Creating Supplemental Drawings in Revit

The creation of supplemental drawings is common for design and construction projects, and they are typically used for addenda before the project bid or revisions after the bid.  It is ideal to create a permanent copy of the supplemental drawing to create a record copy that never changes.  Since the Revit model is dynamic, it can be difficult to keep that record copy within the Revit project file.  While a PDF or image can be created, it is nice to have the view of the supplemental drawing be a permanent aspect of the project file.  The Autodesk Subscription Advantage Pack for Revit includes the Freeze Drawings extension that is a great aid in creating supplemental drawings.

The Freeze Drawings extension will take a “photograph” of a Revit view and make a drafting view out of that “photograph”.  No matter how much the original view changes in the future, the drafting view that was created from it will not change.  That provides you with a record copy of the view.

Process to create a supplemental drawing for an Addendum:

Create a new view to show the area that is to be shown in the addendum drawing.  Crop regions will typically be needed to show only the area that is required, especially since an addendum drawing will commonly be placed on an 8-1/2”x11” sheet.  Be sure and set the desired plot scale and detail level.

When the extensions are installed, they get added to the Add-Ins tab of the ribbon.  Select the Extensions Manager tool from the Extensions panel, then double-click the Freeze Drawings option in the Extensions Manager dialog box.

In the Freeze Drawings dialog box, you can choose to freeze the current view or select one or multiple views to freeze.  If you choose the Options button, you have the option to “Delete source view”.  This is a good option for supplemental drawings so that the supplemental drawing view does not get accidentally modified and re-printed in the future.  After choosing the view(s) to freeze and whether to delete the source view(s), pick the OK button to start the operation.

After the process is completed, you will get a message that states “The Freeze operation is completed successfully.  Go to ‘Drafting views’ to see the drawings”.  This process creates a new drafting view that is no longer associated with the actual model elements.  Go into the Drafting Views category and rename the newly created view(s) to a more meaningful name(s).  Annotate the drafting view as required to meet the supplemental drawing needs.  If this is for a revision, the revision cloud and tag can be placed in this drafting view.  Note that changing the view scale or detail level at this point will not change the appearance of walls, doors, equipment, tags, fills, or anything else that existed in the view when the Freeze Drawing extension was run.

Create a new sheet for this supplemental drawing and place the new drafting view on the sheet.  You now have a supplemental drawing that will always be in your project, but will not change.  If you make a later change to the model in the same area, the drafting view still shows the original modification and keeping the integrity of the supplemental drawing intact.

Note that the Freeze Drawings extension is only available to users on the Autodesk Subscription program for Revit.  Go to the Subscription Center or within your product to download them if you are a subscription customer.