Thursday, September 06, 2007

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Had a problem today, where a user simply could not successfully move an element "down" (screen direction, in plan). They could move it side to side without a problem. In this case the element to be moved was a linked file, however as far as Revit is concerned, in some ways a linked file is just single large object/group. Having no success in figuring out what to do, I defaulted to my old standby trick to break any sort of constraint; "cut" (cntrl+x). The cut command has the wonderful ability to keep everything on your clipboard, but all relationships or constraints between the object you cut, and the rest of your model are completely broken. With a quick "paste aligned; same place" (under the edit menu) we were able to place the cut object back in the same exact spot, then move it down the 8" required. How the linked file originally got out of place we don't know (I highly reccomend pinning cirtical elements like links, grids, levels).

This trick of cutting, and pasting back to the same place is also effective on sketch lines or other objects that like to automatically establish relationships with other objects. On more then one occasions I've had to cut and paste the sketch lines of either a floor or ceiling in order to prevent the floor or ceiling from attempting to adapt to changes in wall configurations.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I believe you should be able to align the object to a line (ref plane or anything) and that should prompt a removal of the constraint it might have had while keeping others.