Consider the rules governing steel fabrication elements when working with dimensions.
You can add aligned, linear, angular, radial, diameter, spot elevation, spot coordinate and spot slope dimensions on elements that are part of structural connections, on fabrication elements or cuts created by modifiers and parametric cuts.
- Dimensions placed on standard and custom connection elements will be deleted when you break the connection.
- Dimensions on standard connection elements will be deleted when you transform the standard connection into a custom connection.
- Dimensions on elements in a custom connection will be deleted when you exit the custom connection edit mode even if you do not make any modifications.
- In some cases, such as modifying a bolt group, adding or removing bolts or anchors or changing the order of input elements in a connection, the dimensions on bolts or anchors created by a connection will not be properly retained. Any modification on a standard connection that leads to changes of the bolt and anchor groups may affect the dimensions placed on those anchors or bolts.
- In some cases, when you add or remove elements in a connection, the bolt or anchor group pattern is changed and the dimensions placed on the bolts or anchors are deleted.
- Dimensions placed on the start or end of a beam or column will disappear after applying any cuts on that end.
- Linear dimensions disappear if you apply any cuts on the geometry of fabrication steel elements.
- Some dimensions from a Revit 2018 file might disappear when you upgrade to Revit 2019. These dimensions can be bolt or anchor faces, spot slopes, spot elevations, spot coordinates, linear dimensions or dimensions between a line and a point.
Note: A message will inform you that some annotations may be lost when upgrading a 2018 Revit model containing annotations, even when all the annotations are retained.
- You cannot copy only the dimensions placed on an element in a connection to place them on a similar element, using the copy command in the ribbon. You can, however, copy only a small group of dimensions using the copy and paste keyboard commands.
- You cannot add dimensions hole or shear stud centers.
Tip: In order to dimension bolt or anchor centers, you need to switch the visual style to wireframe. If you cannot find the bolt or anchor axis to dimension, try pressing TAB multiple times, until the axis is highlighted.
- You cannot create a constraint on dimensions applied on steel elements - the lock will not display on these dimensions.
- You cannot adjust the value of dimensions placed on steel elements, the referenced element will not change in size or move when modifying the dimension.
- You cannot dimension linked steel elements in a view that was never loaded in the linked file.
- Dimensions created on plates that are not part of a connection will still be visible when the detail level is set to Medium or Coarse.