I’m on the D5 trial determining if it’d be good to switch for us from Enscape. So far there’s a lot to like. However I’m really struggling with the workflow when using the Revit sync function. It makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong, because surely it shouldn’t be a 10-15 minute process to sync the model every time?
For example, let’s say I make an adjustment to a wall and want to see that in D5. I have my model set to export by categories as that’s the only way it appears I can granularly hide/select specific categories of items from my CAD model. Every time I sync, it brings up a dialog box asking if I want to sync the model as a new layer for EVERY category of item… there are dozens of them, so I have go go through one by one as revit slowly exports each category, and there’s no way to tell D5 to just always auto-overwrite every category.
This is a completely unusable workflow. Even if I didn’t have to manually update each category every time I want to see changes (this happens even if I only pick a single category to update), it takes forever to sync the model, at least 10-20x longer than Enscape.
I know D5 is different but surely I must be doing something wrong? Unfortunately every tutorial I can find out there has people using sketchup which it’s sync plugin appears to work completely different and is much more flexible.
Should I just never export by category and just sync as a whole model? This is what I did at first but then it makes it so the entire model is seen as one object in D5. Then I can’t do things like hide the CAD furniture layer to replace with D5 render-ready versions.
Whats the ideal work flow for my use case? I need to be able to make active edits in my CAD program then occasionally update to see changes to my tweaks in D5.
Hi @skhayward
Just to clarify inorder to make sure we are on the same page.
You are currently using the D5 Render Livesync for Revit and you have activated this setting inorder to separate the different categories when inserted in D5 Render.
- Since we have yet to incorporate a live sync version of Revit, any changes made may need the Revit File to be Resync, and every time you do this you will be prompted by this window since different categories are separated. You may need to select which category of the element or family you have deleted or added.
It makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong, because surely it shouldn’t be a 10-15 minute process to sync the model every time?
- This should depend on the size of your Revit file, if it is a light file and it takes around 10-15 minutes then there might be something wrong with that specific file and we may need to collect it for further testing.
Should I just never export by category and just sync as a whole model? This is what I did at first but then it makes it so the entire model is seen as one object in D5. Then I can’t do things like hide the CAD furniture layer to replace with D5 render-ready versions.
- If the issue is with replacing specific families with D5 Render objects, I recommend only activating the ‘Furniture’ or ‘Generic Model’ category (or whichever category those families belong to). This will prevent unnecessary re-syncing of all families.
Yes, this is what I am trying to do. But it takes a long time because I have to manually export each category one by one every time I click the “sync” button. Part of the reason it takes me 10-15 minutes to update the model is I have to sit there clicking the through every category over and over, even if I only want to update a single category. If there was a way to only sync a single category, or for it to automatically sync every category (select all?) then it wouldn’t take so long.
It sounds like if you want to split the model by categories sync for Revit doesn’t really work as intended.
Is it possible to still separate by category, but then only sync the category I want to update as needed? This would be a good workaround if I could choose to only sync “walls” for example on an update. For me though, I can no longer pick what category I want to sync once I’ve opened the model from the Revit plugin, so I’m not sure how your solution of only syncing specific categories is supposed to work. I’d have to start D5 by only exporting those categories, but then I’m missing everything else…
If the sync button realistically only works in Revit with not separating by categories, what would a good workaround be to do what I want? I’d love it if I could get certain Revit assets replaced by D5 assets. I suppose it isn’t the end of the world if I can’t do this, but because D5 assets don’t show show up in the CAD model like they do in Enscape I will need to have a “cad twin” for assets like furniture arrangements that live inside Revit only that will need to be hideable inside D5. I figured this separate by category feature would be the way to do it, but if there’s no way around my problem then I’ll need a different solution.
After I click “Start D5”, that menu is not selectable:
I can only use that menu before I start D5. This means I can’t be working on my model and then updating as I make adjustments in CAD. To make that menu selectable, I have to click “Stop D5” and and close out of D5 entirely before it lets me edit the categories. I can’t just edit the categories and then click “Sync Model” like I expect to be able to.
However, I’ve discovered that I kind of have been using this feature wrong. I assumed if you checked only 1-2 categories from “Select Categories to be seperated”, it would only export those categories and not the rest of the model. But in reality, the entire model exports along with the categories I want to separate, with those categories as a different model layer. So, I can achieve what I want to do by only selecting the Furniture and Plants categories. While it’s still annoying I have to manually click through 2-3 dialog boxes to sync every time I want to to that, its a lot easier knowing that I shouldn’t be separating the entire model to begin with.
An awkward problem though is that once a model is separated I don’t see a real way to bring it back together without losing my material changes or adjustments? I tried deleting all my old imported model categories and re-syncing the model with only 2 categories selected but I lost all my changes I made in D5.
I then tried syncing with just 2 categories selected into my existing D5 file (where every category is separated) and then NOT deleting my existing categories, but this didn’t work as it imported the entire model in addition to the categories I wanted to update. Then updated categories didn’t look correct without the main model there. To be specific, when importing and replacing my existing “walls” category like this, large chunks of my walls were not visible without the main model also being set to visible.
It seems if I want to sync my current file with every category separated, I still have to sync every category every time I update, which means I still have the same problem as I had originally. It forces me to update every category every time I hit “sync”, one at a time, which takes forever to do.
Hi @skhayward
I think it might be best for me to explain via Video Recording for my usual workflow when it comes to Revit to D5 Render. Unique Download Link | WeTransfer
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Since I would want any Furniture or Generic Models to be separated in D5 so I can easily hide them and replace them, I only checked their corresponding boxes in the settings.
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After doing so, I proceeded to activate the plug-in
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Now in D5 it looks like this (3 object Groups: Main Model, Furniture, and Generic Model)
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Applied some D5 Materials to these surfaces.
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After that I made some changes in Revit and deleted some parts of the Steel Fence.
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Clicked “Sync Model” to update the changes in D5 Render.
Materials should be able to be retained in this manner, otherwise, your file may be stored in a cloud storage. If so, we recommend downloading it to your local file directory and then proceed to work with it. Cloud storage workflow is currently not yet optimized. 
I was also not forced to sync each category individually for updates. Perhaps I misunderstood your process? Can you share a video-recording so that whatever requirement or suggestion you may need I can forward it to our team so we can optimize this workflow further?
Note: The Livesync feature is still coming soon.
Thank you.
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Your video cleared up the workflow pretty good. In the future, I’ll only have 1-2 categories set to be separated to keep things simple. However every time I click sync I get this window popping up and it requires me to re-assign for every separated category:
I think it might have to do with cloud storage. I don’t use D5’s built in cloud storage, but all of our projects are hosted on a dropbox folder within windows. There has never been sync issues with this for any other program we’ve used like this, as it’s just a standard windows folder that dropbox looks at to see if changes are made within. But if that causes D5 to need to re-assign categories on every sync, than that could be the source of my problems.
I think I’ll just make sure to only use 1-2 separated categories from now on instead of separating all categories, and that will save a lot of time with that dialog box opening up. Realistically, I’ll only ever need to hide elements from my revit model that I plan on replacing with D5 assets, so I shouldn’t need all categories separated.
Still, it seems odd to me that D5 doesn’t just keep track of links and isn’t able to just do it all automatically anyways. It even says in the picture above that it has some concept of what category it previously belonged to. Why not just have it automatically import, and only suggest linking it in as a new model if I explicitly tell it to?
From what I saw is the way to manage sometime link project,
normaly you link them to the D5 model, then don’t have to relink again and again,
for me you do something wrong working with massive revit project with 20 linking project and it take from 10 to 60 seconds to sync
the windows you show should only appears if you change the name of your link revit project or an asset that name have change , and again never create alwars chooses the correct one replace , once for all,
but no it never take 15 minutes even to change a wall,
you can chooses syn geometry or link by the way
Hi @skhayward
Clicking the “Sync Model” button after you have done some changed in your Revit File shouldn’t prompt you with that window.
If you have made some changes with this setting or perhaps modified it after syncing, it will prompt you with that window.
