Forums >> Revit Building >> Technical Support >> Working on Large Files

vhugomg

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Hi. 

At our office we have a three identical towers of 16 stories each, with 50 apartments each.

We have a central archive with all the exterior areas and parking lot, with one link for the tower and two copies for the other two.

Also, the linked tower has all the 7 type apartments nested in more linked files.

With this we have someting like an inseption: departments linked into tower and tower linked into the central file. 

We work marbelous, because we have worksets for everything and we can be able to turn off tower 1, tower 2 or tower 3 worksets, and also department a, b, c, etc. and also we have worksets for the exterior area. 

The problem comes when we have to print or export to Acad, because we have to turn the three towers, and the departments so they will appear on their correspondant sheet, and the thing becomes an export/printing nightmare: hours and hours of doing nothing, waiting revit to export and print all sheets.

What do you guys think is the best and fastest way to export and print large files with linked files?

Best regards

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dgcad

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I hear you on this problem and also interested in the potential solution.

RAM is always your friend under these conditions. We have 24GB on these types of projects.

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vhugomg

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We have Win 7 64bits, 24GB RAM, Intel Xeon E5504 2GHz, Nvidia Quadro FX 1800... I don´t think is a hardware issue... the other day I had to spent a hole afternoon and night, only exporting to acad and printing...

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dgcad

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WWHub

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You don't say how big these files are.

I know its too late now but I'm curious.  Are these apartments detailed in their own file or in the main file?  If in the main file, then why did you separate them in the first place?  Except for the site plan, I would think that each tower is documented and printed from its own file.

I would hope that you kept your view depths appropriate for elevations and sections.  No need for it to be any deeper than the farthest element you want to show.  Anything more means Revit has to deal with hidden elements.

Also I hope you turn off furniture and interior worksets in exterior elevation views.

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vhugomg

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Hi. I am attaching a print screen with all the files. The most heavy is the main file, with 100 MB, the others are quite less heavier..

All the info is detailed with annotations and detail callouts, etc, on the main file only... this is what we are doing also for the tower, so this files are floating 3d views without anything more than walls and floors, with their correspondant furniture. 

We are filtering the elements on each view interior/exterior with only the appropriate elements. But I will check the depth of each view to see what are we doing in that matter.

Any more ideas or experiences with exporting and printing large files with linked files?

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vhugomg

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This is the list of our worksets...

I have worked on projects with 200 and 300MB but without linked files and with only the two default worksets, and those files export views and print smoothly and much more faster that this one.

I feel that Revit goes crazy when you work on linked files, more that with worksets... It's been generally accepted that linked files helps to have less KB on your file and to have instances instead of copied items on a single file. But why do we want to work this way if everything tends to be trapped on the main file and printing/export becomes an slow-motion-time-consuming picture reducing my lifespan while I watch the screen and do nothing?

I feel that revit is years to be a good software because every single thing you do has a complication, even when you want to do it the revit way and the parametric way... when is not one issue is another. 

Also, I don't know if you have tried this, but when you ask something on the autodesk website, they answer you like robots without giving you any support or they don't answer at all.

They also charge you with a lot of money for one single license and force you to pay a very expensive year suscription to be "updated" to the latest generation of software, and it feels like the goverment charging you a lot of taxes for nothing. 

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WWHub

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These are really small files for the problems you are having on a 24 gig system.  We had a 250 meg main file with linked structural and mech files on a 2008 Revit - 3 gig, 32bit system and although slow, we were able to do that.

Again, although it is late you may learn something here.  I don't believe there was any advantage in separate files since you annotated in the main file.  The model elements could have/should have been in the main file and on the separate worksets you were using.  Then you could have used reduced worksets while working.  That would have accomplished the same advantages you were trying to achieve.  I have not worked in the manner you are using but this heavy linking may be part of your problem.

When we printed on that 2008 large file, we organized our printing so that we only had on the other linked files when we needed them.  Otherwise, we unloaded those links. 

Good Luck

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vhugomg

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So basically what you are suggesting is to do the next steps:

-Give bind to the apartments so they will be directly on the tower.

-make all the sheets-related-to-the-tower on the tower file.

It is not to late fot doing this, because we have like 6 months with the project there is a tool called "insert view from file", so I can migrate the views to the tower file, and it wont be so much trouble if it solves the slowness of the exporting/printing, many of this views are only placed on sheets because we started with exterior elements in the main project so they exist but they are "clean".

Also it may be an advantage because the teamwork can be working on two different files, and the printing process will logically be faster.

Thank you so much, I will give it a try.

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WWHub

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I don't have a definite do this....

I didn't ask how this project's documentation has been done.  If these are separate projects with their own sheet numbers like Proj A Sheet A1, Proj B Sheet A1, then they do belong in separate projects. 

Also - If your suites are multiple instances of the same, then I would hope you don't have multiple instances linked into the project!  That would definitely explain your problem.

I would suggest if they are all one project, that you try a separate copy of all your files and see what happens when you bind them.  THIS IS JUST A TEST

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vhugomg

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"Also - If your suites are multiple instances of the same, then I would hope you don't have multiple instances linked into the project!  That would definitely explain your problem."

...We have on the tower file only one linked suite per suite-type. So we have 7 links inside the tower and we filled the tower with copies of those seven links... completing 50 suites.

In the main archive we have one link for tower, and that link has to more copies, so we have three towers with 50 suites each (150 suites), but the instances are something like 8 links in total.

Thanks for your support!!!

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WWHub

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That explains your problems.  In essence, you have over 200 linked files that Revit has to deal with.

If the floors are the same, then why would you populate every floor?  Even if they are not the same, I would only have corridor walls and a "See Suite Type xxx" that refers the user to a suite plan.

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