Monday, August 3, 2009

Worksharing

I've often find that instructing students on how to set up worksets is particularly difficult. The concept is so different from anything else they've done it seems to pass about ten feet above their heads. I must admit, when I first heard the term worksharing I didn't understand it either. So now after five years of Revit use I think I have it down. I'll try to explain it as simply as I can. A project doesn't just start out with Worksharing, one has to enable it. To do so open up a new file and select the Worksharing tool on the toolbar. If you don't see this tool, right click the toolbar area and select Worksets from the list. Next, click the Worksharing Icon to the left of the Active Worksets window. This will bring up the Worksharing dialog box. In the dialog box you'll see two boxes, one labeled Shared Levels and Grids, the other Workset 1. Leave the titles as they are and click OK. Once you've clicked ok there's no turning back. The now when elements are placed or coppied they well be assigned to a workset. You must pay very close attention to the active workset. While this workset is active everything is place on it automatically. I cannot stress this enough. It is, however, possible to select elements and change the workset they belong to, but it's much easier to place them on the correct worksets the first time. DO NOT TREAT WORKSETS LIKE AUTOCAD LAYERS. I've seen this happen time and time again. Worksets are use to break a project up so it is more managable. Worksets are not to be used solely for the purpose of visibility settings. This is what Visibility Graphics and Object Styles are for. For example, an obvious strategy to separate a project is by buildings. If a project has more than one building, then it's easy to separate them out and place them on separate worksets. Maybe it's by core and shell, and the interior of the building. Find a logical breaking point in the building to separate it out. Consult you BIM manager if you have one. That's it, as simple as 1 2 3...right?

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RevitED (Revit Education) and general BIM topics. I've been using Revit now for 11 years, and though I feel I've got a pretty good handle on the software it seems each day I learn something new. I want to share that with the readers of this blog and hope you learn something new as well.