Forums >> General Discussion >> Revit Project Management >> Best Practice - Door details in linked files.

stefanlarsson

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We have a project in wich we are linking all the buildings into a main file, in wich we are making all our drawings. This is the first time we are making a project through this method, and thus every now and again we suffer some small setbacks from our lack of experience. overall we are quite happy with how it works though.

Normally when we make our door details and schedules (when we work in one file only) we put all our door types in a special "set" or whatever it is called in Design Options, to use for detail drawings to put on the same sheets as our door schedules. this works as a charm but my BP-question is how to manage this the best way when working with more than one file.

My first idea was to  put the doors in the DO-set in the main file, but that means I have to make sure I copy all the door types over to the main file (wich I really don't have a really smoothe method for either). My second idea  was to just put the dors in the DO-set of the linked files and show the DO's in of the linked file in the views where it's needed.

the problem with this is that we have a hidden level set up about ten meters below our first floor where we put a wall with doors and windows in a DO-set for our detail drawings. Our "default" placement of this wall in the template just happened to be located in the basement of another building wich is a bit inconvenient XD. it seems like there should be smooth ways to do this, but we're just not there in our little revit-brains yet so if anyone have a suggestion about how to handle this I would be super happy. 

/stefan

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WWHub

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Not sure that you needed seperate files.  Revit can handle very large files using worksets.  The only problem you would have to work around is different levels per building but worksets can handle that as well.  Best process - always detail and schedule in the file you model.

I don't understand why you have a DO set....

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stefanlarsson

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There are several reasons we choose to work with this method and this far into the project it is the method we will have to continue with. maybe we will continue using this method in other prokect, maybe not. 

conserning the reason behind using design options: 

I'm not 100% sure of the all underlying reasons to do this, it's just what we were taught to do when we first started using revit, and it has been working really good so far. I guess one of the biggest reasons is to not have the doors made in this set accounted for in the door schedule. 

Maybe the wording "detailing" is a bit missleading. What we do is we draw a wall and put all the door types inte that wall we then use theese doors to make plan and elevation views with the most basic dimensions like height and with and maybe glazing etc. we then put these views on a sheet with a door schedule that defines different versions(specifikations) of every door type (like fire rating, locks, treshholds, color etc etc), therfore we dont want the doors used for visualization purpose to be counted in schedules.

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WWHub

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We add a project parameter to all categories in our template called "Do Not Schedule".  Our standard is if that field has an X, it is filtered out of the schedule.  Very useful for all schedules.  Obviously you could have different assignments to this for different filter needs.  So in hotels where every room entrance door is numbered 1, we place an X in all but the one we want to control and change.

Have you heard of legends?  That is the best way to do your door elevations.  The frames can be turned off for doors or the doors turned off for frames.  Doors & frames and lites can all be dimentioned in the legend.  And the best part ....Legends are portable between projects!

Design options are great for DESIGN OPTIONS.   All other uses are questionable.  Only one user can edit a DO at a time and because your doors are not really in the project, there is an opportunity for error.  Why use a CAD process in Revit?

No need to do a little village of doors for a door schedule.  Use the model.

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stefanlarsson

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yes, there are definately lots of ways to keep stuff out of schedules, and as I said i'm not sure if there ar any other underlaying reasons to using design options. The methods we use have its origin from our reseller/support. They have created a concept wich I don't want do change before I learned the reason why things are the way they are. (someone that know far more than me created it after all, and it has happened a few times that I have had that "aha" moment  a little bit to late XD). I have my reasons to doubt stuff they tell us thou... 

We mainly use legends for texts and explanations, we have ALOT to experiment with here I assume. I never thought of it as a mean to produce door elevations and such...

So you use legend components for visualisation and dimensioning? I'm not at work atm so can't try this out right now, but it sounds brilliant. 

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stefanlarsson

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I had to rush home and try this out... seems to work like a breeze appart from a few small things:

We allways show plan and elevation views with the elevation above the plan view. We ALWAYS show the hinge side of the door in elevation (front and back views exist yey!) this means that I want the door panel to open downwards on the plan view and have the hinge on the correct side. I can't rotate or mirror legend components? no flip handles? 

nested a small image with my problem, I want the plan view of the door to rotate 180° how do I fix this? 

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WWHub

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It seems there are no options for the plan view.... sorry.

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