We often talk about best practices when it comes to BIM. These are the things that work, the things that we should be doing.
But what about worst practices? What are the things that you should NEVER do in BIM? Maybe it’s as simple as saying “BIM model” (and killing a fluffy kitten in the process). Or something more nefarious like importing a DWG into Revit. Or even exploding that DWG after you’ve imported it <gasp>! What are some of the worst practices you’ve seen?
I want to hear your worst! Leave a comment below.
Using the Lineweight Tool to edit the appearance of most of the views in the set, rather than properly using View Templates, coupled with phasing.
Ugh. . . that’s a good bad practice.
We have our templates setup to look exactly how they should in plans, sections, details…. but elevations thats a whole different thing. I use it frequently combined with view depth
Modeling everylittle thing (down to the threads on screws!!), just because we can now.
Modeling things twice (double walls, roof parts, floor parts, etc).
In-place Components for everything, when it’s suppose to be for “One Off Items”!! Yeah that one bugs me to no end.
John,
When do you see people double modeling things? Do you mean like a chase wall that’s made out of two individual walls rather than a single wall type?
Well right now there’s a model I’m working on that has “2 roofs” one for the structural elements and another for the roof finishes. Chasewall I let go because as far as Revit is concerned plumbing chase walls are basically opposite furring walls, because I always run into that “width Varies” deals. But there have been back to back finished walls that have been created and only 1 wall can have a door in it… thus the craziness.
Actually I do this sometimes due to needing the finish layer to be larger or smaller than the structural layer. Similar to having finish floors on top of structural floors.
Actually trying something new on that front.. Trying the “Parts” command not quite there with it yet but suppose to be able to edit the “parts” separately when I need to have something larger (or smaller) than the “whole”. Anybody else using this command to that effect?
We tried that but it doesn’t work well with Navisworks. We needed to separate wall layers and floors for 4D planning, but Parts tool didn’t help. We ended up modelling everything as a separate unit.
I almost always do this, one for the structural deck, and another for the membrane. Fill the gap with a stretchable insulation detail component with a flat bottom and an angled top and you’re done.
oh and regarding the walls, join the walls and the door will cut both walls… except the frame/trim won’t be right, but we work with HM jambs a lot, so in cases like that, the HM jamb does not sit flush with the outside of wall finish anyhow a lot of times.
Yeah Join doesn’t work 100% of the time as expected. So I stay away from that.
I have seen double roofs used to better control the eave profile, for example a metal roof panel which projects beyond the fascia and is at a different cut angle from the rest of the assembly. This speeds later detailing so you do not have to hide all the modeled components and replace them all with detail components and filled regions. I agree that we should minimize this type duplication, as it one more element to modify in the event of a change, but I think used appropriately its not a bad thing.
I’ve used the double roof method for sloped/tapered insulation. The insulations tops at a parapet, so it isnt part of the roof assembly. Then use a sweep profile or a wall to make the parapet. Automaitcally looks right in section.
Multiple buildings (and the levels and grids associated with them) in the same model. Big, huge, monstrous no-no!
Oh man, that sounds like a nightmare.
Just reading this made my heart rate go up.
One foundation = One model
Aggghhhhhhh……!!!!!
Linking in multiple copies of the .dwg civil site plan. At first this doesn’t sound like a big issue, but sometimes users misalign the .dwg files, and don’t think to align the property boundaries (or turn them off, or decide to make their own…etc etc). The end result is that people start to draw buildings in the wrong spot. Doh!!!!
A couple that come to mind…
-in-place modeled families modeled on various reference planes outside the component (e.g. both walls and floor level 1) with intention of being copied and reused.
-families with parameters and constraints set to model geometry
-dummy tags
Dummy Tag – AMEN
Eh, I use dummy tags a lot – for certain things
Our stock office finish tags are dummy tags as 99% of the time it’s not worth our time to model the finishes – We’re not providing renderings and I’m not going to waste project time applying 10 different paints that the client is going to shuffle 4 times before CDs issue. Once in a blue moon we model all of the finishes and use smart finish tags throughout.
At least once a project I need to spot elevation tag a header, soffit or something that’s at a weird AFF height which is not related to the level it’s modeled from. e.g. if we have a 18″ platform area that’s only 100 SF it probably won’t have a level associated with it, but elements above it should relate to the AFF height over that platform, not to the base “level”.
Using them to fake information? No. Using them to simplify the model to match deliverables? Yes.
Items modeled as an in place family, copied dozens of times, then every change gets chased through them one by one. Or not. Whatever.
Yeah wouldn’t that take LARGE amounts of time to regenerate every time?
Oh and I forgot… Text over a dimension string… because you can’t “fake” the “true” dimension.
Good one!
As in, a literal text note over dimension? oh boy.
You can fake a dimension…. replace with text and insert a unicode character, but with those characters turned off. Then enter the number needed
?
I’ve only just learnt about being able to fake a dimension. Spent about an hour racking my brain as to why overall dimensions for a window wasn’t working out, turns out my coworker had messed with the model. The time it took my coworker to learn how to fake the dimension would’ve taken the same time as to fix the window dimensions! gah.
I totally agree! Just fix the model.
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I hate it when people use levels as datums for things that aren’t really levels. Things like ceiling heights, tops of storefront/curtainwall, wainscoting, etc. Then you always have to hide them manually in section view, or move them into another workset to govern their visibility with view templates. Just make a named reference plane instead!
Oooh. . . I’m guilty of that one.
Never done that for ceilings, but I move everything like that individually.
I should really start using more reference planes, thanks for the idea!
Agreed, with one exception. Rooms are hosted to levels, and room bounding objects (e.g. walls) must sit at or intersect that level for Revit’s room boundary determination to work. Room levels cannot be changed after placement except by deleting and recreating in a view associated with the correct level.
I often work on buildings with large, raised, structural platforms, 6″, 12″, 18″, not a whole floor up or even a mezzanine.
Those platforms have walls that sit on them and sometimes host multiple rooms.
If I don’t have a level for the top of the platform, those rooms will be placed too low, completely ignoring the surrounding walls, doors, etc.
There are more frustrating problems with rooms in Revit, but I hope this helps someone just a little.
Have you looked at the computational height in the Level parameters as an alternative solution?
Levels for things other than just structural “levels” used to be a best practice in certain ways. I was taught that anything *significant that shares a common plane* should be a level.
Certainly not every ceiling, but potentially coordinated ceilings where they don’t directly relate to the “floor” below them. If the relationship of multiple soffits is more important to relate to the primary ceiling than the floor, or the height of the “ceiling” needs to be consistent and independent of the structural floor or finish floors, then that’s a great use for a Level.
In a “normal” building? No. For cased opening heads? No.
I am guilty too. But really useful. I agree reference plane could be a better approach in many case.
But use gosht level too in certain case. We just need to create a new family of level, me personally I put a colour and another symbole.
To control the visibility in my view template, just create a filter to control their visibility.
Voila bon chance !
We do our SD work in SketchUp… so the thing that drives me nuts is when someone “builds” the Revit model by simply importing all of the SketchUp items in; meaning completely un-editable “families.” It’s imprecise, and completely defeats the purpose of doing having a Revit model.
This happens with dumb CAD files as well. Walls that are not drawn to the correct size and then you loose 1/2″ here and there…which is a nightmare in Multi-family. Then CAD files that are off access, and then traced over. CAD has no warnings of this so an entire model that is traced over CAD can be completely off access because it was poorly laid out in CAD.
Detail lines in any view except a drafting view. I know they have their time and place in a handful of instances but when things are shifting and changing and you print a progress set and have a bunch of lines popup it makes the entire set look bad.
Good one. Thanks Lee!
Using a grouped Curtain Wall element for a window opening rather than the tool called…..ummm….Window!!!!
Really??? People do that? Yikes!
My firm has started doing that because the design team has gotten crazy with millions placement and non square window, such as following a sloped roof and contractors were complaining of having a window schedule, a door schedule, a storefront s schedule, a curtain wall schedule. So now all aluminum frames are modeled as storefront systems. In some ways it works but it’s really annoying for when you do just have punched windows and simple door frames.
^^^ this
When your window sizes and shapes get crazy, I’d way rather work with curtain walls. And if just a few of my windows need to be CWs, I’d prefer to have them all as CW.
I think this is more a preferred way of doing things rather than good or bad practice.
The CW tool for windows is so much easier and more flexible than creating window families. This is clearly realized during design when a building’s window layout will constantly be changing. Certainly when it comes to sloped windows, or various mullion configurations, or different glazing options the CW tool saves a huge amount of time. The time it takes to create a custom window family, especially one that is parametric, to give you the look/layout a design requires, is a family modeling nightmare; and I’ve yet to see a window family that gives you the creative flexibility that the CW tool provides. However, using the CW tool does create more difficulty with it comes to documenting common window sizes/configurations. If you don’t properly use grouping and CW types, you can’t accurately expect windows that should be the same size to be consistent. The only time I’d use a window family is if I know that a specific window manufacturer will be used and they provide quality Revit families for their products. Those windows will also have to be a true punched opening. But for me, 9.5 times out of 10 the CW tool is the way to go. Commercially, we generally use storefront for punched openings anyway. I’ll take the documentation hassle over the modeling hassle any day. Now, if there was a way to create windows with an interface like the CW tool, sign me up!
One off crazy shaped window, curtain wall is way to go.
Yes Curtain Walls are great! If only Autodesk would have a decent door / window family generator we would not have this predicament. Plenty of alternative add-ins but really Autodesk should have transitioned these from ADT years ago across to Revit!
– Locking all dimensions
– Pinning everything
– Using a lot of reference planes for one detail in one area of the project and then not removing them when finished with them
…… ^ Don’t get me wrong, I am happier they are using reference planes instead of Levels but gah name them then
Yes! Name your reference planes.
Drawing things with detail lines in several section views and details when it would have been much easier and faster to model it. Base plates on columns come to mind. Some people tend to fall back to doing what they know rather than taking the time to learn new skills. Even after training.
Mind over matter; a negative attitude can be disastrous in any collaborative environment. Any one who uses ‘Revit can’t do that’ as an excuse. There is almost always a way (when there is a will)
Good one!
I’ve got a few too. Dealing with some this week in fact!
Drawing physical objects such as furniture, equipment, lighting, mechanical equipment (insert example) as a “Detail Group” in Plan Views ( or others). To make it worse, instead of having the thought to use a component family (or at the very least model lines as a group, they copy the detail group from view to view.
Another one I see time and again is using Worksets to control the visibility of “Design Options.” Some don’t know how to use Design Options, so they opt to create Worksets for each option instead. . .
Or equally as bad (or perhaps worse) trying to use Worksets to control phasing. . .
If using Design Options on a model shared with an outside MEP group, Design Options create a huge headache for all involved people that must link your model for coordination. IMO Design Options should only be used for SD purposes and then a design is chosen to move forward with. If there are BID Alternates they should be modeled as phases.
When people use the terms; “2D” when referring to a piping/duct view in coarse (single line) mode, and “3D” when using fine (two line) mode.
Ha! They’re both 2D views, right? I’ve always used “single line” and “two-line” to describe them as well.
General: Not believing BIM works right
Multiple views overlapped in a sheet (instead of correctly defined ranged views & plan
Regions)
Defining shared positions that don’t work instead of deleting them
Overlapping views comes in handy when working with site plans. One view for Contours to remain, mask out areas of recontouring with irregular masking regions. Another for dashed contours to be removed or proposed contours to be added, with irregular crop regions around areas of recontouring.
It also works great for room names on a demo plan.
Demo plans are set in the “New Construction” phase and will not show “Existing” phase rooms.
You turn off everything but the existing phase room names in the overlaid plan.
Our office receives a lot of prototype models from other architects. Some of the worst offenses were…
– Every. Single. Dimension. Overridden. The dimension strings did not add up to the overall dimensions.
– Drafting level lines on elevations and sections, which did not correspond to the actual model.
– Drafting on top of wall sections. Then hiding every model element in view, rather than with the view template.
– Text placed on top of door schedule
Oh my. . . People really put text on top of the door schedule? And drafted level lines?? I’m at a loss for words here.
I found a great (terrible) one the other day, we received an “existing conditions” Revit file we were told had been modelled fully in 3d. Turns out it was actually DWGs imported into the relevant planes (plan, section, elevation) as model linework, with no 3d model content. Very unhappy. I have seen this before, but not this bad.
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Hahaha my reaction exactly Michael / Jean-Luc!
hahahahahaha, whaaaaaat!!! someone actually did that
No, no, get this one. I would have laughed if it wasn’t on one project that I will have to work on.
Drawing the north simbol with lines and hatches in a drafting view in the project and duplicate it n time, one for each sheet. Can you imagine? Even if one forgot Revit has a simbol family, one could draw it as a group, or something. Drafting view don’t allow duplicate as dependent, so imagine the project manager! 🙁
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Here’s my unlucky Revit 13!
1. Copying and pasting Revit information that has no relevance to your project.
2. Unresolved Revit warnings.
3. Importing AutoCAD into Revit and then leaving it there.
4. Over-constraining the Revit model geometry.
5. Modelling geometry incorrectly. i.e. 900.45mm is not 900mm.
6. Losing control of your Revit views naming conventions.
7. Poor management of Revit Design Options and Revit Groups.
8. Using Revit Worksets to control visibility.
9. Using dumb Text, Tags and Schedules in Revit.
10. Not using Revit Views Template/Filters and instead using hide/ override in views.
11. Teams and individuals not abiding by the agreed BIM Standards and Protocols.
12. Modellers working on the Revit Central Model.
13. Unnecessary duplication in your project. i.e. Views, Text, Drawings etc.. Less is more, more or less ?
Good ones, Rob!
I was guilty on item 3 there, but have since gotten over it
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Using the drag arrows on the Project Base Point to move it only about 50 miles from the startup location. I can tell you that indeed components start to look a bit ‘off’ when they’re modeled that far from the startup.
Yikes! I hope this was an accident. . .
No, it was not an accident. The architecture model AND separate structure model had the PBP moved far from the model elements. Also, they were not in the same location between the two models.
Oh man, we’ve seen many of these over the years. I regularly have to get on people about modeling in place too much, but one of my biggest has been people who put notes on the sheets and not in the views. If that sheet gets deleted, bye bye notes!
Let alone if you more the views around, you then need to move the annotation to match. Ugh. . .what a mess. It’s like PaperSpace in AutoCAD.
Exactly. When I asked why someone did this he just shrugged back at me. Awesome.
Hi Michael,
here are a few that bug me
1) using filled regions for cut and fill in sections rather than topography and pads.
2) revision clouds placed in views – should be on sheets as all hell breaks loose when views are moved from one sheet to another or when warnings list revs on views that need to be resolved to allow modeling edit to occur – QA control of transmittal rev’s.
3) dumb text/tags to indicate brick coursing heights on elevations…… would love to know if anyone has a solution to this.
4) using legends or drafting views to produce door and window elevation schedules….please
5) using filled regions and detail lines to clean up stair plans and sections
6) view templates with “include” not ticked and resulting in different setting for typical views.
7) over and bad practice use of curtain walls, eg “walls” placed in curtain walls or used to create the “visual” paneled finishes and skirting in elevations.
that’s enough for today!
To increase speed performance Mechanical ” calculation” should be state as ‘None”
Unless not doing any calculations.
Piping System>Type properties>Calculations>None.
Using the Revision Cloud to denote Tree canopy line on a site plan.
Ha! Seriously??? I really hope you’re kidding, but I suspect you’re not. . .
My firm has been slow to adapt to Revit, and by slow I mean it’s like pulling teeth when even considering using Revit for a project. When we do I can tell you every single bad practice mentioned above is done on a regular basis. The level of knowledge in Revit in my office is low and those who know Revit at a moderate level only know how to use Revit and not manage it.
– dummy tags/symbols
-faking dimensions
-a billion levels rather than reference planes
-a billion unnamed reference planes
-no one uses templates properly or at all
-using models lines when you should be using detail lines and vice versa
-improper use of dwg links
-exploding dwg files in Revit!!! :O
I’m going crazy on a daily basis here people!
I feel your pain. I just started at my new firm to help pull them into the Revit world that they have been using for 5 years….with no standards!
Modeling no no: A complete lack of spatial coordination in MEP models though design stages. I suspect the issue is founded in limiting use of modeling software as a means to produce a 2D document for permitting purpose only. If there is no intent to convey a concept of functional design, then why go to the bother of modeling elements? AutoCAD lines/circles work fine for sketches, and reduce risk that others may labor under the misconception that the design can readily be fabricated or built.
It is bad enough when MEP trades are not coordinated with architecture, structure or other building systems, and mind blowing when an individual trade models their own systems in conflict with themselves.
What? You don’t like it when your wall outlets are sunk 2” into the floor and your data boxes are at 6′ AFF?
The one I am seeing now most often: BIM manager has set up templates with view templates, users “don’t understand” view temllates, users turn off view templates, users don’t understand why it is so hard making all their plan views look the same or complain when the graphics need to be tweaked.
Seriously?
BIM Worst Practices:
+ Holding on to your hopes that Civil3D and AutoCAD output will one day play nice with Revit.
+ Budgeting less than 8 hours for creating a toposurface from a surveyor’s file that looks better than the top of a burnt pizza.
– Project owner hired Foreign Design firm to design for them, and then having an instruction to the local designers each discipline to do parallelly such Lead designer firm stay in Prelim/DD 50% stage but the owner need! Tender package from local designer when Lead designer submit only 100% DD. Moreover, Lead designer use Microstation and transfer to Revit 2018, but the owner need local designer to use lastest version as 2019. Every time! when Lead designer updates design progress whether weekly or …as per owner’s request, local designer will be always updating model ver.2018 to 2019 before compare model changes…checking with interoperability. These’re fake and freak BIM Method with unnecessary pressure for operation. They just looked at surreal work breakdown schedule and save their time and budget.
– Another peaken one, lead design firm has still right 100% in their design and modeling asset every single element, they just export to be CAD File “Every single sheet for single file”. If someone has experience both platform, you would be known what the crazy things punch to stomach at lower part. Let try to imagine when local designer need to change a block 100 sheets in 100 files and different folder with long layer name. There’re many worse of the worst issues. These’re only appetizer. [- -]”
– And yes VBA, VB, C#, python,… could do automation between BIM and CAD file, but why people(ware) didn’t plan and hadn’t empathy, compassion or stick to the BEP, crystal clear design contract to enforce/respect every parties to follow the agreement.
//hardware+software+peopleware
Thanks
Ignoring copy/monitor COORDINATION REVIEW warnings! At my firm, we copy/monitor structural grids. So all non-structural disciplines copy/monitor structural grids. As the architect, I maintain the grids with when COORDINATION REVIEW warnings pop up…but apparently the MPE disciplines did not…and our QC process did not catch that the structural grids on the MPE drawings were different than the structural grids on the architectural and structural drawings…until the Contractor’s BIM coordination!
Doh!
One of my pet peeves is when someone creates section views to temporarily look at an area they are working in and does not delete it when they are finished. I know that they will not show up when plotted, but I am not sure if I can delete them because someone else may have created them for future views. I use a section view called “Working Section – Delete” so other people will know that it can be deleted if I forget to remove it.
I created a template to handle such instance.
I made these view template filters to hide Sections that have not been assigned to a view Template. So that way New sections don’t mess up Views where they’re not to be seen.
1. Creating a White fill region and using it as a mask instead of the mask region.
2. Creating an invisible line (white) and using it instead of line.
I just want to cry….
Oh man. . . those are BAD!
And the worst…
“I didn’t read the BIM standards manual because I was too busy.”
Not modelling on the correct workset ie. random grid lines / levels on a different workset so that when the model is linked and you turn off the grid / levels workset you find one random grid line / level that keeps appearing in views