Last week, our community delved into some critical challenges and updates. One major thread focused on strategies for preventing broken references within Product Data Management (PDM) systems, a topic that continues to puzzle many. There was also an engaging debate on whether to skip the letters ‘I’ and ‘O’ when labeling grid lines, which sparked a lot of practical insights. Additionally, discussions centered around the best Continuing Education Units (CEUs) to pursue in light of the 2024 updates to the International Plumbing Code (IPC).
This Week’s Hot Topics
Preventing broken references in PDM
This thread is all about tackling the perennial issue of broken references in PDM. A common headache that’s been getting a lot of attention, especially with new software updates. Read more here
Do you skip I and O on grids
An interesting debate on grid labeling practices. Skipping ‘I’ and ‘O’ might seem trivial, but it has sparked a discussion on clarity and industry standards. Read more here
Best CEU for 2024 IPC updates
With the 2024 IPC updates around the corner, this thread covers the most beneficial CEUs to keep you ahead of the curve. Read more here
Thanks for staying engaged and contributing to our discussions. Looking forward to another week full of valuable exchanges.
We skip “I” and “O” in our grid templates because they read like “1” and “0” on site — great for binary, awful for field crews. If you do this, bake it into the title-block note and the grid style so it sticks through DWG exports and vendor markups. @MinaK, have you had clashes with teams that expect the full alphabet?
Had an IFC import sneak an “I” grid back in and the fab drawings went sideways. “vendor markups.” We fixed it by running a Dynamo check that blocks I/O grid names and auto-renumbers to J/K on import, plus a tiny legend note by the grid key on sheets. On renovations we keep existing I/O if they’re in legacy docs but flag them in a big callout; @MinaK, have you had pushback when enforcing this with consultants?
I enforce this at publish: a pyRevit check rejects any grid named with I/O/Q and kicks back a report; if you’re stuck with legacy naming, switch the grid-bubble font to slashed zero + serifed 1 for plots. @dmiller93 have you tried routing IFC imports through a renumber rule so bad labels never land in the model?
Quick tip: I bake a ‘no ambiguous characters’ rule into the BEP and a template view filter that paints any grid label not in A–H, J–N, P–Z or 1–9 bright red, so it gets fixed while modeling. @Marta_B, have you pushed this into a Solibri or Navis ruleset? If a client insists on I or O, I mirror that in a working copy and remap to safe labels at export so schedules and PDM stay stable — belt and braces.
We had a batch last quarter where “I”/“O” on PDFs got misread in the field and it snowballed into PDM broken refs — . I now run a Bluebeam Revu preflight that fails the set if the grid legend shows those letters and we added a tiny grid legend on the title block so QC catches it before publish. Anyone else catching this at the PDF stage, or are you leaning on model checks like @charlotte_h82?
After last week’s PDM broken-ref thread, the one fix that’s stuck for us is a small “Grids skip I & O” note baked into the title block and repeated at matchlines; it costs nothing, avoids renaming legacy grids, and noticeably cut field mix-ups. Anyone tried dropping a simple grid index table on the cover to make PDF search more reliable?
After last week’s debate, hard yes on ‘skip I & O’ — our fab OCR still confuses them with 1/0. We made it default by switching grid-head text to OCR-B with slashed zero and a Dynamo pre-publish check that rejects those letters; if a client won’t allow skipping, we flip that axis to numbers.
One thing that’s worked for me: a small Dynamo in Revit runs on publish, rejects any grid tag containing ‘I’ or ‘O’, swaps to the next allowed letter, and writes the change to the issue notes so PDM links don’t churn… @Riley, would an automated pre-export check fit your setup? It adds about 3 seconds per set and has cut field misreads; just lock the grid list so you don’t create gaps across matchlines.