Almost every story involving the idea of time travel includes the concept that events or lives will be altered by the occurrences being changed from how they originally happened. Travelling back in time brings the risk of exposing an event that could alter the path that originally happened. Going into the Future could reveal the long-term effects of one seemingly meaningless event, such as a butterfly flapping its wings[1]. Many times, the main character travels to the past to try and change one event that only opens a Pandora’s Box of cascading effects. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day[2], the characters knew there would be a catastrophic event that was going to happen and their goal was to try and stop it. The hope of changing the future was shattered by Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines[3], when the events that were to happen on Judgment Day became inevitable and were destined to eventually happen no matter what was done to try and stop it. Passing through time in Revit can be done without fear of having any drastic effects in the timeline of that model. In fact, it can be more damaging to try and represent Phasing without using Phases.
A lot of work in AutoCAD is based around manual selection of layers and other characteristics of lines that were needed to visually represent the scope of work in a view. To go from an Existing view to a New Construction view may have meant copying all the work and changing the lines according to line type assignments. One advantage in Revit is to assign when every model element is created and demolished as it is modeled. When model elements are properly assigned to when they exist, the Existing view can be changed to a New Construction view simply by changing the Phase assignment for that view. That advantage is lost when users cannot relax control of the line weight assignments and continue to manually control the line properties. The adverse result is manually changing the properties of the model elements in order to alter the depiction of what phase that view is presenting.
With Revit, it is important to develop the model, not the view. When developing the model, create content according to the properties of the model. As the properties are altered by view, the model content will update respectively. Don’t develop views in order to get the sheets to look right. Manually altering properties with the view aesthetic as the primary focus will be detrimental to the overall development of the model. If there are concerns with getting the sheets to look right, the first attempt should be to experiment with the view settings in general. Manual drafting in views may seem like a short-term solution, but it will add time to the scope of a project.
When using multiple phases in a project, there is a tendency to lose where elements have been placed. When looking for the missing model element, be sure to check what phase(s) the model element exists in and what phase the current view is assigned to. It is possible that that element is not visible because it hasn’t happened yet, or already has been demolished in the timeline of the model. If the view is set in the future and the element has already been demolished, then that element will never show, despite any changes to Visibility Graphics, because that element no longer exists. If the view is set early in the project and the element is to be created later, then that element will never show, despite any changes to Visibility Graphics, because that element does not yet exist.
Travelling through the time of a project can be done quickly and easily without any need for a certain velocity timed exactly to a lightning strike. You don’t need a phone booth. You don’t need a space ship or black hole. You don’t need a watch. You won’t find random zoo animals running through the streets. You don’t even need some mysterious gate to pass through that spits you out in another time and place. You can even keep your clothes on. It’s as easy as changing the view phase assignment. No, really. You see the model as it exists in the point in time you are in and you can go back and forth through time and not have any impact on the events that have taken place or will take place. That has to bring a small amount of comfort. If you do decide to change when an element is created or destroyed, then it will automatically be updated in corresponding views based on the properties of that element relative to the phase assignment of the view. That is only if you have let go and allowed the model to manage the element properties.-Craig
[2]Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) James Cameron
[3]Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) Jonathon Mostow
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