Thursday, December 19, 2013

Copy Paste and Structural Floors

The situation this post describes seems like a bug to me. If not then it is certainly confusing least.

When we use Copy to Clipboard and Paste Aligned... to place families on another level or more than one other level the outcome is affected by whether a structural floor slab was present when the families were added. For example consider these floor slabs (see next image), each configured as shown by the screen capture of their properties. There are three desks in the view too, one on each floor. Specifically the floor on the left does not have it's Structural parameter checked, the middle floor has both Structural AND Enable Analytical Model parameters checked, and the floor on the right only has the Structural parameter checked.


If we use the Copy to Clipboard tool on the three desks (one on each floor) and then use Paste Aligned to Selected Levels, choosing Level 2 we get a dialog showing that there are two warnings associated with the desks over the two structural floors. The desk on the left is not involved in the warning.


This is what the end result looks like in elevation. We have a new desk on Level 2 above the floor that is not structural but the other two new desks are in the same location on Level 1.


At this point it appears that it is caused by using the Structural parameter. If it's checked that is BAD for using Copy/Paste. If we create a floor that is not structural the hosting relationship isn't forced on the hosted elements. If at any time we check the structural parameter any elements that you place on that surface will lock out the normal desired Copy/Paste behavior, they'll only be placed on that surface. Deciding to un-check (turn off) the option after it was turned on won't resolve the situation either. The floor can't EVER be structural. If they are/were any families placed on the floor's level will become locked in to that floor.

Said another way, this condition affects families that were originally placed on a floor that is or became Structural before the families were placed. If the families were there before the floor or before the floor was changed to structural they'll work fine with Copy/Paste. In my testing so far this condition also appears to be limited to families that are level based (also referred to as "not" hosted), for example furniture, casework, generic model, plumbing, and specialty equipment. If the families are "Face-Based" they appear to be unaffected, for example a light fixture.

We can avoid this by turning off the Floor category in the view before placing families. Changing the view to use Wireframe instead will not help.

This post is the result of looking at a project shared at RFO that was exhibiting the problem.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I am actually solving the problem from the other end: making all families 'Workplane based'.

Steve said...

There are fewer floors in the model than families, eventually. Changing all your content to Work-Plane Based is probably more work and will affect every project versus just this one.