours of work get discarded.  Simply allow existing dimensions to become orphaned when references are lost and allow users to create unassociated dimensions like every other CAD platform Autodesk sells.  Revit is CAD right?  Sometimes I'm not so sure.

The current logic behind Revit dimensions and persistence clearly comes from the perspective of from someone who's never worked long hours in the industry or is living in a dream world where nothing ever changes.  Designs change.  Our families update all the time.  You create paranoid users, always fearful that hours of work will be lost.

[jbinterZKU3Y]

I encounter this problem often with custom cabinetry. I often build them as model-in-place components and whenever any element is copied within the family the error message pops up that dimensions must be deleted even if that specific element is not dimensioned. The current work around is to group the element, copy the group, then ungroup it, but still would be much better if this could be resolved.

[jellisHKIT]

Creating dimensions with a non-associative state should have been fixed by Autodesk long ago to prevent constantly burning time deleting and then rebuilding dim strings. AutoCAD has had both states for dimensions for years. When a work plane based family becomes disassociated in the project, Revit does not automatically force you to delete it. Dimensions should behave the same way.

Autodesk if you are actually listening to your paying customers, then please explain to me why this hasn't been fixed yet.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

If Revit allows keeping "not associated dimensions" with red color when the dimensions lose the relationship between the dimensions and host instances, it can be helpful to make documentation more stable.

I understand why Revit eliminate dimensions which lose host instances. From BIM point of view, the current workflow can increase accuracy of Revit model in terms of information . But, from documentation point of view, the workflow can increase unnecessary workload for architect to create excatly same dimensions on same locations,

For example, a Revit model has 1000 dimensions on specific locations which will never change. Once, for some reason, the host instances for the dimensions have been changed, there can be a possibility to lose the dimensions. Of course, there are several tips to avoid the situation. But, I just want to talk a general situation.

In that case above, if Revit can give a user an option to keep "Not associate dimensions" with specific color, such as red color, Revit user can feel Revit is much more stable for documentation.

Also, if Revit allows an user to associate the "Not associated dimension" with new host instances manually, the user can save a lot of time to update dimensions with new host instances rather creating new dimensions from scratch.

Once, the "Not associated dimension" associates with new host instance, the color of the dimension follows the visibility settings of the view.

[Anonymous]

Issue

Moving objects, nudging, changing family types, editing a sketch-based object, etc. often cause dimensions strings, keynotes, tags, spot elevations, spot slopes, and other geometry-dependent annotations to disappear without the user seeing those consequences.  A generic warning about items being deleted is presented without a way to keep the list of deletions or show where they occur.

Fixing the consequences of this behavior is tricky, error-prone, and time consuming.  During the creation of Construction Documents, or in the case of a model being kept up-to-date during Construction Administration, missed, unintended changes to annotations can turn into legal risks.

Current Workaround

Requires: Bluebeam Revu or Autodesk Design Review

1. At the beginning of the day, print/export a set of sheets to PDF/DWF.
2. Edit the model and dismiss all warnings about deleted elements.
3. When dismissing warnings, force oneself to ignore
   1. the visceral reaction to breaking unknown things,
   2. the ambiguous stress of potential lawsuits,
   3. and the embarrassing knowledge that you'll come off as an idiot when major plan dimensions are missing during a review.
4. At the end of the day, repeat Step 1.
5. Use Revu/Design Review sheet comparison tools to see what's been moved or deleted.
6. In Revit, redo all the deleted annotations by hand.
7. That day, and each working day for the rest of your Revit life, lament the hour or so that you've lost to rework and change management cobbled together from shoestrings and bubblegum.

Proposed Solution

Loosen the coupling between the existence of annotations and the geometry they reference.

Provide warning notices that do not require user intervention when annotations will be deleted by an action.

Abandon orphaned annotations in place, give them an error color, and log a Warning.

[tamas.deri]

I can imagine a similar behaviour to orphaned tags.

[Anonymous]

As I understand Dimensions in Revit, if an element is deleted, the dimension it was associated with is deleted.  A similar effect happenes with linked (gasp, imported) cad files.  Although the element in the cad file is not deleted, it is not always available to the dimension when revit is running through all of its checks.  So I have always insisted that if a dimension has to be taken from an element in a cad file, that a revit line be placed a the location and the dimension be taken from there.  That fixed those issues (if users where careful to not inadvertently select the cad file).  I am currently running Revit 2018 and have had some dimensions delete themselves when I went to print them.   I get the typical warning that the dimensions were going to be deleted, it even gives me the Element ID of the Deleted dimension...   ...so I can search for it...   ...really?!   How about giving us the Element ID of the elements that were part of the string.  Just saying.  At least then you can search for the Element withing the View that the dimension was deleted, to see what the issue was.  

I am fairly certain that this is something that will be remedied (sooner than later Please) in the future. 

[pieterschiettecatte]

I wish that instead of deleting, the tags/dimensions would be orphaned, with a '?'.

Extra helpful options would be

- a way to find an/or purge orphaned tags/dimensions

- an option to not print them