(…or what you need to know about level hosted elements in Revit)
How could these (fill-in-the-blank) just disappear from the project? They were there yesterday, and now they’re gone!
We don’t see this happening too often, perhaps once per month, but when it does, it’s a disaster. The BIM Manager usually assumes that Revit has a serious defect and is responsible for trashing the project while our support staff is inclined to assume that some user, unbeknownst to the BIM Manager, decided to randomly delete things and then not fess up. The truth is typically halfway between the two.
The culprit is the lowly level line which, when deleted, will take with it any object that it hosts. The kicker is that Revit won’t even warn you. Losing elements in a project can create days of lost effort. This is why auditing your level lines is Tip #4 from our Revit Project Auditing process.
Training staff to not create their own level lines (this should be the domain of the BIM Manager or Project Manager only) will help avoid this problem in the first place, but if you do encounter extraneous level lines, watch this Ideate Explorer for Revit video before you delete any levels!
See all of our Top Ten Auditing Tips for Revit Projects.
For more information on the software solutions, training, and consulting Ideate provides, please visit the Ideate, Inc. homepage.
Glynnis Patterson, NCARB
Director of Software Development
Glynnis is a Registered Architect and has worked within the BIM industry since 1998. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, she has worked as an architect, educator, and construction site manager. Glynnis is currently the Director of Software Development at Ideate Software, and she continues to work with AEC clients worldwide, developing and consulting on solutions to Building Information Modeling challenges. In her spare time Glynnis does volunteer work for ECLC of New Jersey and Grow it Green Morristown. Follow Glynnis on Twitter.