Family/Part Centerline Linestyle Mix-up

ABD SS5 - 08.11.09.747
Drawing Extractions - Generate Centerlines

Has anyone ever seen a mix up with centerline linestyles upon extracting a file?  The image below shows an example of our firewall linestyles.  One diamond represents a 1HR wall and two diamonds represents a 2HR wall. 

If I start a new file, they extract fine.  On one problem file, when extracting the plan with generate centerlines in the cut plane tab, the linetypes are reversed - one diamond for 2HR and two diamonds for 1HR.  All I can think of that is different is I changed the family/part settings after the walls were created in the file.  I tried reapplying the part settings and the information shows everything is fine.  However, the extration result does not.

Parents Reply
  • @Tom, Yes.  I thought the same thing and tried deleting the extraction file early on.  The centerlines go to a different level than the wall outlines and the linestyle is not ByLevel.  I also tried creating a new blank master model and referenced in the 3D110.dgn (interior walls).  I set up a new extraction definition and group model generating centerlines and the results were more baffling.  The 1HR wall centerlines were coming out with “acid” linestyles.

    I did find a workaround though.

    • I opened the 3D110.dgn model file where the walls exist.
    • I used Select By Attributes to select the 1HR fire rated wall components which are part of an wall assembly.
    • I applied a different part to the walls.
    • Compressed everything out of the file.  I’m not sure if this was necessary, but I did it anyway.
    • I used Select By Attributes to select the 1HR wall components again.
    • I applied the 1HR fire rated wall part to the walls again.
    • Compressed the file again.
    • Opened the master model and extracted the file and it worked.

    Thank you all for your help.

    Mark Mates - BIM Manager - Mason & Hanger

    Answer Verified By: Steve Cocchi 

Children
  • When we were using DEM, we had a similar issue with elements being extracted to wrong levels.
    This became especially annoying when elements had bylevel properties which would result in
    changing of linestyle, color, and weight.
    Not sure it this is still the case, but we traced it to levels that are added to file for building views.
    It seemed to screw up level extraction logic.
    Therefore right before we extracted any file, we compressed it to remove these unwanted levels
    and at the time it seemed to help.
    If you are not using and don't plan on using dynamic view for this project, I would look into setting
    BB_DVDATASETELEMENTS = 0 which keep these levels from being copied into file.
    However, this is required to be set to "1" if you are using dynamic views.
    Try it as a test and see if it helps with your issue.

    This is a summary of what this variable does.
    #--------------------------------------------------------
    # The following variable enable the scans for cut/forward/reflected levels defined in the Family/Part system.
    # Levels that are not present in the active design file Are copied into the active file, but do not appear as
    # being Used in Level Manager. By default BB_DVDATASETELEMENTS is enabled (1). This is done to support Dynamic
    # Views. If you are not using Dynamic Views, you can disable(0) this functionality.
    #--------------------------------------------------------
  • hmmm, there's a chance your on to something and maybe compressing the file had more to do with resolving our issue. BB_DVDATASETELEMENTS is now set to 0 for us, but this project began with dynamic views and has since changed to drawing extractions. I checked an old bad extraction result and the 1HR centerline resulted with the 2HR linestyle not ByLevel or 1HR linestyle.

    Mark Mates - BIM Manager - Mason & Hanger