Last month my colleague, Bill Johnson explained some quirkiness with the Copy/Monitor tool as it relates to managing data. His excellent blog on this topic details how Revit MEP families that are copied only capture the family:type name and the location, leaving any instance-based parameter to re-set to its default values sometimes causing unexpected size and elevation changes for the copied elements.
For those who have already run into this dilemma I’ll describe some of the basic steps we’ve used to map the original object parameter values to the objects within the new file – this is not for the faint of heart!
Problem: after Copy Monitoring plumbing fixtures all the instance parameters are reset to default, causing information about the grab bars, the toilet graphics, and the Instance Mark to be incorrect. How can we Copy/Monitor the data?
Solution: Using Ideate BIMLink we can create a custom database key, based on the object location. This allows us to then map the old instance parameter values onto the copied objects – even if the parameter names aren’t the same! See video for explanation.
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Just because you can copy objects, doesn’t mean you should. As a general rule we would not recommend using Copy/Monitor on any object other than Grids and Levels. However… there are situations where it may be prudent to copy/monitor families. If so, proceed with caution and definitely review Bill’s blog or ask Ideate Consulting for help in developing Copy/Monitor strategy for your complex projects.
