Compressing design files in ABD

Chris, make sure you don't have Dataset Accelerators enabled in your Compress options - compressing those will remove the resymbolization levels required by DVs.    More information is available here:

http://communities.bentley.com/products/building/building_analysis___design/w/building_analysis_and_design__wiki/8252.compress-options-in-aecosim-building-designer-behaviour-and-configuration

yep understood. IF by some accident the "dataset accelertators" were compressed out, is there any way to re-make that file DV friendly or not???

Yes... as long as the configuration variable BB_DVDATASETELEMENTS = 1, the next time the file is reopened those levels & cells should be recreated automatically. It's only during that session you would see this result (if all is working as expected).

Yes you would think that should be the case, however I reopen an accidently-compressed file and it still does not display cut elements in DV... Although the levels are present... Anyhow, guess this is one compression option that I will have to disable systematically - or avoid compression altogether?

In general, I would leave it disabled and only open the Compress Options dialog when there's a need.

If your cut elements are missing despite the levels existing, there's probably some other causing coming into play. I would try placing a second callout in the same area of the 3D model to see if there's any difference.