Friday, February 1, 2019

Revit 2019 Beam Annotation Elevation Error

When modeling structural framing in Revit, use caution if you use the Z-Offset and Beam Annotation workflow together... as the noted elevation will not be correct! This is an issue Autodesk (now) knows about.


Read on to learn more...
We just ran into this on a project, where our structural engineer used z-offest on some beams... which was  preferred due to how the analytical model talks to RISA (our structural analysis tool).

Here is a plan view, with three beams tagged using the Beam Annotation tool. I then manually added a spot elevation. Notice the middle beam's tag is wrong.




Here is a section showing the two beams on the right are indeed lower in elevation.



Notice the difference in the structural analytical model... only the far right beam is physically lower.


Here are the properties for the two beam on the right...


whether one is more correct than the other in terms of analytical analysis is not the point. Just keep this in mind so things don't get built incorrectly, as that would be bad in any case!

Update: Thanks to Kate Morrical for the comment below on a workaround... once the beam annotation is placed we can manually change the Display Elevation via properties or the Options Bar as shown below!


But then looking at the Beam Annotation settings closer, I found we have proactively set the Display Elevation (maybe this is what Kate meant to begin with?) - see image below!


Thanks, Kate!

For BIM Chapters updates, follow @DanStine_MN on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn