Transfered from EAP Ideas list
If the Merge option is selected, the user has the option to use a fence to clip the References. It would be good to be have the option to retain the clipped Refences as attachments. The smaller clipped references would be copied to the destination folder.
This would be a good way to segment large federated models, especially if i-models can also leverage this.
On large projects, the diffrent disciplines will break their models up according to their agreed design and/or construction stages, which often differ. You often get into situations where you are forced to load a lot of unnecesary information. For exmaple, the structural engineers may have the models broken up by train track / bridge viaducts. The archietcts under the tracks working on the concourse need to have the models segmented going perpendicular to the structural engineers. The services engineers separate model extents are dictated by their plant system locations. End result is that there is a lot of unnessary overheads in finding and loading Refences that are appropriate to each spatial location.
There whole be a batch file to generate the clipped i-models every night, which would make them availabe for coordination and drawing generation.