Learn how the background process works when calculating some of the most commonly used actions for detailed steel design.
In the bottom right corner of the platform, there is a Spinner icon that indicates when the background process is calculating. If you click on the spinner icon, the Background Processes dialog appears. This dialog gives you information about what is being calculated at that moment.
The Worker automatically shuts down when Revit is closed.
Actions such as move, copy, align, rotate, delete, element modification and connection creation are performed on background calculation processes –a separate RevitWorker.exe process accompanies the main Revit.exe process, and handles these actions . This allows you to perform other actions while the previous command (sent to the Revit Worker) is still in progress. This is most useful on large models, where such actions could take a lot of time, blocking you from doing anything else during that time.
How It Works
When performing move, copy, align, rotate, delete actions, modifying elements or creating connections, the mouse is blocked just for a few seconds. Then, the task is calculated as a background process and you can perform other actions such as move, delete, modify elements, place dimensions and tags, create views, or navigate the model.
You can see the task in progress in the Background Processes window, located in the status bar. A graphic representation of the model is provided when the mouse is free. This temporary representation reflects the changes applied on the steel elements, but it is not a perfect depiction of the model, since the calculations for the geometry modifications are not done at that moment. Elements involved in the background processes are highlighted in a different color while the calculations for them are in progress.
- Click File tab
Options button.
- In the Options dialog, click Graphics.
- Under Colors, choose a color in the Calculations field.
While a task is in progress, you can perform other actions. Navigation commands and annotation commands are done immediately, while other actions running on background processes (move, align, delete, element modification) will get another task which will be queued in the Background Processes list. The tasks will be completed in the order they were created.
Once a task is completed, it disappears from the list, the elements that were involved in the task will no longer be highlighted and the mouse will be blocked again for a few seconds while the calculated graphics are regenerated.
The task names that appear in the background processes list give information about the action that is being calculated and the number of elements that are affected by that action.
- Moving, rotating, aligning, copying, mirroring multiple elements, the background processes calculation displays: “Steel element changes….”.
- Deleting/erasing elements, the background processes calculation displays: “Steel element deletion…”.
- Changing connection parameters, the background processes calculation displays: “Steel connection parameter changes…”.
- Changing the main input element of a connection, the background processes calculation displays: “Steel connection configuration…”.
- Actions involving more than one type of change, the task name will appear as “Multiple steel element changes…”.
Restart a Background Process Task
In the unlikely event of the RevitWorker process accidentally stopping, the actions that are still in the queue will be automatically paused and the Background Processes dialog will display information about this occurrence. E.g: "Multiple steel element changes failed. The requested multiple steel element changes have failed. Click Restart or Report Bug if available."
To restart the RevitWorker and resume the remaining queued actions, click the Restart button in the Background Processes dialog.
- Some actions cannot be queued in the Background Processes list and they can only be started after all the background calculations are finished. If such a task is attempted while background processes are calculated, a warning message will inform you about this. The actions that can only be performed after all the background processes are finished include copy, mirror, rotate, save, synchronize with central, steel element creation, plate sketch modification, or connection code checking.
- When you change a custom connection into a standard connection while a task is in progress, any actions performed on the involved elements (move, change section, change connection parameters) are blocked. A warning message is displayed to inform you about this.
- While the type of a connection instance is changed or the main input element of a connection instance is changed (the corresponding task is in progress), access to the properties of that specific connection instance is blocked. A warning message is displayed to inform you about this.