how to change the Associated Level

[Anonymous]

[RobDraw]

Shame on you for giving me credit for someone else's words. You are on a much lower level than I.

Good luck. I'm out.

[duane.smith]

So... anyone who works with other trades (which is pretty much everyone), has to co-ordinate their models.  I am no exception.  Thankfully, we maintain our own levels.  Yes, we do have to agree on certain things, like the basic levels and grids, but unless there is an interference issue, I really don't care what the MEP does.  His levels are his, and mine are mine.  I turn his off, and I'm sure he turns off mine.  So long as our stuff lines up, we're all good.

Using Reference Planes (I think you said "workplanes" - every modeled object has their own Work Plane(s), including Reference Planes, but that's probably splitting hairs), works great for associating objects to.  You can move the Reference Plane and all associated objects move too.  But, I don't see a way to create views from those Reference Planes the same way you can with Levels, and that's part of what I need.

I would love to have Revit working seamlessly, and give me a tool for every need, but there are just some things which require workarounds.  Which is why there are so many add-ins out there.  Developed by those who saw the need and spent the time.

If you have constructive / instructive information, please share.  I'm truly not just trying to vent here. I would welcome information that opens up a new (to me) way of leveraging Revit, to accomplish my goal.  After all, isn't that really what these forums are for!?

[duane.smith]

My apologies for the mis-quote in one of the previous posts, I apparently need to pay closer attention to who's replying.  Still... I hope I'm mis-reading this, and apologize in advance if I am, but your last couple responses

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@RobDraw wrote:

Shame on you for giving me credit for someone else's words. You are on a much lower level than I.

Good luck. I'm out.

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sounded a bit... snarky?

I hope your day is going better than what it sounds like.

[RobDraw]

Of course it was a bit snarky. You put some effort into "mis-quoting" me.

BTW, I agree with the poster of those words you gave me credit for. You actually should be apologizing to him. He's quite respected in these parts.

[SteveKStafford]

Discipline or trade is irrelevant to the matter or me. I've done a lot my work with architects but also with many trades which are as diverse as theater stages to petro-chemical work.

In my reading of your reply, you describe your motivation for this as wanting to speed up creating views. It's normal to tell developers how to solve "my" problem by telling them how they should do that. What's most often missed in this kind of conversation is people fail to describe the underlying problem first, before venturing into the practical means for resolving it. Developers are quite good at digging up that underlying reason but that usually means the conversation is no longer in the realm of a user forum.

Fundamentally Views, Model elements and Annotation relate to each other in the Revit environment differently. Views show model elements without extra effort while annotation belongs to a specific view and no others. Further many kinds of annotation relate to specific model elements and depend on their hosting view to make that connection.

Being able to arbitrarily associate a view to a different level places all of those relationships in jeopardy. It is/was an important enough distinction that the founders of Revit baked it into the product. Levels are also foundational element as model elements reference them. Model elements can have their relationship to levels reset but not views.

As for managing view creation or how many levels a project needs that necessarily varies from project to project. I use as few Levels as possible, thinking in terms of a building one for each story/floor. It doesn't matter if the story/floor is a bridge, derrick crane cab elevation or stage rigging grid. If we want a uniform annotated representation of an important datum for the project then a level is appropriate...in terms of the story our documentation needs to tell. If we want a reference plane to host elements for easy future elevation adjustments but don't need to identify it with annotation in every view then a level might not really be needed.

If you do some research you'll find people have been quite inventive with Dynamo for managing view creation tailor to their specific ideas.

[mmcintosh-ral]

"If I were in your shoes, I would be utilizing workplanes for hosting platforms and cranes. They are much more flexible, but, hey, that's just me. I only try to make the program work for me and not let it make me work harder."

Reading this after your conversation earlier this year- Just adding this because some of us work on weird projects where Revit just doesn't support what we're doing very well.

I like the idea of just setting our floor levels the way we would like and that would be convenient.

Wish it were that simple.

I'm an architect in an engineering firm where the building levels/views are set by the mechanical discipline before we start working on the project.

Sometimes the level our floor plan is based on is not even a floor, but we work with what they've given us.

And then the scope will change around 90% and the whole building elevation will move up maybe 4', and if the room height hadn't been adjusted, now the rooms are not enclosed and there is no way to move them up to the new level without just starting over.

This may not be as much of an issue on commercial/residential projects, but on industrial , where the building is often not the primary concern of the BIM leadership, being able to change the level of a view would help a lot. It's one of many challenges though, and I'm not sure if I would rank it as most important, but it's one that is a challenge just the same.

Revit is not very supportive of iterative design, in my opinion.

[RobDraw]

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@mmcintosh-ral wrote:

on industrial , where the building is often not the primary concern of the BIM leadership

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I was confused by most of your post and maybe this is why. Do you know what BIM stand for?

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@mmcintosh-ral wrote:

the whole building elevation will move up maybe 4', and if the room height hadn't been adjusted, now the rooms are not enclosed and there is no way to move them up to the new level without just starting over.

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Sounds like a job for relocate project. (It's all about relativity.)

[mmcintosh-ral]

Hi Rob,

Sorry- I realize my post sounded strange to most people who use Revit primarily for building design.

And really, it was probably unfair of me to focus on your post for my reply- I probably should have just posted my thought on its own, without bringing you into it-

but yeah, I think I know what BIM stands for.

It's my understanding that it's the acronym for "Building Information Modeling".

I work for a mechanical engineering firm, where the leads on projects are mechanical engineers, and the lead designers are mechanical designers. The organization in our firm that controls our templates and workflows is comprised mostly of mechanical engineers and designers. There are a few structural designers on the team, but there are no architects involved in managing standards for Revit in our firm. The group that controls standards for Revit at our firm is called the BIM group.

I know it's not typical, but we exist.

thanks for the tip on relocat e project-

Michele

[RobDraw]

Okay, now it makes more sense.

I get that in your field the building might be secondary but I think the principals and workflows best practices could be very similar. That's just speculation on my part but not much of a stretch to get there. As the architect, you may be at a disadvantage because just about everything out there is based on the architect being the lead. I think if you switch the Architect/MEP roles in the project, you could have some good references to go by and a lot of established best practices could be put into place. If you have extensive experience on the architectural lead side of project, this could be difficult but not impossible. That would depend on how adaptable you are.

[ruben.aguilarTTJQA]

i have my view already set and done but now i realized that the views were created in a different level and now when i turn on the link to see the walls i can only see the level 1 walls and i need it to show the basement levels any suggestions with out having to redo all of the work again?

[duane.smith]

It kind of depends on the kind of work you are talking about, but a copy and paste can sometimes be helpful. Be sure to remove the modeled objects from you selection set before you paste with the "Aligned to Same Place" option, so you are only copying/pasting your annotations not the model objects.

[ruben.aguilarTTJQA]

thank you i will try that 

[Dirk77]

2021 and this is still a desired feature. I'm working on a site with a lot of distance between the buildings, so the site plan is huge. Each time I need to make a new plan view, I need to re-set up the crops, rotations, other nonsense. Ideally I should just be able to duplicate a plan view and change the associated level to the roof plan level and have the view range match that of a newly created view anyway, but with the crops and nonsense matching the previous.
Please incorporate this already autodesk

[Dirk77]

2021 and this is still a desired feature. I'm working on a site with a lot of distance between the buildings, so the site plan is huge. Each time I need to make a new plan view, I need to re-set up the crops, rotations, other nonsense. Ideally I should just be able to duplicate a plan view and change the associated level to the roof plan level and have the view range match that of a newly created view anyway, but with the crops and nonsense matching the previous.
Please incorporate this already autodesk!

[iainsavage]

I’m not convinced that it is a “desired feature” but if it is then what you should do is put an idea on the Revit Ideas forum, all those people who desire it can vote for it, and Autodesk might (but probably won’t) incorporate it in a future release.

Having just read this old thread I totally agree with @SteveKStafford .

I don’t see a need for this feature and the scenarios described in the thread seem to mainly be due to poor decision making at the outset of the project and poor coordination/collaboration between disciplines. 

As regards your situation, use scope boxes to setup the crops and apply the same scope boxes to all views on the relevant part of the site. Then you don’t need the workflow that you are suggesting.

Regarding copying annotations to all levels - use the Paste Aligned to Selected Levels or Aligned to Selected Views. Again no need for the level reassociation feature being suggested.

[iainsavage]

..... you can also change the “Level Above” setting for a level for those instances where levels on different parts of the building/site interfere with the view settings using the default settings, or (and this IS a real-world scenario) in which the Architect has made levels for underside of floor floor slab, top of floor slab, top of floor screed, top of floor finish, top of skirting, ceiling cornice, underside of ceiling, top of ceiling - I kid you not. I soon learned to only copy/monitor one of those levels and ignore the rest!

[Dirk77]

I'm all for efficiency. If there was a direct method to add + vote for something, almost like a poll in a thread, then by all means I would endorse it. As it stands, its too detached for my liking. Naturally others may not mind the extra navigation or effort though (knowing full well that it is a wasted effort almost all of the time).
See, I find your suggestions just as much workarounds simply because they aren't as streamlined. I'm aware this method of thinking stems from being able to forcibly duplicate at will in other software. I'm already doing all of those things, but it would be immensely faster if the associated levels could just be changed instead of starting each view "from scratch" (I include things like view templates as being from scratch, as it doesn't solve everything and presents its own set of issues such as requiring add-ins to transfer filters between views).
Some workflows cannot be avoided. It reminds me of a comment in yesterday's FIDIC presentation - some countries simply won't adopt BIM standards or follow their own local workflows, so in my opinion, workflows in BIM software do require this level of flexibility to make up for impermeable barriers in collaboration.

[RobDraw]

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@Dirk77 wrote:

If there was a direct method to add + vote for something, almost like a poll in a thread, then by all means I would endorse it. 

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Then maybe you should go check that out. This is a user help forum.

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@Dirk77 wrote:

I find your suggestions just as much workarounds simply because they aren't as streamlined. 

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That's a matter of opinion. It just happens to be the right tool for the job because yours doesn't exist.

BTW, repeating your post three times doesn't make it valid.

[Dirk77]

@RobDraw You're going off topic - I literally said it isn't a feature I'm here for or interested in, so why would I "go check it out" when it is irrelevant.
I don't think you have anything useful to contribute and just looking for someone to project your issues on - you clearly have a pattern of being rude for no good reason. FYI I've reported my 2 duplicate posts long before you chimed in with your snarky, off topic comments. It was a forum error, obviously.
Going forward, please refrain from commenting when you don't intend to actually contribute to the topic, which has to do with the associate levels setting, something which my post address and yours ignored.

[RobDraw]

Request denied.

BTW, that forum is the place for your thoughts. You should go check it out. You might even learn why it's not a feature.

Good luck.