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Frequently Asked Questions#

Installation & Setup#

The Performance Seating ribbon tab does not appear after installation.

Verify that the add-in is enabled in Revit → Add-Ins → External Tools → Add-In Manager. If it is listed but disabled, enable it and restart Revit. If it is not listed, confirm the installer completed without errors and that you are running a supported Revit version.

The application behaves unexpectedly after an update or on a new machine.

Open the Settings window and click Re-Initialize Project in the Application Settings tab. Re-initialization restores missing linestyles, subcategories, and shared parameters without affecting existing seat placements. It is the recommended first step for most issues.

Reference Lines#

Seats are not being placed on a reference line.

The application only recognizes lines with a linestyle matching the Center or End style name configured in Settings. Open Project Defaults and verify the linestyle names have not been changed. If they have been renamed outside of the Performance Seating Settings dialog, the dialog provides an option to reset them.

A reference line was not selectable during seat placement.

Check that the line's linestyle matches the Center or End style name in Project Defaults.

Seats are placed but face the wrong direction.

This occurs when the model line's start/end point order conflicts with its expected relationship to the focus point. Try flipping the line, or temporarily moving the focus point to diagnose the orientation. See Row Reference Lines — Troubleshooting for details.

Focus Points#

An error appears when renaming a focus point.

Focus point names must be unique across the model. Attempting to rename a focus point to a name already in use will produce an error. Change the PB_FocusPoint_Name instance parameter to a unique value in the Revit Properties panel.

A focus point was accidentally deleted.

A deleted focus point cannot be recreated with the same row associations. Any rows that referenced it will lose their editing capability and must be re-placed with a new focus point assigned. There is nothing in Revit that prevents deletion — treat focus points used by existing rows with care.

Seat Placement#

Seat elevations are incorrect.

The application detects floor elevation by firing a vertical ray inside a dedicated internal 3D view. If the relevant elements are not visible in that view, the intersection will fail and the seat will be placed at the elevation of the host reference plane with no vertical offset.

  1. Check the Elevation Alignment setting and the Maximum Floor Distance in User Defaults.
  2. Open the 3D view named in Project Defaults under 3D View Name. Verify that Floors, Generic Models, and Specialty Equipment elements are visible — workset visibility, view filters, and graphics overrides can all hide elements from the detection ray even when they are present in the model.
  3. If the view's settings have been modified and are unclear, delete it. The application will regenerate it with clean default visibility on the next seat placement.

See Troubleshooting elevation results for full detail.

Rows have the wrong row identifier.

Check the Starting Row setting in the Seat Properties pane before placing. If rows have already been placed with the wrong identifier, re-place the affected rows with the correct starting designation.

Seats are facing the wrong direction.

See Row Reference Lines — Troubleshooting.

Seat Numbers#

Seat numbers do not appear after enabling visibility.

Re-initialize the project from Application Settings. The seat number subcategory may have been inadvertently removed from the project.

Seat numbers or seat sizes appear as 3D objects in a linked model or rendering.

Seat numbers and seat sizes are model text — three-dimensional geometry embedded in the seat families. When the seating model is linked into another Revit project, this geometry is visible in all views where the Furniture category is on, including perspective views and renderings.

To prevent this:

  • Confirm that the PB_Seat_Number_Visible and PB_Seat_Width_Visible type parameters are turned off in the seat families before the model is linked. These are off by default and are only enabled when the Seat Numbers or Seat Sizes commands are first run.
  • Use seat tags instead of model text labels. Tags are annotations and are not visible in linked models or renderings.

If the labels are already on and the architect needs to suppress them from their side, they can do so by creating matching PB_Seat_Number and PB_Seat_Size subcategories under the Furniture category in their host model and controlling visibility through Visibility/Graphics Overrides. See Controlling visibility from a host model for step-by-step instructions.

Seats in side sections are misnumbered when using Odd-Sequential-Even numbering.

Focus point position is critical for this scheme. The focus point must be positioned toward the patron's right for the application to correctly identify which end-aligned reference lines are on the House Left side. An incorrectly positioned focus point will produce misnumbered seats. See Seat Numbering for details.

Seat Management#

Seats can no longer be managed after swapping families outside the application.

If seat families are manually replaced with different Revit families outside of the Performance Seating tools, the application will no longer recognize those seats and the row cannot be edited. Use the Replace Seats command to swap families while keeping rows manageable.

Seat customization has caused unexpected placement results.

Geometry and parameter changes to seat families beyond what is documented in Seat Customization are not supported. If customization has broken placement, restore the original family from the installation folder or contact Performance BIM for a corrected version.