Lines Too Short

[Anonymous]

Can anyone explain what the deal is with lines being too short in REVIT?  I've run into a lot of issues with exploding CAD imports and also just creating details with lines that need to be very short and it's surprising that this has become such a problem for us.  Is there a specific reason I can't draw a line that is only 1/256" long?  Any help is very much appreciated.  Thanks.

[Seychellian]

Elements drawn on a sheet or in a title block.

[Anonymous]

light gauge steel

[ToanDN]

Light gauge steel?  For manufacturing them; or for showing them as building components? 

If the former, when indeed a high precision is required, then you pick the wrong software. 

If the latter, design/construction model, even detail drawings are meant to deliver design intent, specify components, show how things come together.   So, with light gauge steel, they would create a coarser version of the component and identify it with a parts/ model number, a manufacturer and the sub can go order the exact one.  Again, if you are an architect or a designer, you identify what those steel are, show how to put them together, and where to put them in relationship to other components.   Does that make sense?

My 2 cents.

[Anonymous]

I'm working with precision components for detailing (at 1:1) a door.  One of its components happens to be a geared hinge.  Instead of being able to show the geared hinge in the drawings, I have to show a stupid blocky version of it, when I have the perfectly good CAD lines.  If Autodesk can't understand why this frustrates people, something is wrong with Autodesk. 

[ToanDN]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I'm working with precision components for detailing (at 1:1) a door.  One of its components happens to be a geared hinge.  Instead of being able to show the geared hinge in the drawings, I have to show a stupid blocky version of it, when I have the perfectly good CAD lines.  If Autodesk can't understand why this frustrates people, something is wrong with Autodesk. 

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If you have a perfect CAD file then import it in a detail family and do not explode it, there you will have all the tiny little perfect lines for the detail.

Regardless, that stuff should be done in Inventor or Solidworks or Rhino, not Revit.  They are like a spoon and a bobcat machine, you pick the right tool for the right job.

[Anonymous]

Point taken, thanks for the info.

[Anonymous]

Why are you tracing over a manufacturer detail?

Sorry if that seems blunt...

But there is a workaround to this if you must have lines smaller than 0.8mm for details.

Open up a new family.

For 2D's recommend detail components template.

Import your CAD detail directly into the new family template.

Make sure it is at 1;1 scale

At this point, I would do a first save but remember to resave after you use the convert line type to a detail line.

Now you have a detail component that is your manufactures detail with lines below the 0.8mm minimum that Revit normally applies to lines.

Things to note 

First, of all, you shouldn't be doing details in less than 0.8mm with detail lines and fill regions.

In my opinion, I feel these should be used in a bare minimum, preferably not at all.

Second, the detail component method I explained above will not let you edit it.

This is because Revit will apply the 0.8mm minimum, any changes to that detail will have to be done in AutoCAD. and the whole process will then need to be redone to create a new detailed component with the new sizes.

Lastly, I would suggest more generic items as we all know clients and contractor like the cheapest/ best deal products they can get there hands on while still having the same specification (your manufacturing detail won't be relevant if this happens)

If you need an example of this just request it. with a reply.

Hope this helps you out

[Anonymous]

Good Ones

[Anonymous]

yea, this issues is one of the largest contributors to why my company may choose to stop using revit...

[DmetcalfGHY4B]

A bit old but you asked about what details need such short lines. That would be manufacturers window details usually drawn in AutoCAD and downloaded for inclusion into CDs.

Thanks,

David

[ToanDN]

I think what you are asking or going to ask are already covered above.

[Andy6640]

Stock responses seem to be:

1) Revit is made like that - suck it up.

2) Why, why, why...

3) Use different software

4) You don't need fine detail

and so on.

Well, part of the drive to rationalise construction processes and part of the idea behid BIM is data exchange and coherent documentation. Using different software makes documentation less coherent. There are those who want to maximise the amount of data in one place, understandably, quite apart from the fact that running lots of different software gets expensive (directly and in training to use them all).

So, why fine detail. Well, we do details. Let me dream up a little example: I create a family of some component, and in it there is a chamfer, and it works just fine. Then I insert it into a project, where the paramters change and it gets small enough that the chamfer spits out the 'too small' error. So, for a simple family, you have to start building in error trapping for such cases. In any case, if I'm documenting my details, maybe I want the manufacturer to see that chamfer; maybe I want he client to stand is awe of the fidelity of it and buy my product instead of the Minecraft one that someone else produced!

Another example is the computation of structural properties of a structural section. Aluminium alloy extrusions can get quite fine detailed and, if they aren't, you get a different answer for your structural properties. This is not always a critical problem, but it means it needs looking into each time to make sure the result is correct.

Someone was saying something about small and large numbers taking more memory. Erm... I'm not an IT expert, but that's not correct. Numbers are numbers and real numbers are represented the same in the computer's memory, regardless of size (there are at least single and double precision ones and some special implementations and the data size for each is set). So that's not it. What may be the worry for the developers is that a large model spawning a large number of very fine details may tax the graphics handling. I would imagine though (again, I'm no expert) that it's possible to cull items that are too small and so waive their processing (other than the processing to test if they're too small or not).

[Andy6640]

I should also add...

...that I am not necessarily advocating the showing of sub millimetre details. It's more the case that I object to the fact the the family and project creation doesn't allow them in even in a virtual sense, so that the properties of your object go wrong or your family crashes or can't adapt to the project. We can't create a family containing geometry that skips small objects. Those objects might exist in loops in the boundaries of things for example. Well, perhaps we can, but it makes the creation of families very cumbersome, where different versions of one's obect have to be displayed or not, depending on the size of the smallest element. That would seem to take a lot of processing too, to compare to the idea of too fine detail being too demanding of processing.

[Anonymous]

Hey guys I did find solution on this problem.

Whenever you import CAD file or any details increase scale of details or cad file so you can easily explode them or draw the short lines in a drafting view easily..

Thank you so much

[Anonymous]

Or you can scale the details higher so you can easily draw line or explode the details

[Anonymous]

a Key Plan on a title block will have many very small lines for example

[PDSF]

That is my exact scenario. I'm trying to scale down a key plan from a 30x42 sheet to an 11x17 so it is proportionally sized. But I get the "line is too short" error, and even if I tell Revit to delete the lines, it still gives me a "cancel or bust" message. Really annoying.

[ToanDN]

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@PDSF wrote:
That is my exact scenario. I'm trying to scale down a key plan from a 30x42 sheet to an 11x17 so it is proportionally sized. But I get the "line is too short" error, and even if I tell Revit to delete the lines, it still gives me a "cancel or bust" message. Really annoying.

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If they are sketch boundary lines of a region then you need to close the loop after deleting the short segments in order to re-validate the region.

[PDSF]

It wasn't, they were just simple lines. I wound up just hunting for the too-short lines and eliminated them prior to scaling. It worked, but still annoying.

[bluebamboo1]

2023...I was asked to draw details of aluminum rail sections for shop drawings. This is something that had to be done in revit as requested by the clients and were not accepting any other (because now, guess what, everyone is in revit). That's a good example of something that needs precision to lines shorter than 1/32. So the only workaround again is to do a decade+half+ method: draw in autocad and import.