Visibility Control - Worksets or View Filters?

[Anonymous]

How should a model file be set up to control the visibility of elements? 

As I understand it, using Worksets for this function is frowned upon whereas, using view templates along with view filters is the way to go.

What is the purpose of Worksets and why shouldn't they be used for visibility control?

Thanks,

[kadmonkee]

Worksets are typically used to organize specific content within a model

ie: Light fixtures are placed on a Light Fixture Workset (similar to layers in AutoCAD)

this can promote a long list of Worksets, and things being placed on the wrong Worksets.

view templates and filters are a much better approach.

although it is easy to simply turn off a Workset in a view for visibility sake, managing Worksets can become more of a task than its worth. 

[Anonymous]

Stick with filters as much as possible.  Worksets should be used for separating very significant, large sets of objects.  For most projects, at most you'll want to have a single workset (Workset 1) for most model objects, a second (Shared Levels and Grids) for levels and grids, separate worksets for each linked model, and a Site workset for the civil site plan(s) and any model objects shown on the site plan(s).

Adding worksets can result in significant model performance problems - everything slows to a crawl.

[Anonymous]

So, the purpose of Worksets is strictly for model management and not for visibility control?

[kadmonkee · Accepted solution]

no it can actually serve both purposes, but can create more issues if used incorrectly

it is a recommended practice to use filters and view templates.

there may be some explicit reason to use Worksets in this fashion but you will need to manage it more.

example= if i copy a light fixture and place it in a new location in my model it will be placed in the Active (current workset ),

no guarantee the current Workset is the correct Workset, without managing things properly I could have well placed that light fixture on a POWER Workset.

If I was using Worksets to manage visibility I would not see that particular Light fixture in my view because my POWER Workset is turned off.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Not strictly, no.  In the example I gave, both the site and linked model worksets can and should be used for visibility control.  But their use in this fashion should be limited to very large sets of objects (large either in size or quantity).  If you have a building >100K square feet it might be worthwhile to separate building areas using worksets so you can unload the workset for, say, the east wing while you work on the west, or the second floor while you work on the first.

What you should definitely not be doing is using worksets to separate objects by category or type - eg light fixtures, mech equipment, etc.  Model categories and view filters can handle that.