January 8, 2014

Where Did My Room Tag Go After Placement?

As an AEC Applications Specialist and technical support specialist with Ideate, Inc, I will admit that strange graphical issues with Revit are a hot topic. Some of these graphical issues are related to driver or software update needs, while others may actually be user related.

I have run into a few occasions in which customers place a room tag in a room only to have it not show up after placement, getting the dreaded “None of the created elements are visible in Floor Plan…” error message. Due to natural frustration, we tend to click multiple times in the same location, hoping that Revit will have a change of heart and show the room tag. After all, the adjacent rooms tags are already showing up, so why should this room be any exception? Even more frustrating or confusing (depending on how you look at things), you may have another view of the same plan and you can see the room tag that you want. So, what might be causing a room tag to disappear once it is placed? Well, there may be a couple of problems that are worth looking into:
  1. The first check is to see if the room was turned off in the view that you are in. Clicking on the Reveal Hidden Elements button (the light bulb in the view control bar) will show you if your room was hidden or not. If the room shows up as a red color, then it was hidden in your view. Right-click atop the room and Unhide the room element to see if your Room Tag appears.  
  2. If you find that the room was not hidden in the view and the tag does not show up after placement, then you may have some Plan Region interferences, which is worth investigating. Here is an example in which some plan regions were interfering with the placement of the room tag:
Figure 1 - So far placement of Room Tags is working as indicated by the STAIR and VESTIBULE.
Figure 2 - Placing of Room Tag looks like it is going to work, however, the room outline is not showing up for the PROBLEM ROOM.

Figure 3 - The result is the dreaded "None of the created elements are visible in Floor Plan..." error message. 
Figure 4 - Upon closer examination, we find a couple of Plan Regions near the room, which MAY be the culprits.
Figure 5 - After duplicating the view for testing purposes and then deleting the Plan Regions, the Room outline and Room Tag appear, indicating the Plan Region was at fault.

In order to investigate whether Plan Regions are at fault, follow these steps:
  1. Take the view in question and Duplicate it with Detailing. The reason why I recommend this is if the plan regions were not at fault, then you would have to undo many steps in order to return the plan back to its original state prior to your investigation.  
  2. Search your view for Plan Regions to determine how many you have in the view. You can do this several ways:  
    1. Right click atop any Plan Region and select “Select All Instances in Entire View”.
    2. Select all of the elements in your view and use the Revit Filter tool to select and isolate your Plan Regions. 
    3. Use Ideate Explorer to assist you with this task. Simply set the display to the Active View, Sort by Category and find the Plan Region in the results. From there, you can Show Elements. 
  3. After you find your Plan Regions, I recommend that you delete them one by one and see if your Room Tags appear. Once they do, you will need to assess your drawing to see how the removed Plan Region(s) affects your view. From there, you may need to make adjustments to your overall View Range or create a new Plan Region with a different View Range.



Sash Kazeminejad, LEED AP
AEC Application Specialist

Sash Kazeminejad brings proficiency in Autodesk solutions including AutoCAD and Revit Architecture to Ideate customers. His industry experience includes project management, IT, and staff design for Hennebery Eddy Architects in Portland, Oregon. He has completed seven divisions of the Architectural Record Exam, leads Revit workshops, is LEED AP accredited and is on track to achieve California licensure in 2013 with Oregon to follow. In his academic life, Sash was awarded a Montana AIA Scholarship, earned a BA in Environmental Design, an MA in Architecture from Montana State University (MSU) and taught Building Information Modeling (BIM) and related topics at MSU Gallatin College. As a Revit Architecture Autodesk Certified Professional, Sash provides Revit Architecture training and support for AEC firms.


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