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If you have experience with 2D CAD software, you’re likely familiar with many of the terms and concepts related to designing and documenting a project, but not all of them have exact equivalents in Revit software. You may be comfortable with thinking in terms of what needs to be drawn and coordinated: plans, sections, elevations, details, schedules, and so on. Such information is likely stored in a plethora of separate files that have to be linked together in order to reference other parts of a building design. For teams collaborating on design, you are also likely accustomed to allowing only one person in one file at a time. And finally, maintaining all your project settings and standards is a struggle across so many disconnected files.

Working in the Revit environment affords you much more control and efficiency in managing the aforementioned issues. The four key components of a holistic and efficient design process are relationships, repetition, representations, and restrictions. These concepts are managed in Revit software as datum objects, content, views, and project management, respectively. They are managed from within a single, bidirectional database.

Figure 2.22 shows what we like to think of as a Revit organizational chart, which gives you a visual description of these four top-level categories and what these categories contain. In the following sections, we’ll discuss each of these categories and describe its particular role in your Revit project environment.

Figure 2.22 Revit organizational chart

Introducing Datum Objects (Relationships)

Data (plural) are sometimes referred to in Revit software as datum objects and consist of references, grids, and levels (Figure 2.23). Datum objects establish geometric behavior by controlling the location and extents of your content (the building, the stuff that goes in a building, and the stuff you need to document your building).

Figure 2.23 Datum objects

Reference planes can be created in any 2D view from the main ribbon tabs (Architecture, Structure, or Systems), but once created, they may not be visible in 3D. After you add reference planes to your project, they can be set and seen from the Work Plane panel. This will allow you to work with respect to the desired work plane.

Grids are used to locate structural elements in your project. You are not required to include grids in your project, but they are quite useful in managing structural walls and columns. Like reference planes, grid lines can be added to any 2D view. Keep in mind that grids can only be perpendicular to levels. Furthermore, grids are only visible in views that are perpendicular to the grid. So if the grid is in a north–south orientation, you’ll be able to see it only in plan and from the east–west orientation.

Levels are datum objects that are parallel to the ground plane. They serve several purposes. First, they are the main method for placing and managing the elevation (or Z-location) of content. Virtually all content placed in a Revit model has a Level parameter. You can even move objects from one level to another simply by changing this property in the Properties palette. Levels also function as constraints for objects such as walls and columns. These objects have top and bottom constraints that can be set to levels so that they will automatically update if the levels are adjusted. Levels may be seen and created only in elevation and section views; therefore, you can’t create levels in plan, and they can’t be diagonal to the ground plane.

Creating any datum is easy. Simply select the desired tool from the Architecture tab, and then pick two points to define the start and end locations. Despite their two-dimensional appearance, all datum objects have three-dimensional extents that help you manage their appearance throughout a project. You will explore this further in the section “Explaining 3D and 2D Datum Extents” later in this chapter.

CREATING AND DUPLICATING LEVELS

In the previous section, we discussed the overall purpose of datum objects; however, there are special conditions related to the creation of levels. First, you should understand that a level does not always require an associated plan view. Levels that have plan views will have a blue graphic symbol at the end (double-click it to go to that view), whereas those that don’t will have a black graphic symbol. When you create a new level, you have the option to create a corresponding plan view by using the Make Plan View option from the Options bar.

Copying an existing level will not create the corresponding plan views. This is useful if you are working on a larger project, such as a high-rise, and you want to quickly configure multiple levels without creating them one at a time. You might also want to use levels just as a reference for content but not for a specific plan, such as for an intermediate landing or mezzanine.

Although it is easy to create many levels by copying or arraying, only create the levels that are necessary to manage major parts of your project. You don’t need to create a level for every slab, stair, or floor offset. Too many levels can have a negative impact on your project’s performance.

Let’s explore the creation and duplication of levels with an exercise. First, download and open the file c02-Levels-Start.rvt or c02-Levels-Start-Metric.rvt from this book’s web page at www.sybex.com/go/masteringrevitarch2016. Then follow these steps:

1. Open the exercise file and make sure the Project Browser is open – remember that it may be in a tabbed palette with Properties. Expand the Views tree and then expand Elevations. Double-click on South to activate that view in the drawing area.

You will see two levels that are usually present when you create a new project using the default template.

2. From the Architecture tab in the ribbon, find the Datum panel and click the Level tool. In the Options bar, ensure that the Make Plan View option is selected.

3. From left to right, draw a new level exactly 10'-0" (3000 mm) above Level 2.

When you hover the mouse pointer anywhere near either endpoint of the existing levels, you will see alignment guides (dashed lines) that help keep the extents of the datum objects consistent.

4. Click the Modify button or press the Esc key, and you will notice that the new level has a blue target. Double-click the target for Level 3, and the Level 3 floor plan will open.

5. Return to the South elevation view and select Level 3. From the Modify tab in the ribbon, click the Copy tool. In the Options bar, select the Multiple option.

6. Create two copies of Level 3: one that is 2'-0" (600 mm) above Level 3 and one that is 8'-0" (2400 mm) above that one, as shown in Figure 2.24.

7. You can change the names and elevations of levels by selecting a level and then clicking the name or the elevation value. Rename Level 3 to Level 2B, Level 4 to Level 3, and Level 5 to Roof. If you are prompted to rename the corresponding views, click Yes.

Figure 2.24 Create multiple copies of levels.

As we stated previously, plan views are not created for levels that are copied or arrayed. This gives you the flexibility to quickly generate levels for taller buildings without all the associated views that may increase your project file size unnecessarily. Although this workflow may be beneficial for you in early design phases, what do you do when you need all those floor plans and ceiling plans for that high-rise design?

If you want to convert a level that doesn’t have a view to one that does, find the Create panel on the View tab and then select the Plan Views fly out and then the Floor Plan command. This opens the dialog box shown in Figure 2.25. You can select among all the levels without corresponding views in your project. Only the levels you copied in the previous exercise are listed in the dialog box.

Figure 2.25 Adding views to levels

You can also use this command to create duplicate views of existing levels. Clear the Do Not Duplicate Existing Views option at the bottom of the dialog box to see all the levels in your project.

Select the Roof level and click OK. A floor plan will be created for the Roof level, and that floor plan will be opened. It is important to note that every plan you create with this method will be opened as you complete the command. Remember to use the Close Hidden Windows tool (available in the Quick Access toolbar) to avoid slower performance in your work session.

EXPLAINING 3D AND 2D DATUM EXTENTS

Datum objects – specifically grids and levels – have two types of extents: 3D (analytic) and 2D (graphic). These extents are expressed as grips that are shown at the endpoints of the grids and levels in plans, sections, and elevations. The analytic grips control the extents of the datum across the entire project and all views. The analytic grip is shown as an open circle and the indicator displays as 3D, as shown in Figure 2.26.

Figure 2.26 Controlling the 3D (analytic) extents of the datum

If you want to adjust the 2D extents of your datum in only the current view, click the 3D icon and it will change to 2D. You can then modify the 2D extents of the datum object without affecting the 3D extents. We will explore this further in an exercise later in this section.

Datum objects are visible only in views that intersect their 3D extents. The elevation in Figure 2.27 shows four grids and four levels. Grid lines 3 and 4 are not visible on Levels 3 and 4 because their 3D extents are not intersecting those levels.

Figure 2.27 3D (analytic) extents affect visibility of datum objects.

You can use the 3D and 2D extents to your liking in any view. In Figure 2.28, for example, the 3D extents of the grid lines extend through Level 1 and Level 2, but the 2D extents are set above Level 2. This means that the grid datum would still be visible in both levels, even though it looks like they don’t intersect the levels.

Figure 2.28 Customizing 3D and 2D extents of datum objects

When you move a datum object, one way or another, content is going to respond. If you move a level, walls and furniture are going to move accordingly. If you move a grid, structural elements associated to the grid are going to relocate. And if you move references, the elements associated with them will update. As a matter of fact, you’ll often constrain or pin datum objects in order to restrict their movement as your project is starting to develop.

Let’s continue with the exercise from the section “Creating and Duplicating Levels” and edit the 2D extents for one of the levels you copied. Remember that although this exercise uses levels, these methods can be applied to grids as well. Here are the steps:

1. Open the South elevation view again, and you’ll notice that the label for Level 3 is slightly overlapping the label for Level 2B because they are relatively close. You’ll need to adjust the 2D extent of Level 3.

2. Select Level 3, and you’ll see two items at the right endpoint with which you’ll need to interact: the 3D indicator and the lock symbol. First, click the lock symbol to unlock the right endpoint. This will allow you to move the endpoint for the selected level without affecting all the other levels.

3. Click the 3D indicator so that it changes to 2D. Now you are ready to modify the 2D extents of the level.

4. Drag the 2D extents grip (the solid circle) to the right. The result should look like the image shown in Figure 2.29.

5. As a final option, you can choose to break the end of a level or grid line so that the tag or label will clearly display. Click the Add Elbow symbol near the label at the right endpoint of Level 3. We have indicated the location of this symbol in Figure 2.29.

6. Use the additional line grips to adjust the level endpoint so that it resembles the image shown in Figure 2.30.

Figure 2.29 Adjusting the graphic extents of a level

Figure 2.30 Adding an elbow to a level

PROPAGATING EXTENTS

Quite often you will adjust the extents of datum objects that need to be replicated in several other views. Fortunately, there is a tool to help you accomplish this – Propagate Extents. The premise of this tool is simple, but you must be aware of the subtleties in applying it to a three-dimensional model.

The Propagate Extents tool pushes any modifications you apply to a datum object from one view to other parallel views of your choosing. This tool does not work well on levels because the parallel views are essentially mirrored views of each other. For example, the orientation of the South elevation is the opposite of the North elevation; therefore, if you make a change to the extents at the right end of a level in the South elevation, those changes would be propagated to the left end in the North elevation.

The best way to apply the Propagate Extents tool is with the 2D extents of grids. Why only the 2D extents? Because changing the 3D extents affects the datum object throughout the project, independent of any specific view. Let’s examine this behavior with a quick exercise:

1. Download and open the c02-Grids-Start.rvt file from this book’s web page, and then activate the South elevation.

You will see three levels and four grids.

2. Select grid 3 and click the 3D indicator at the bottom endpoint. Notice that the lock symbol turns off automatically, allowing you to immediately adjust the graphic extents of the grid.

3. Drag the 2D extent of grid 3 up toward the top. Repeat this process for grid 4 so that the result looks like the image shown in Figure 2.31.

The line weight of the grid lines has been increased for clarity.

Before you continue, open the Level 1 and Level 2 floor plans and observe that grids 3 and 4 are still visible. If you had adjusted the 3D extents of the grids in the South elevation view, those changes would already be reflected in the other views. We’re using this method because we want to maintain the 3D extents but modify the 2D extents only in the South elevation view.

4. Return to the South elevation view and select grids 3 and 4 while pressing the Ctrl key. From the contextual tab in the ribbon, click the Propagate Extents button, and the dialog box will appear as shown in Figure 2.32.

5. In the Propagate Datum Extents dialog box, select the North elevation view.

6. Click OK to complete the command and then activate the North elevation view. Observe that the 2D extents of grids 3 and 4 now match the modifications you applied in the South elevation view.

Figure 2.31 Adjusting the 2D extents of grids

Figure 2.32 Propagating extents to other views

You can use the Propagate Extents command to easily copy datum settings to any parallel views in your project. This is especially effective for propagating grid extents to many plan views in high-rise buildings.

RESETTING OR MAXIMIZING 3D EXTENTS

Two commands you might need when adjusting datum object extents are ones that give you the ability to reset or maximize the 3D extents. These commands are available in the context menu when you have a datum object selected (Figure 2.33).

Figure 2.33 Extent commands in the context menu

The Reset To 3D Extents command allows you to reset any graphic extent modifications back to the analytic extents. Let’s apply this command in the continued exercise file:

1. In the c02-Grids-Start file, return to the South elevation view. Right-click grid 3, and select Reset To 3D Extents from the context menu. Repeat this step for grid 4.

2. You will see the grid lines return to their original condition; however, this has been changed only in the current view (South elevation). Activate the North elevation view to observe this behavior.

3. Return to the South elevation view and select grids 3 and 4. Click the Propagate Extents button in the contextual tab in the ribbon, and select the North elevation view.

4. Click OK to close the dialog box, and the reset 2D extents will be applied to the grids in the other views.

The other command in this pair serves a similar purpose in dealing with datum objects. Maximize 3D Extents is most often used if your levels or grids are exhibiting strange behavior. There are various reasons why this happens, but you’ll realize it when it does. You can use this command to set the analytic extents of a datum object to the outer boundaries of your project geometry.

Continuing in the exercise file, activate the Level 1 floor plan and notice that grid line C seems to be displayed like all the other grids. Now activate Section 1 from the Project Browser or by double-clicking the section head shown in the floor plan. You’ll notice that grid line C is not visible in the section view. This is because someone mistakenly pulled the analytic (3D) extents far to the left in plan while the graphic (2D) extents remained consistent with the other grids. Let’s continue the exercise and repair this problem:

5. Activate the Level 1 floor plan and select grid line C. Right-click and from the context menu, choose the Maximize 3D Extents command.

6. It may not seem like anything happened, but activate the Section 1 view and you’ll now see that grid line C is visible.

7. Return to the Level 1 floor plan, select grid line C again, and then click the 2D indicator at the right endpoint so that it indicates 3D.

USING REFERENCE PLANES

Objects in the Revit model are able to maintain relationships with other objects; however, you may not always have other model elements (like walls, floors, and roofs) to relate to other geometry. This is why datum objects are so important.

If you’ve been using Revit for a reasonable amount of time, it seems obvious that levels and grids would control content, but reference planes aren’t often appreciated. Here’s a simple exercise to demonstrate this special kind of relationship between reference planes and walls:

1. Download and open the file c02-Walls-Start.rvt from this book’s web page. Activate the Level 1 floor plan, select the wall segment, right-click, and then choose Create Similar from the context menu. Use the Tangent End Arc option from the Draw panel in the contextual tab of the ribbon to create a series of concentric walls starting from the left endpoint of the provided wall, as shown in Figure 2.34.

2. Go to the South elevation view. From the Architecture tab in the ribbon, click the Reference Plane tool and add two angled planes (dashed lines) as shown in Figure 2.35.

If you move Level 1, you’ll notice that the walls all move with it. You don’t have to select the walls; it’s in the properties of the walls to maintain a relationship to the Level 1 datum. You could make the top of the walls maintain this same kind of relationship to Level 2.

3. You can also create a relationship to the reference planes. To do so, simply select all the walls (just hover your mouse over one wall, press and release the Tab key, and then left-click to select the chain of walls), and then click the Attach Top/Base button in the ribbon. Note that Attach Wall ➢ Top is the default selection in the Options bar, so first pick the upper reference plane. Click the Attach Top/Base button again, make sure Attach Wall ➢ Base is selected in the Options bar, and then pick the lower reference plane.

Figure 2.34 Concentric walls

Figure 2.35 Reference planes and levels shown in elevation

Figure 2.36 shows the results in a 3D view, once you’ve attached the top and bottom of the walls to the upper and lower reference planes.

Figure 2.36 Finished walls

Try moving and rotating the reference planes, and notice that the walls will maintain their relationships to the planes. This is shown in a section view of the walls in Figure 2.37.

Figure 2.37 Section view

Although you can use levels, grids, and reference planes to customize model elements, there may be situations where you need to establish relationships with non-planar geometry. You can find video tutorials on custom wall constraints posted on our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/MasteringRevit.

Using Content

Effective use of content is all about repeated elements in a hierarchy (project, family, type, instance) that you put in your Revit project to develop and document your design. Content can often maintain relationships with other content, but more important, content maintains relationships to datum objects. As you can see from the Revit organizational chart shown previously in Figure 2.22, content includes system families, component families, and spaces.

System families (also called host families) are content that is part of the Revit project environment. These families are not created and stored in external files (RFAs) – they’re found only in the RVT project file. If you need another type of a system family, you’ll duplicate an existing type from within the project. System families can be 3D elements such as walls, floors, roofs, ceilings, stairs, and railings or 2D elements such as text, dimensions, revision bubbles, and insulation.

Component families are created in the Family Editor and are either 2D or 3D content. This means that you’ll have to create and load these kinds of families outside the Revit project environment as RFA files. When you start to create a component family, you’ll need to select an appropriate family template (Figure 2.38). By selecting the right family template, you’ll be certain that the component that you’re creating is going to behave, view, schedule, and (if necessary) export properly.

Figure 2.38 Selecting a family template

Although most system families help shape the physical aspects of a building, the occupied voids within are critical to a successful design. These elements are spaces, which take the form of rooms and areas. Spaces maintain relationships to datum objects but also to model elements including floors, walls, ceilings, and roofs. In addition to spatial properties, rooms are used to document finishes within your project. Take a look at the properties of a room, and you’ll find Floor Finish, Base Finish, Wall Finish, and Ceiling Finish.

WORKING WITH TYPE AND INSTANCE PARAMETERS

All content in a Revit project has parameters, which are simply the information or data about something. Parameters can affect many different aspects of an object, such as visibility, behavior, size, shape, and material.

To develop a fundamental understanding of parameters, you must note that there are two kinds of parameters: type and instance. Type parameters control information about every element of the same type. For example, if the material of a piece of furniture is designated as a type parameter and you change it, the material for all the furniture of that type will change. Instance parameters control only the instances that you have selected. So if the material of the piece of furniture that you’ve selected is an instance parameter, you’ll be editing only the selected elements.

Instance parameters can be constantly exposed in the Properties palette. Selecting something initially displays the instance parameters. Figure 2.39 shows the instance parameters of a wall that control the relative height, constraints, and structural usage.

Figure 2.39 Instance parameters of a wall

By clicking the Edit Type button, you expose the type parameters (Figure 2.40). These parameters control values such as the structure, graphics, and assembly code.

Figure 2.40 Type parameters of a wall

This section provided you with a basic overview of families and parameters; you will learn much more about these concepts in Chapter 14.

Working with Views

Views are the means by which you will interact with and document the project. As you can see in the Revit organizational chart shown previously in Figure 2.22, there are both 2D and 3D views. Two-dimensional views are oriented to specific coordinates such as plan, elevation, and section. Schedules and material takeoffs are yet another way of viewing information in a project that is neither 2D nor 3D. Three-dimensional views are either orthographic or perspective (camera view) in nature. Views also have type and instance parameters that control properties such as name, scale, detail level, phase filter, and graphic display options. We’ll review each type of view again in more detail in Part 5, “Documentation.”

REVIEWING THE COMMON PROPERTIES OF VIEWS

Let’s first review, in detail, some of the properties that apply to most views. All of these are found in the Properties palette when no objects are selected; however, some properties may also be accessed in the view control bar. The most common view properties are as follows:

Crop Region With the exception of schedules and drafting views, the extents of all views can be limited using crop regions. The visibility of the crop region itself can be turned off, but you can choose to hide all crop regions in the Print Setup dialog box when using the Print command. Although you might feel the need to keep crop regions visible to allow easier editing, you can use the Reveal Hidden Elements tool in the view control bar to temporarily show hidden crop regions. Buttons to enable/disable and show/hide the crop region are available on the view control bar.

View Scale The scale of a view automatically controls the relative weight of line work as well as the size of annotations such as text, dimensions, and tags. The view scale is displayed on and can be modified from the view control bar.

Visibility/Graphics The Visibility/Graphic Overrides dialog box (Figure 2.41) allows overrides of elements in two essential ways: visibility (turn object categories on/off) and graphics (customize line thickness, color, and fill pattern).

Figure 2.41 Visibility and graphic overrides for an elevation

Detail Level The Detail Level parameter can be set to one of three predefined choices: Coarse, Medium, or Fine. This setting depends on how families are constructed, but it can help improve model performance and avoid cluttered views by limiting the visibility of smaller model elements. Detail Level can be set with a button on the view control bar.

View Template As an aid to standardization, view templates can help you organize common view settings and apply them to groups of views throughout your project and other projects within your office or firm. View templates are covered in detail in Chapter 4.

CREATING AND DUPLICATING VIEWS

You can create views in various ways in order to work with your project in a manner that meets your needs. Although creating views is quick and easy, you should avoid populating your project file with too many unnecessary views. An overabundance of unused views will increase the size of your project file and cause it to perform poorly. Let’s review the procedures to create different view types and see how to control their extents after they’re created.

New views can be generated from the Create panel on the View tab of the ribbon (Figure 2.42), and the process is quite simple. Click one of the buttons and a new view is activated and stored in the Project Browser.

Figure 2.42 Creating new views from the ribbon

Another quick way to create new views is to right-click a view name in the Project Browser and select one of the Duplicate View commands (Figure 2.43). You can also duplicate the current view by using the Duplicate View button in the Create panel of the ribbon.

Figure 2.43 Duplicating views from the Project Browser

As you can see in Figure 2.43, there are three choices in the Duplicate View flyout command: Duplicate, Duplicate With Detailing, and Duplicate As A Dependent. Let’s take a quick look at what each of these options means:

Duplicate This command will create a copy of the selected view but will not replicate any of the annotation in the view. Use this command when you need a fresh copy of a view in which you will create new annotation for a different documentation purpose.

Duplicate With Detailing As its name suggests, this command will create a copy of the selected view with all of the annotation in the view. We don’t recommend using this command too often because replicated annotation is often a sign of an inefficient production process.

Duplicate As A Dependent This command allows you to create a series of partial views that assume the properties of one parent view. Using dependent views does not mean that you can have a parent view with a larger scale like 1:100 and then create dependent views at larger scales such as 1:50. The parent view has all the same properties as the dependents, but you can manage the crop regions and settings from the parent view.

CREATING FLOOR PLANS AND CEILING PLANS

As you learned in the section “Creating and Duplicating Levels” earlier in this chapter, when you create a level in an elevation or section view you have the option to create a plan view for that level in the Options bar. If you have levels without corresponding plan views, you can also use the Plan Views tool from the ribbon to create a plan view.

The vertical extents of plans and ceiling plans are controlled by the View Range settings. The View Range settings, as shown in Figure 2.44, define the vertical range of the view.

Figure 2.44 View Range dialog box

The view range properties can be difficult to understand, so we created a diagram to illustrate the principles. In Figure 2.45, you will see that the primary range is the zone you usually see in a default floor or ceiling plan. If an object crosses the cut plane, the object’s Cut values are used. If the object is below the cut plane but above the bottom, the object’s Projection values are used. Cut and Projection values can be found in Visibility/Graphics.

Figure 2.45 View range properties explained

For most views, the Bottom and View Depth parameters are set to the same plane. Therefore, objects below the bottom of the view range simply won’t appear. So, what happens if you need to show objects on a lower terrace for reference in the current view? When you set View Depth to Level Below or Unlimited, objects that are below the bottom of the view range but within the view depth will be overridden with the <Beyond> line style.

Perhaps you only need to apply a different view range setting to isolated areas of a view. This can be accomplished with the use of the Plan Region tool. You can find this tool in the Create panel of the View tab along with the other Plan View tools. The Plan Region tool allows you to sketch a boundary within which the View Range dialog box will be available to make specific changes. You can use this method for areas such as windows that might be placed in a wall above the cut plane but need to be shown on the plan for documentation.

Another useful property of plans is known as an underlay. Although this property may function more like a tool, it is found in the Properties palette along with the other view properties. An underlay allows you to use any other level as a reference in the current view. You can use the underlay to display ceiling soffits in a floor plan, to display furniture layouts in a ceiling plan, or to use another level as a reference for replicating partition layouts.

CREATING ELEVATIONS

Selecting the Elevation tool on the View tab creates elevations of various types. You’ll also notice that as you place an elevation tag, the elevations automatically orient to walls (Figure 2.46). If there’s no host element nearby to reference, they’ll automatically orient to the left.

Figure 2.46 Elevation tag orientation

Selecting the center of the tag will allow you to create additional elevation views (more typically done for interior elevations) by selecting the unchecked boxes that surround the elevation tag (Figure 2.47).

Figure 2.47 Creating additional elevations

If you select the directional point of the elevation tag, you’ll see a blue line that defines the beginning of the cut plane for the elevation as well as a dashed line that defines the side and rear extents (Figure 2.48). This allows you to control the analytic extents of the elevation without moving the graphic tag, which is useful if you want the tag in a particular location but you want the cutting plane to start somewhere else.

Figure 2.48 Elevation extents

Finally, there are three types of elevations in a Revit project: exterior, interior, and framing. Their differences are more than graphic. Exterior elevations by default don’t have an active crop boundary, only a starting cut plane. Interior elevations have their crop boundary on by default and attempt to find boundaries of host elements, like walls, floors, and ceilings. Framing elevations can be placed only along a grid line, and their cut plane corresponds to the respective grid.

CREATING SECTIONS

Selecting the Section tool on the View tab creates sections. By default, three types of sections are available from the Type Selector: Building, Wall, and Detail. This allows them to be grouped with better clarity in the Project Browser, but there are also other important properties.

Unlike with elevations, the cutting plane of a section must correspond with its graphic line. Figure 2.49 shows the instance properties of a Building section. The far and side cut planes of a section can also be controlled. This goes for both Building and Wall sections.

Figure 2.49 Section properties and extents

Building and Wall sections must be created in a perpendicular orientation with respect to levels. But after you create them, they can be rotated in elevation. However, doing so would lead to confusion in your project because, once rotated, the section wouldn’t be displayed in plan view because the section cutting plane would no longer be perpendicular to the plan view.

A Detail section will have a different graphic symbol by default, although you can customize this to your liking. We discuss this form of customization in Chapter 4. Beyond the differing graphic symbol, Detail sections will have a smaller clipping region than a Building or Wall section. In Figure 2.50, a Building section is shown at the left of the image and a Detail section is shown to the right.

Figure 2.50 Building and Detail sections shown in plan view

It’s important to know that a Detail section created in plan will automatically display as a callout in any Building section or Wall section if the Detail section overlaps a larger section. Of course, this is not an ideal workflow for architectural documentation. We discuss the process of using callouts from larger sections in Chapter 16.

Also note the color of callout and section heads in Figure 2.50. These blue icons act as hyperlinks to the other views in your project. Double-click on any of these blue heads to activate that view.

CREATING CALLOUTS

The Callout tool allows you to create views that are intended to be enlarged from the scale of the parent view in which you create the callout. When you are in a parent view – a floor plan, section view, or elevation view – you can create a callout from the View tab in the ribbon within the Create panel.

The most important aspect of the Callout tool you need to understand is the difference between the types of callout views you can create. When you activate the Callout tool, click on the Type Selector in the Properties palette. You will see several choices that depend on what kind of view you currently have activated. For example, if you are using the Callout tool in a floor plan view, you will see Detail and Floor Plan listed in the Type Selector, as shown in Figure 2.51. Two types of callouts are available in the Type Selector: Detail and Floor Plan. Although Detail callouts may look like Detail sections graphically, they’re not visible inside other perpendicular views. So a callout created in plan view will not be visible in elevations or sections like a Detail section.

Figure 2.51 Be aware of the different types of callouts you can create from the Type Selector.

In the example shown in Figure 2.51, if you select Detail, the callout view you create will be listed in the Project Browser under Detail Views. If you select Floor Plan, the callout view will be listed under Floor Plans. You cannot change a callout view from one type to another after it is created, so plan the configuration of your views carefully.

Beyond the organization of callout views in the Project Browser, choosing the right type for your callouts affects other functionality as well. The Detail callout has a unique property called Show In. This property can be set to either Parent View Only or Intersecting Views. If the callout is set to show in Intersecting Views, this type of callout in plan would display as a section detail mark in an intersecting view such as a Building section. In Figure 2.52, you can see the callout added to the floor plan (left). When the Show In property of that callout is set to Intersecting Views, it displays as a detail section mark in the building section (right).

Figure 2.52 Detail callouts can be set to show in intersecting views.

If you create a callout using the same type as the parent view, the callout view will also have all the same view controls as the parent view. In the floor plan example, you will still have view properties such as Depth Clipping and View Range. In a Detail callout, the property called Far Clip Settings can be set to either Independent or Same As Parent View.

Take a moment to note the grips on the boundary of a callout when one is selected. You can use these grips to change the size of the callout boundary, but this also modifies the crop region within the callout view. As you might assume, if you modify the crop region in the callout view, the callout boundary also changes.

Callouts can be created in either a simple rectangular shape or in any custom sketched shape. You will see these two tool options in the Callout flyout button in the ribbon, but you can always edit a rectangular callout by first selecting a callout and then selecting Edit Crop from the contextual tab in the ribbon. You can also return a custom shape callout to a simple rectangular shape by clicking Reset Crop in the ribbon.

Finally, you may customize the appearance of the callout boundary and leader line from the Object Styles dialog box. Go to the Manage tab in the ribbon and from the Settings panel, click Object Styles. Select the Annotation Objects tab, and you will be able to customize the line weight, color, and pattern for the callout boundary and the leader line.

USING DRAFTING VIEWS

Drafting views give you the ability to draw without first creating a reference to something in your project. They may contain Detail and Repeating Detail components and any other annotation content. Drafting views are great for quickly documenting typical conditions that don’t require an actual model geometry.

Once you create a drafting view, you can refer to this view when creating an elevation, section, detail, and so on that would normally rely on an actual view of the model. As you start to create a standard project view (Figure 2.53), simply select the Reference Other View option from the contextual tab of the ribbon, and then you’ll be allowed to select a reference view from all the other like views in your project as well as any drafting views. You can even use the search bar to easily locate specific view names instead of scrolling through a long list of all project views.

Figure 2.53 Use the search bar with the Reference Other View option.

USING LEGENDS

Legends are views in which you can display samples of model elements that won’t affect schedules and quantity takeoffs. There are two types of legends: legends and keynote legends. Regular legends are used to assemble analytic views of content in your project, graphics, geometry, tags, and so on – anything that lives in your project. Legends may contain Detail, Repeating Detail, and Legend components – which are live representations of 3D model elements. Legends are unique in that they are the only view that can be placed on more than one sheet.

A Legend component (Figure 2.54) is a special live representation of a system or component family that may appear only in legend views (not drafting views). If you make a change to an element in your project, the representation of that element in the legend will change as well. When you are creating a legend view, the Legend Component tool is located in the Component flyout button on the Detail panel of the Annotate tab in the ribbon.

Figure 2.54 Legend components

Keynote legends are special schedules. When creating a keynote legend, you’ll be prompted much the same way as you are when creating a schedule (Figure 2.55). These types of legends are meant to be placed on either one sheet or multiple sheets. If the legend is placed on every sheet in which keynotes are used, the Filter By Sheet option should be selected on the Filter tab of the Keynote Legend Properties dialog box. With this option selected, only those keynotes that appear in views placed on a sheet will appear in the sheet’s keynote legend.

Figure 2.55 An example of a keynote legend placed on a sheet

USING SCHEDULES

All model elements have information about their properties such as size, material, and cost. You can report and interact with this information in tabular views known as schedules. There are six types of schedule views that can be accessed from the Create panel in the View tab of the ribbon: Schedule/Quantities, Graphical Column Schedule, Material Takeoff, Sheet List, Note Block, and View List.

Schedule/Quantities This is the most commonly used schedule type, allowing you to list and quantify all the element category types. You would use this type to make door schedules, wall schedules, window schedules, and so on. These schedule types are usually limited to scheduling properties within the same category; however, you can create a multicategory schedule or use some fields from other elements. For example, many model elements can refer to the properties of the room in which they are placed.

Graphical Column Schedule This schedule is different from the other schedule types and is commonly used by structural engineers. Structural columns are displayed according to their grid intersections, indicating top and bottom constraints as well as offsets.

Material Takeoff This type of schedule lists all the materials and subcomponents of any family category. You can use a material takeoff to measure any material that is used in a component or assembly. For example, you might want to know the volume of concrete within the model. Regardless of whether the concrete is in a wall or floor or column, you can tell the schedule to report the total amount of that material in the project. Material takeoffs will report material properties across multiple categories.

Sheet List This schedule allows you to create a list of all the sheets in the project.

Note Block This tool creates a unique schedule that lists the properties of a generic annotation symbol used in a project.

View List This schedule shows a list of all the views in the Project Browser and their properties. A view list can be a valuable tool to help you manage your project’s views efficiently.

USING SHEETS

You will use sheets to organize views and other annotation for the purpose of issuing printable (physical or digital) documents. Sheet borders can be customized, but the important fact to realize is that sheets are always scaled at 1:1. The important thing to remember is that you’re not going to select a scale when you print a sheet; it’s really more like printing than plotting. If you need your sheet to be smaller or fit on the desired page, these options are available, and using them is little different than printing from a word processing application.

You will learn more about creating sheets in Chapter 17.

USING 3D VIEWS

Two kinds of 3D views are supported: orthographic and perspective. The Default 3D view is orthographic, whereas the Camera and Walkthrough views are in perspective (Figure 2.56). You can right-click on the View Cube and select the Toggle To command in the context menu. To enable the ability to toggle between isometric and perspective, you must have a crop region activated in the view. We’ll also cover 3D views in detail in Chapter 11.

Figure 2.56 Creating 3D view types and toggling between them

Orthographic views will always show parallel edges along Cartesian x-, y-, and z-axes. Orthographic views are best if you need to show model information to scale. A lot of people don’t realize that it’s possible to dimension and detail in Revit software from a 3D orthographic view. For a more thorough explanation of annotating a 3D view, refer to Chapter 20, “Presenting Your Design.”

Create camera views by placing the start and end points of a camera (typically from a plan view). The first point you select in plan is the point from which the view will be taken, but the second point is also the rotation origin for the view (Figure 2.57). This is important because if you select a second point that is far beyond your view, when you open the view and attempt to modify it, it will rotate around a target that doesn’t seem to make sense. That’s because the target location of the view is off in the distance.

Figure 2.57 Setting camera and target origins

A perspective view will not be to scale, but it can be made relatively larger or smaller by selecting the view’s crop region and then selecting the Size Crop button from the Modify | Camera tab. Once you do this, you’ll have the option to change the view size and field of view, proportionally or not proportionally (Figure 2.58). You can also simply drag the nodes of the bounding box.

Figure 2.58 Modifying the view size and field of view

Camera extents are defined by the Far Clip Offset option, accessed in the Properties palette for the view. If the Far Clip Offset is too low, the view may resemble the image shown in Figure 2.59. Geometry that you’d expect to see will be “clipped” in the view.

Figure 2.59 The Far Clip Offset is too shallow.

Simply increase the Far Clip Offset value to show more of the model. You may also do this graphically by returning to a plan view, right-clicking the camera view in the Project Browser, and then selecting Show Camera. Once the camera is shown in your plan view, you can select the node at the far end of your clipping plane and manually drag the node to extend the far clip offset of your view in a similar manner to that shown in Figure 2.58.

Finally, the extents of 3D views (even walkthroughs) can be customized with the use of section boxes. You’ll find the Section Box option in the Properties palette for a 3D view. This will allow you to control how much of the project is shown (Figure 2.60) and is helpful for creating cutaway visualizations in real time or in renderings.

Figure 2.60 Section box applied to a 3D view

Once a section box is enabled in a 3D view, you can select it in order to stretch or rotate it according to your needs. The section box is not considered a crop region, and therefore it is not affected when you use the Show Crop Region command. If you want to hide a section box, select it and then select Hide Elements from the View panel in the ribbon.

Managing Your Project Model

Project management involves all the settings that control (and therefore restrict) the graphic information previously described in this chapter as relationships, repetition, and representations. Returning to the organization chart in Figure 2.22, you’ll see that a Revit project is managed with settings such as line styles, phasing, and view templates.

To cover all aspects of project management in this one chapter would be overwhelming; therefore, you can find more detailed information about the following topics throughout this book:

● For object styles, line styles, fill patterns, line weights, and view templates, refer to Chapter 4, “Configuring Templates and Standards.”

● For worksets and worksharing, refer to Chapter 5, “Working in a Team.”

● For phasing and design options, refer to Chapter 10, “Working with Phasing, Groups, and Design Options.”

● To learn about locations and shared positioning, refer to Chapter 3, “The Basics of the Toolbox.”