Opening with Varying Widths Throughout Revit Wall

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.

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Hiding Specific Level Markers in Revit

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.

Revit Section Bubble Placed In Text

I get asked about how to place a detail bubble or a section bubble amongst text notes where the actual leader for the bubble is not desired.  The user still wants to have the information within the bubble to auto-update, so the bubble needs to be an actual callout. This is a very common situation,   The following image is an example of a typical situation.

Revit Design Options in Linked Files

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.

Show Existing Architecture But Not Electrical

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.

• If the Electrical file’s view has its Phase parameter set to New Construction, and the Phase Filter parameter set to Show Previous + New, you will see the existing elements for both files as well as the new elements for both files.
• If the Electrical file’s view has its Phase parameter set to New Construction, and the Phase Filter parameter set to Show New, you will only see the new elements for both files.  Existing elements will not be seen for either file.

Control Visibility of Plumbing Fitting Tick Marks in Revit

Single line drawings in Revit plumbing plans (Coarse and Medium displays) show the tick marks for fittings by default.  Some design firms prefer to not show tick marks for the elbows, tees, and other fittings.  Revit has a setting that allows users to adjust the printed size of the tick marks, but this affects all tick marks for all fittings.  I see situations where the designer wants to see tick marks for reducers and couplers, but not some other fittings.

Pipe fitting families can have a parameter added that controls the visibility of the tick marks.  This allows the user to specify which fittings should show the tick marks and also allows tick mark visibility to be different for different projects.

Each Pipe Fitting family will need to be modified, but we will take a look at one family here.

Revit Section Markers Discipline Visibility

When and how Revit section markers display on plan views can be a bit confusing when you are working with multiple disciplines.  With more disciplines involved with a model, the more noticeable and confusing the issue becomes.  This is due to the fact that section markers are discipline-specific and cannot be displayed on all the different disciplines of plan views.

Revit is designed so that section markers will not show in other discplines’ views and this is based upon the Discipline parameter of a view.  Revit has 6 different Disciplines available for selection for a view.  They are:

• Architectural
• Structural
• Mechanical
• Electrical
• Plumbing
• Coordination

 

My Favorite Revit 2019 New Features

Most Revit users have heard that Autodesk has released the 2019 versions of its various software packages.  Autodesk has included a lot of nice enhancements with this release and delivered on many of the user wish list items.  While there are still many improvements to be made to Revit, I am pleased with enhancements in this release.

Align Revit Elevations with Angled Walls

When designing buildings, we all know that we often get walls that are non-orthogonal and at various angles to the sheet.  With those walls, we often want to get an elevation that is parallel to a particular wall.  It is actually easy to do.

Project Browser Enhancement in Revit 2018.2

Revit 2018.2 was just released and it has a nice enhancement to the Project Browser that can be easily missed.  With this release we now have more options available when we desire to expand or collapse information in the Project Browser.

Prior to Revit 2018.2, your only option to expand items in the Project Browser was to pick on the plus sign (+) next to the section’s name to expand the section and show additional information or the minus (-) sign next to the section’s name to collapse the section and show less information.  You still have those options, but the following menu is now available when you right-click over any of the sections in the Project Browser.

Schedule Organization Improvements in Revit 2018.1

For a long time, I have wished that there were better ways to organize schedules in Revit’s Project Browser, especially in project files with dozens of schedules.  The recently released 2018.1 version of Revit does just that and allows me various ways to organize my schedules in a Revit project file.  Different disciplines and different companies have varying quantities of schedules, so some users will appreciate this new feature more than users.

The following image shows grouping the schedules based upon working schedules and schedules that will be placed on sheets.  This particular option is created by having 2 different View Templates for schedules – one for working schedules and one for schedules on sheets.  Schedules are then grouped by View Templates.

Starting View Using Parameters

It is pretty typical for organizations to utilize the Starting View function within Revit and use that view to show project information.  That information often includes project name, project number, project address, and other important data.  Ideally, some of that information would be displayed using the same project parameters as used in title blocks to maintain consistency.  It can.

I believe that using a starting view is “good BIM” and good utilization of the starting view is very important.  It can help the model load more quickly and give the user important information about the project since it will be the first view seen when opening the project file.

Many organizations use a drafting view as their starting view.  When using a drafting view, project parameters cannot be used since labels are not allowed in a drafting view.  A “Label” is needed in order to use a parameter and are used in families.  If a drafting view is used, regular text needs to be used for the information.

A good method to use project parameters in your starting view is to utilize a sheet with a custom title block for the starting view.