Versions, versions, and... Travel Pack?

[Jan Vlach]

So here is a problem:

As anyone else, we do struggle when we need to try several different design ideas on a teamwork project. Usually we save it as a pln, do a few versions choose one and then painstaikingly merge the changes back to the server file, usually creating some mild confusion and burning trough unnecessary time in the last step.
So I was thinking what tools could be used to make the process smooth and fun.

The idea is I could save the project as a Travel pack, with the parts of building I plan to modify reserved. (At this point I should admit that I have never used travel pack and all my knowledge of it comes from reading help article on it)
It seems to me that it should be almost possible to do it this way, the only problem being it wont work on the same machine (or maybe it will, if I have two of the same version installed?). Could this work? Any imput is highly apreciated.

Have you better, more elegant way of dealing with the issue? I am all ears (as a side note, our office specializes in heritage building reconstruction, so the other candidate for the workaround - the renovation pallete, is already well in use for its intended purpose)

[Noemi Balogh]

I don't recommend to use the Travel Pack, its purpose was to solve "work from home" when BIM Server was working only on LAN (Local Area Network).

Instead I would play with layers and layer combinations (design options can be put on different layers then their intersection priority can be set to 0, so they don't intersect with anything). This way you have only one file and once you found the right candidate, you can save a pln, clean out what is not needed and re-share the pln to finish the job.

Cheers,
Noémi

[Erwin Edel]

I would not dismiss the renovation filters just yet. There is a button where you can 'pin' elements to show on the current renovation filter only.

This is very handy for filtering out elements you do not want to see.

Just set up a few folders in your view map for the different variant options and (temporarily) assign the elements to filters that you create for each variant.

We use this a lot to hide elements. For example for a module 'work space' where we hide and 'unhide' (show) elements as needed for editing the module and hiding it again. Also great for exluding things from schedules.

[Jan Vlach]

nbalogh wrote:
I don't recommend to use the Travel Pack, its purpose was to solve "work from home" when BIM Server was working only on LAN (Local Area Network).

Instead I would play with layers and layer combinations (design options can be put on different layers then their intersection priority can be set to 0, so they don't intersect with anything). This way you have only one file and once you found the right candidate, you can save a pln, clean out what is not needed and re-share the pln to finish the job.

Cheers,
Noémi

Having to deal with layers for just trying some design ideas is exactly the kind of hustle we seek to avoid - it is slow to try the idea, can easily lead to loss of information or error if not done correctly and doesnt work well at all for itterrating design ideas. The thing is, I have heard over and over again from different architects how many hoops they have to jump trough just to try an idea out (a core of our bussines, mind you) while the technology that could make this hustle go away is there, it just needs a litlle polish from the developer. Please consider it in futre software development plans, Graphisoft. (or hire me as a product designer )