Revisit Massing and Panel Tools - Give them some love

[sarsenaultbrassard]

It seems like the massing tools have not evolved for years now and they are still full of bugs. Since every conceptual project is supposed to start in Revit (not Sketchup or Rhino), it would be good to have more solid massing tools that keep evolving.

Some suggestions:

• Default to reference lines, no lines
• Fix the panels being deleted when updating a panel https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture-forum/massing-bug-updating-panels-deletes-panels/m...
• Make massing more robust, simple operations break massing
• Allow us to select panels with schedules, right now when editing a mass/panel, all the panel schedule go empty, making mass operations impossible, it all has to be done manually
• Improve documentation and workflows,  the best documentation right now in in blog posts from an old Autodesk employee on http://buildz.blogspot.com/ from 2014
  • Example of bad workflow that is not well documented https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture-forum/massing-division-by-refference-plane-dissape...

There's many problems with massing that could be identified by a simple dog-fooding exercise. It just seems like no love has been given to this topic and that Autodesk has given up. Whenever I teach new users about Massing, I feel kind of shameful that they still have to deal with these massive problems. My job is to tell them to use Revit instead of Sketchup or Rhino, but with broken tools like this, it makes it hard to make a case for Revit. Please revisit these workflow with architectural designer, simulate or explore a real project and fix the multitude of bugs.

I'd love to go through all the problems we had to deal with on our project that has over 3000 adaptive panels based on Revit Massing.

[Michael_Ruehr]

Feel the pain I am in a similar position and the simple fact that Adaptive panels disappear and only moving stretching or reloading bring them back: my Revit sales Job for conceptual design is gone. Maximum 200 repetition forces us to go to Dynamo and so on. It's potentially such a great tool.

[sarsenaultbrassard]

Indeed! It feels like the tool was developped with great passion and the project got interrupted at 80% completion and there was never any user testing or UX validation.

[SamuelAB]

Here is an analysis of the limitations of massing workflows in Revit Massing

https://revitcat.blogspot.com/2013/12/rival-revit-environments-traditional-vs.html

[sarsenaultbrassard]

Here is a link to the documentation of problems with orientation and normals in massing.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture-forum/massing-face-direction-and-orientation/m-p/8...

[jason.barish]

"...got interrupted at 80% completion... "

Exactly! The massing environment is really powerful for modeling, but it behaves inconsistently with the rest of Revit (and sometimes itself), making it very hard for most people to learn. Cutting voids in particular is very problematic and janky - i've seen people just stop trying to learn massing modeling because they inexplicably couldn't get something thing to cut that other thing.

When teaching people how to use the massing environment, I've observed that people who are skilled at making families etc. have a hard time, because they are expecting revit to provide something similar to the tools inside the family environment. 

I think the massing editor would also benefit from better tools for making just really simple planar models - points, planes and lines. More feedback about WHY the shape generation failed would be helpful 

[sarsenaultbrassard]

Another major bug I've experienced in the last months:

When a panel is no longer use, but it has been used in a massing, if you delete this panel that is no longer in use, all or many panel in the massing it was present will be deleted.

Example:

You use panel 1 in a volume. Later, you get rid of panel one, it is not present in the project. If you delete panel 1, it will tell you it is present in the volume where it was used. If you go ahead and delete it, all panels in the volume will be deleted.

[sarsenaultbrassard]

Another major annoyance, i you copy a mass in the same place it lose all its panel assignment, splitting and any panel property information.

As the model gets bigger, we are deciding to split the massing into more pieces to open it faster and let multiple people work on the facade at the same time. The fact that it is so hard to copy a mass with the panel information inside without starting from scratch is a major impediment.

It would be great to be able to copy a mass somehow and keep the divisions, panels and their specific information inserted in the panels.

[martijn_pater]

What happens if you copy it as a group?

[sarsenaultbrassard]

@martijn_paterSame result. All divisions are lost and then it immediately asks to make another group type because both are different.

[martijn_pater]

A workaround if you need to make multiple instances would be to create the mass and divisions in a seperate file initially and link that, then copy as many links as needed and bind those, linking as a group however seems to result in some buggy behavior (for me). But it's not very desirable to do it like this I suppose.

[SamuelAB]

@martijn_pater I've actually tested with binding last week and it does not work either. Same results, the massing separations disappears.

I've had another disappointment with massing yesterday. In a project where I suggested we use split massing and adaptive panels to do repetitive wood slat ceilings, the user wanted to have circular holes in the slats. This does not seem possible. When you make a hole in the volume, the adaptive panels just keep going over the hole like its not there.

[martijn_pater]

@sarsenaultbrassardI guess I would have to see the file in order to talk about that further.

@SamuelAB Getting slightly offtopic I suppose, but perhaps you could try something similar to my last post/suggestion in another topic (which is to use a solid subtraction): https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture-forum/border-tile-partial-leaves-overhang/m-p/9029...

[sarsenaultbrassard]

@martijn_paterActually that last one was my fault. I forgot to check 'Cut with voids when loaded'.

It's still a major limitation that the holes in volumes are not considered, but at least we an cut elements made with massing, even if it is a lot more manual work.

[bujasim]

It seems Autodesk is trying to solve this problem among other through the use of FormIt...

I would be fine if FormIt replaced both the massing and family editor environment for a unified modeling experience.

Right now you have to use a different software for conceptual prototyping, then possibly conceptual massing for maturing your idea, then system family modeling for design development, then family editor modeling for final design...

Why would you jump through 4-5 environments and learn different interfaces and bugs and limitations each time only to achieve the simple task of building a parametric model?

These things may be fine now because of our generation, but I have trained many students that would drop Revit in a moment given the superior alternatives such as Rhino/Sketchup...

Autodesk cannot keep this up for long...

[SamuelAB]

Yeah, the relegated the massing features from Revit to Formit, trying to copy the intuitiveness of Sketchup while doing so and seemingly failing at both goals. If people want a simple interface to do massing, they will stick to Sketchup or Rhino. No one is an architectural office is going to be convinced to use this inferior Sketchup clone.

There's been no evolution to the massing that I know of and to the adaptive panels issues either. But most people have never really considered Revit for conception since the massing tools and workflows are so under documented. Really a shame to see this wasted potential.

[SeanMTA]

GIVE US THE FUSION 360 GEOMETRY TOOLS IN REVIT!!! That's the modelling environment we deserve after years of abuse trying to figure out which direction our surfaces are facing and how to cut a void through something...