Creating & Showing Individual Wall Wraps at Wall Ends in Revit

As an application specialist who provides Autodesk Revit Architecture training and solutions for customers in the architecture, engineering, construction, and owner industries, I keep up to date on features that users in those industries would like would like to see in Revit software. One that I have heard users speak of for years is the ability to control Wall Wraps on each end of a wall and have those controls as Instance Parameters.

The wall wrap parameters exist as Type Parameter in a Wall Family, and there are no controls for end 1 and end 2. With wraps enabled, a freestanding wall will have wraps at both ends. Furthermore, if you want the same wall type to have wraps for some walls and no wraps for other walls, you must duplicate the wall type, so you can sort the Type Parameters out. For those of you who have dealt with this issue, you know it is unfavorable, because you are managing additional walls just so you can control the wall wrapping.

Until an improved feature is addressed in Revit, we have to resort to a workaround. Fortunately, there are a few workaround options out there. The one that I came up with uses the Door Family Template to create the wall wrap. Why use this template? Because families such as doors and windows have reference plane options that control wall wraps that allow us to create a workaround family to control wraps at each wall end, individually.

Here is a screenshot that highlights the steps for creating this family. I encourage you to give it a try and play around with your options. 

You can also watch my screencast, Control Wall Wraps at Each End of a Wall, on the Autodesk Knowledge Network.

Additionally, I created a Revit Wish list feature for individual Wall Wraps. If you are interested in voting for this feature, visit Autodesk Community’s Revit Ideas and vote for, Wall Wraps, Inserts, and Wall Layer Extension.

Thank you for reading! For more information on the software solutions, training and consulting Ideate provides, please visit the Ideate Inc. website.

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Sash Kazeminejad
AEC Senior Application Specialist 
Sash is a registered Architect and LEED Accredited Professional who holds a Master of Architecture from Montana State University. Sash’s experience includes project management, BIM management, and design for architectural firms in California, Montana, and Oregon. In addition to being a Bluebeam Certified Instructor, Sash is As an Autodesk Certified Instructor, Sash who provides Revit Architecture training and solutions for AECO firms. @sashpdx 

Performance Degradation

Recently, while doing some research for a technical support case at Ideate, I came across this article on the Autodesk Knowledge Network (AKN), “Civil 3D Performance Degradation.” Posted back in October, this article provides a fix for performance-based issues occurring across multiple users in an organization.

Per the article, some of the issues addressed are long wait times when opening files, long lags during the PURGE and AUDIT commands, and additional lags with dialog boxes appearing and plotting. The issue affects both AutoCAD and AutoCAD Civil 3D, from the 2014-2017 releases. If you’re encountering any of these issues, I strongly encourage you to check the article out.

The solution is straight forward and involves replacing the existing AECCNETWORK.dbx file with the new one provided by Autodesk.

Here are some additional things to note:

1. You will need Administrative rights for the system to complete the process.
2. Applications must be closed before applying the update.
3. The update needs to be implemented on each user’s machine, at once.
4. The performance problem will recur if an unpatched version of Civil 3D is used to open a file.
5. The performance problem is fixed at the time a drawing file is saved in the updated version of Civil 3D, not when the .dbx file is replaced.
6. The first time a user opens a file, the update will not be evident.
7. Performance will greatly improve after the first save.
8. External references need to be resaved to see the benefit of the update.

Items 3-5 are very important to remember. If the fix is not applied to each user’s machine and an unpatched version of Civil 3D opens the file, the performance problem will recur. With that in mind, I want to reiterate, the fix should be applied to each machine at once, rather than as needed. All files, including XREFs, will also need to be opened and saved before there is a noticeable change in performance.

If you have been running into company-wide performance issues, this very well could be the solution you need.

Thank you for reading. For more information on the software solutions, training, and consulting Ideate provides, visit our website at www.ideateinc.com.

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Matt Miyamoto

ENI Manager & Senior Application Specialist

Matt is an ENI Manager and Senior Application Specialist in Ideate, Inc.’s Seattle office. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and is a licensed Civil Engineer. Prior to joining Ideate, Matt worked as a civil engineer, using Civil 3D on a variety of projects including site development, roadway improvements and infrastructure design. With over 10 years of experience in the civil engineering industry, Matt now provides training, consulting, technical support, and implementation strategies for organizations transitioning to Civil 3D. Matt is an Autodesk Certified Instructor (ACI), as well as an Autodesk Certified BIM Specialist: Roads and Highway Solutions. Additionally, Matt is and Autodesk Certified Professional for AutoCAD, and AutoCAD Civil 3D. He can be found on twitter as @MattM_PE