Revit 2020.2 release made a change to the Project Base Point that affected many users by removing the clip/unclip capability for it. Previous releases of Revit had a paper clip symbol that the user could see next to the Project Base Point symbol as shown below.
While this clip feature is no longer part of Revit as of the 2020.2 (it is still in 2020.1), the user still has the capability to move the project.
Points clouds are becoming more commonly used as a resource for creating a Revit model. In my Revit model creation from point clouds, I use a few techniques that I am sharing in this article to help ease the process for you. While I am sure some others do things a bit different, I have found that these work well for me. There are some tools on the market that assist in getting a Revit model from a point cloud, but many people do not have the financial resources for them or rarely use point clouds. Therefore, this article is geared to those not having any additional tools.
This article does not address how to create a point cloud or manipulating it outside of Revit. It only addresses using the point cloud for creating a Revit model.
When sending a Revit project file to another person or company, it is nice to be able to send all of the associated files with the project file. Revit has incorporated this command, thus enabling us to package up the required files to be sent together. This is an easily overlooked command and many people are not aware of it. AutoCAD has had this command for many versions.
Files included in the transmittal:
Go to the Add-Ins tab of the menu system at the top.
Select the Transmit a model icon from the eTransmit panel.
Placing crown molding at the top of cabinetry is very common in residential design and can be easy to do in Revit. Ideally, I would like to use a sweep with a crown molding profile, but Revit utilizes sweeps only for walls when not in the family editor. The trick to making this an easy process for the user is to create a specialty wall that has the desired sweep profile built into it. This allows you draw the “wall” to follow the front edge of the cabinetry at the desired elevation for the crown molding.
The following image shows the resultant crown molding.
With each release of software, there seems to be little things that change, but are either not documented as a change or the documentation on being a change is buried and difficult to locate. In Revit 2020, there are some changes in the built-in parameters for families when they are placed in a project file. These changes can come into play when using automation, such as Dynamo. While they may or may not have much impact on your particular usage of Revit, it is important information of which to be aware.
It is common to have openings in walls that are not of a consistent width all the way through the wall. An example of this is when a door is recessed into a brick wall and the brick opening is wider than the stud/masonry wall opening or the door. The following illustration shows a door opening in a stud and brick wall with the brick opening wider to allow brickmould casing around the door.
Revit doors and windows, by default, have an opening that goes straight through the wall with a completely rectangular opening. If you just use the default Door.rft or Window.rft with the default opening to create your doors and window families, you will not see the above jogged offset opening.
The secret to getting the walls to cut as you desire is to NOT use the Opening Cut that is in the family template, but use Voids instead.
Within Revit, it is standard procedure for architects to use “Rooms” and engineers to use “Spaces” to delineate areas of the building. This is due to how Revit utilizes each of these 2 categories of items, so each have their place. An issue with this procedure is that Spaces and Rooms for the same area should have the same name, but this does not happen automatically. This can cause problems with consistency between the architect’s plans and the engineer’s plans.
Since the 2017 version, Revit has given us a tool to help keep Room names and Space names consistent. Prior to 2017, we had to rely on either naming the Spaces manually or utilizing one of the 3rd party tools on the market. With this command, we can update all of the Spaces in the entire model to be the same as a Room that is in the same bounded area (if there is a Room element there.) Autodesk slipped this command into the menu system and I don’t remember them promoting it, but it is a fantastic tool for engineers! It can save hours of work trying to get Room and Space Names consistent.
Revit 2020 has a new feature that will please Electrical designers. Feed through lugs are now incorporated into Revit for your electrical distribution system. Previously, electrical users had to utilize workarounds to represent this situation in their designs, so this will improve the documentation process and help with the electrical design.
As part of this new feature, Revit has added a new panel schedule template, which is called “Feed Through Lugs Panel“. This panel is available in the Electrical-Default.rte and the Systems-Default.rte templates. This panel template is accessible via the Manage tab -> Settings panel -> Panel Schedule Templates.
The process to actual set up the electrical panels to utilize the above Panel Schedule is shown below. Continue reading
Many times in Revit, you create Levels that are utilized for various purposes. Sometimes, there are some of those Levels that you do NOT want to display in elevation and section views on the final construction documents. They are Levels that you use for your design, but might be confusing to those viewing your construction documents. Therefore, it is best to just not have them seen. This is a common practice for all disciplines.
Levels are turned on or off easily in the visibility controls, however, that control turns ALL Level markers on or off. A good way to control which ones you want seen is to create a new Level Type that is specifically used when you don’t want to see that level. You can then create a View Filter to filter for that new Level Type and turn it off in the views where you desire the level to not be seen.
The following illustration shows the same project file with 2 different elevation views. The view on the left has a new Level Type turned off and the right view has all Level Types turned on.
When placing components on the face of a wall in Revit, the same component may move differently when the wall base offset changes. This can cause frustration to the user by not understanding why it is happening. No one wants to see their component change elevation when they don’t expect it.
Walls can have the bottom offset either up (positive dimension) or down (negative dimension) to raise or lower the base of the wall. While the majority of the time the wall will be at the floor level, there are many times when the wall needs to be above the floor. A couple of examples are a wall that sets on a concrete curb, or a wall which serves as a soffit. The Base Offset parameter for the wall is modified in the Properties palette when the wall is highlighted. Continue reading
It is not uncommon for construction bid projects to have alternate bid items as part of the design. Revit users will typically use the Design Option capability of Revit to show the alternate bid(s). This works excellent for the Architect, but it does not work quite as well for MEP consultants.
For the Architect to make it a bit easier for their MEP consultant, it is good for the Architect to create a model elements only view of the alternate bid design option in their Architectural model. This allows the MEP consultant to reference this view in their model without extraneous information.
I have seen the situation where the Electrical designer was working on a remodel project and did not want their Existing electrical devices to be shown in the New Construction phase views. The existing electrical devices and equipment were only to be shown on views that displayed only existing information. However, they needed to show both the Existing and New Construction walls and other Architectural elements in the New Construction views. Revit doesn’t want to do this without changing the default settings.
By default, the linked Architectural elements will show the same phase as the host Electrical file’s view.
Applying Technology to Architecture 