Revit: Can't load linked file

With 19 linked Revit-models and 26 linked dwg-files it might be easier to investigate the problems if you would tell me which files the errors are in.

Revit: Please enter a value less than an arbitrary limit.

OK.

Revit: Don't rotate sloped glazings!

So, I need to model a simple, rectangular glazed canopy for a project. I already have a few reference planes to determine the shape and size of the canopy, so let's start drawing our sloped glazing!

I draw the footprint following the reference planes, finish the sketch and...

...Not quite what I was looking for. Let's try it again, maybe it works better if I just draw the sketch as a rectangle oriented to the view axes, and then rotate the finished roof.

Alright, this is looking great! Then just rotate it and...

D'oh! Any more ideas..?

Setting an angle in the grid pattern properties is not only inaccurate but it also doesn't align with the edges. Maybe I'll ditch the type-driven gridlines completely and draw my own ones manually instead...

They snap nicely to the sloped glazing edges! Victory is mine, finally! Now I can change the panels to my own custom curtain panel family that has a customizable gap in between panels. So I edit the sloped glazing type properties, select the panel and...

...and admit defeat. Suddenly my 1000.0000mm x 4000.0000mm panels are apparently no longer rectangular and I can't use any custom panel families on them.

The lesson: don't rotate sloped glazings in odd angles... ever? You can't use custom panels unless the sloped glazing grid is both rectangular and aligned to the coordinate axes.

ArchiCAD: different versions of elevations

In many situations different versions of the same elevation are needed, e.g. one without shadows, one with shadows and one with colours. Since any number of views may be created from each elevation, worksheet, detail drawing etc., one would think that only one elevation would suffice and the views based on it could have different display settings. However, this is not the case. If I have sixteen elevations and I need versions with and without shadows, I need to copy the markers and, as a result, I get 32 elevations. The problem becomes worse if e.g. dimension markers have been added to the drawings; I have to manually keep up-to-date two sets of markers and other 2D elements.

Revit: Disclaimer: Overrides may actually not override in some situations.

Due to Revit's limited functionality regarding bitmap images (there are no decent transparency options for one), I often have to resort to some trickery to get my bitmaps showing properly.

In this instance I had modeled an existing building roughly and wanted to display the original hand-drawn floor plan overlaid on the mass model. I had to place the bitmap drawing on the background of my plan view so that its white background wouldn't obstruct my Revit-modeled floor plan (here's where some more advanced transparency settings would go a long way). Since the mass model now obstructed the drawing, I figured I could simply override the mass model's display settings to show only edges. Luckily overriding display settings such as transparency is made simple in Revit!

The setting worked nicely, and I now had the plan drawing showing right through the mass model.

 On the sheet view all looked good still...

 ...but the Print Preview window showed the ugly truth. The transparency override actually doesn't print at all, at least not in this particular case.

In another project I had successfully overridden the transparency of some objects, but it was a 3D camera view, not an orthographic projection. Maybe transparency just can't work in plan or elevation views, for reasons yet undisclosed?

ArchiCAD: parallelizing drawing generation

Why not generate more than one drawing at the same time?

ArchiCAD: vague error messages

Oh come on.

ArchiCAD: always readable text not always readable

Actually we don't write upside down in Finland.