Performance Tips for Ideate StyleManager

Ideate StyleManager can be used to analyze, merge, rename, and delete different kinds of styles within a Revit project, template or family file. In this topic we will review performance tips per these processes. These tips apply to the use of Ideate StyleManager within the project environment. Performance within a template file or within a family file does not typically present a performance challenge.

Analyze

The analyze process will be relatively quick when applied to filters and scope boxes and is not needed for material appearance assets or for view templates. The analyze process presents the biggest performance challenge when used on object styles, line styles, line patterns, fill patterns, and parameters.  

General Tips

  1. Don’t try to analyze all styles at once or start and go for a coffee.
  2. Analyze may touch many elements of the project. To optimize the performance of analyzing within a workshared project we recommend that the work should be done when no one is in the project.
  3. Any style that is likely to be used by many elements (instances) or families will likely take long to analyze. An example of this would be object styles for curtain panels or for pipe fittings.
  4. Several styles are set as the default in much of the out-of-the-box content and will therefore result in a particularly slow analyze process. Some of these common Autodesk styles are:
    • Line pattern: Dash, Dash dot
    • Fill pattern: crosshatch diagonal

NOTE: Customers who also own Ideate Automation can setup StyleManager to generate reports in the background.

Tips for Parameters

Analyzing parameters can be particularly time consuming and is directly related to the frequency with which a parameter is used. Parameters that are applied to views, sheets, curtain panels, ducts, pipes, or structural framing members with many instances are likely to be slow to analyze. Our research shows that the analysis time in a typical project can vary between 4 to 20 seconds per parameter on average, with some parameters taking several minutes. Unfortunately, there is no programmatic way to predict the length of time it will take. For this reason, we recommend the following tips when analyzing parameters.

  1. If you will be using StyleManager in a Revit project (versus a template), make sure you are working during a time when others will not also be working in the project, or work in a detached local copy. During the Analyze process, many elements will need to be borrowed.
  2. Analyze parameters one at a time, particularly if you suspect a high usage.
  3. Before you analyze multiple parameters be aware of how many are selected. Many projects will have 100s of parameters. Analyzing just 20 parameters might take 1-5 minutes on average.
  4. As a parameter ‘type’, Key parameters tend to take the least amount of time to analyze, so they can be analyzed as a group. Use the Type filter to isolate these parameters.
  5. Non-shared project parameters also tend to take less time to analyze than other types.
  6. Canceling an analyze process will result in accurate data for any parameter that was completed analyzed within a set of selected parameters. For example, canceling at parameter 7 of 10 will result in the accurate data about the first six parameters. The time it takes to both do the analyze and do a cancel is dependent upon the Revit view generation process.

Merge

The merge process performance will vary greatly depending upon the number of elements listed for usage and the worksharing status of the elements that need to be modified. When families are listed for a usage (as opposed to an element, type, or view template, for example) then Ideate StyleManager will be opening a local copy of that family in the background.

TIPS:

  1. Merge may touch many elements of the project. To optimize the performance of merging within a workshared project we recommend that the work should be done when no one is in the project.
  2. Use Delete instead of Merge if the style is not needed.
  3. Always use Delete for any fill pattern called *. These are internal fill patterns often seen when English and non-English content has been merged.

Rename

The rename process is simple and does not result in any performance issues.

Delete

The delete process will be relatively quick when used on these styles: material appearance assets, filters, view templates, and scope boxes. It will also be quick when used to batch-delete any style that is unused. If a style is in use then the performance of the delete process depends on the number of items that need to be modified.

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