Showing elements from a ceiling plan in a floor plan

From time to time it’s nice to see overhead items in a Revit floor plan. Dropped ceilings, soffits, light fixtures, etc. are all useful to see in plan view, especially when arranging furniture and such.

Here’s a great and incredibly simple technique to show these items in plan using whatever line style you choose, while still maintaining the connection to the actual ceiling elements. I’ve found some designers simply using drafting lines to create these items in plan, but this is a non-BIM way of doing things, since there is no real connection between the items in plan and the elements in the RCP. Sure, you could constrain and lock them, but the following method is much simpler.

What’s the trick? Well, it makes use of Underlay, setting the orientation to Reflected Ceiling Plan, then using the Linework tool. The slick thing is that once you’ve overridden the line style, you can shut off the underlay and the lines you’ve modified are still visible. Nice, right?

I’m sure that’s enough to get a lot of you going, but here are the step by step details in a quick Revit tutorial.

Revit Tutorial – Show Elements from a Ceiling Plan in a Floor Plan View

Revit - Standard Reflected Ceiling Plan View

Here is a standard Revit reflected ceiling plan. We’ve got an acoustic tile ceiling with an overhead lighting fixture in the conference room.

Revit - Standard Floor Plan

As you know, by default in a Revit floor plan view, no ceiling items are shown.

Revit - Turn on Underlay with RCP Orientation

Set Underlay to Level 1 (same level) and make sure the Underlay Orientation is set to Reflected Ceiling Plan

Revit - Linework Tool

Use the Line Work tool from the Modify panel of the Ribbon to change the appearance of the edge of elements you’d like to be visible in the floor plan. You’ll notice that there is an Overhead style that exists for this very purpose.

Revit - Overhead Line Style

Piece of cake, right? Simple choose ‘Overhead’ from the Line Style drop down (or whatever line style you prefer) then click the edge of the element you want to be visible. You’ll see the line change from halftone (underlay style) to a dark line with whatever line style you choose.

Revit - Ceiling Elements in Floor Plan

Here’s the finishing touch! Turn off Underlay in the View Properties. Presto! The lines that we modified with the Line Work tool are still visible. Sweet, right?

Getting informed and up to date on Revit 2012 Extensions

Don’t forget your extensions!

I am not talking about tax extensions here, I am referring to additional tools under your subscription benefits that leverage the functionality of the Revit platform beyond what is shipped.

I want to point out 6 extensions for the Revit 2012 Platform.

First off, if you have never done this before download and install the platform specific Revit Extensions for Autodesk Revit Architecture 2012 from this link. Revit Architecture 2012 Extensions. Revit EMP 2012 from this link. Revit MEP 2012 Extensions or Revit Structural 2012 from this link: Revit Structural 2012 Extensions. Each Revit product has its own discipline specific extensions and the following 7 are covered below.

1. Autodesk Revit DB Link 2012
Import and export data between all Autodesk Revit 2012 products any external database, to maintain relationships of linked data with Autodesk® Revit® DB Link. There are 4 ways this tool aids in changes bi-directionally.

• In Revit users will have a grid view of the data to let users make changes to the data prior to importing and exporting.
• The results in databases begin modified after changes internally or externally .
• The grid control enables you to create Revit shared parameters to add new fields to related tables in the database.
• Changes to new fields within the database automatically update Revit shared parameters upon future imports.

More topics on this tool are found here: Revit DB Link on Autodesk WiKiHelp and download it here: Revit 2012 DB Link

2. Autodesk Revit Model Review 2012

Automate the process of reviewing and auditing building information modeling (BIM) projects in all Autodesk Revit 2012 products software with the Autodesk® Revit® Model Review plug-in:

• Check the accuracy and consistency of a Project or Family against standards set by your firm, your clients, or industry best practices.
• Correct inconsistencies with a single click or with instructions provided when manual fixes are required.

More topics on this tool are found here: Revit Model Review on Autodesk WiKiHelp and  download it here: Revit Model Review 2012

3. Worksharing Monitor for Autodesk Revit 2012

Worksharing Monitor facilitates the use of all Autodesk Revit 2012 products in a worksharing environment, in which multiple people work on one project from a workshared central file. For workshared projects, Worksharing Monitor answers questions such as:

• Who is currently working on this project?
• Is my local copy of the project up-to-date?
• When will my Save to Central operation finish?
• Has my request to borrow elements been granted?
• Are any issues interfering with my work on a Revit software project?

More topics on this tool are found here: Revit Worksharing Monitor on Autodesk WiKiHelp download it here: Work Sharing Monitor for Revit 2012

4. Space Naming Utility for Autodesk Revit MEP 2012
The Space Naming Utility for Autodesk® Revit® MEP 2012 software is an intuitive tool that automatically assigns the names and numbers from architectural rooms to Revit MEP spaces. By downloading the Space Naming Utility for Revit MEP 2012 software, you can eliminate the need to manually assign names to the spaces, helping save time and simplifying your workflow.

Download it here: Space Naming Utility for Revit MEP 2012

5. Globe Link for Autodesk Revit 2012

With Globe Link, users can publish 3D building information models directly from Autodesk Revit 2012 products into Google Earth™ mapping service. Users can also acquire site information from Google Earth mapping service and import it into Revit 2012 software applications for building and site layout purposes.

More topics on this tool are found here: Revit Globe Link on Autodesk WiKiHelp download it here: Globe Link for Revit 2012

6. Batch Print for Autodesk Revit 2012

Batch Print provides an easy way to print a large number of drawings (views and sheets) from any Autodesk Revit 2012 product based project. After preparing the default printer and the Revit software project, use Batch Print to:

• Send any number of drawings to the printer
• Control the order in which they print.
• When you start the print job, Batch Print manages the printing of the drawings, requiring no further interaction from you. If desired, you can monitor the progress of the print job using a status dialog.

More topics on this tool are found here: Revit Batch Print on Autodesk WiKiHelp and download it here: Revit 2012 Batch Print

7.  Roombook Extension for Revit Architecture 2012

The Roombook Extension for Autodesk® Revit® Architecture 2012 software helps calculate the surface area of walls, floors and ceiling elements, room circumferences and the total number of furnishing elements within a project. In addition to the automated detection of room areas and surfaces, this extension helps users configure these elements manually to local requirements, as well as achieve more accurate model take-offs. Quantified results can be exported to Microsoft® Excel® software and Autodesk® Quantity Takeoff (QTO) software.

Updates to 2012 are:

• Each calculated element is listed with all its single faces.
• Enhancements to prepare Roombook data for further editing in Autodesk Quantity Takeoff 2012.
• Export to DWF/DWFx via native Revit command.
• Roombook data in Revit schedule views.
• Consider material when “by element” is used.

More topics on this tool are found here: RoomBook Extension on YouTube and download it here: Roombook Extension download

Now head off to your subscription login, get them all and install them to your current installation. No extra cost when signed up a a subscription seat.

Control visibility of masking region linework in Revit

While creating a custom office furniture family set for a client a while back, I had the need to control the appearance of boundary lines in a Revit masking region.

On the surface, it seemed like something pretty easy to do. While in Sketch Mode for the masking region, you can select the boundary line you want to paramaterize to control its visibility and add a Yes/No field to it. You can check out the accompanying image to see how I attempted this. Seems like it would do the trick, right?

The problem is that it just flat doesn’t work. For some reason, the Visibility parameter doesn’t apply to masking region boundaries. I fought with the masking region a bit before eventually, I figured out a pretty easy work around. It was one of those things I figured out while deep in the middle of a family creation project that saved the day, but I didn’t take the time to put together a blog post or video to share it with my fellow Reviteers.

Well, Jose over at Andekan has created a great (while lengthy) video showing the problem and the work around. Check it out, after this brief description of the solution. Here’s the trick:

You can’t control the visibility of a Revit masking region boundary with a parameter.

Instead, change the linework of the boundary lines that you need to control to ‘Invisible’. Now they will never be seen. Exit sketch mode for the masking region.

Next, draw new Symbolic Lines over the top of them. Guess what? Symbolic Lines CAN have a parameter that controls their visibility!

You should be able to take it from there. If you want to see a great step by step, check out the video from Andekan. Also, be sure to check out their high quality custom Revit families. These guys do a great job of creating powerful and parametric Revit content.

Multiple Column Text in Revit 2012

Multiple Column Text in Revit 2012

We’ve been waiting for it for years and it’s finally here! Well, sorta. Sorry, before I get your hopes up too high, let me tell you that the headline is a little misleading. There are many great new features and improvements in Revit Architecture 2012, but, sad to say, text manipulation and formatting still has a long way to go. So, how can we get our notes and text to wrap into multiple, free flowing columns? It’s pretty easy, once you know the technique.

We Know: Revit is not AutoCAD

If you’re at all like me, you probably hate it when people compare Revit to AutoCAD, i.e. “AutoCAD can do this… why can’t Revit?” It’s generally not very productive to make these comparisons, as these are two very different products. However, when it comes to text, it’s hard not to make comparisons. AutoCAD has made great strides in the last 10 years and now boasts a pretty full featured set of text formatting and manipulation tools that sometimes leaves Revit users envious. After all, MTEXT has given us easy column flow in AutoCAD for some time now. Just click the bottom grip, and, like magic, the text flows into multiple columns.

I understand that Revit is not a Word Processor, and it was never designed to be used to make large amounts of text look pretty. Even so, the fact is that in a typical set of construction documents, there are plenty of sheets that include a ton of notes. Sometimes, a whole sheet is dedicated to General Notes. So, how can we accomplish a multiple column effect? The trick is to create a Key Schedule instead of a Text object. Schedules can be split easily into columns and flow easily.

Here is how to Wrap Text into Columns in Revit:

Create a Key Schedule, using a category that you probably won’t use, such as Site.

Name the schedule appropriately, such as GENERAL NOTES, and add the COMMENTS field to it.

Name the headings # and Note, if you like (we’ll hide the headings anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.)

Now, cut and paste each of your notes into its own row. That’s the only tedious part, but getting the column flow flexibility makes it worth it.
If you really want the schedule to look more like notes than a table, turn off the lines.

I also like to shut of the Headers. We’ll keep the Title visible.

Sweet! Now we can easily break up the schedule into multiple columns.

You get a grip at the bottom very similar to the grip for MTEXT in AutoCAD that can be used to adjust the height of the column. You can continue to break up the schedule into even more columns.

To rejoin columns into a single column, just drag and drop it onto the main text block. Easy! By the way, this technique isn’t exclusive to 2012. It works for 2011 and 2010 as well.

The Future of Revit

So, this is a bit of a hack until we finally get some of those long awaited text tools in Revit. Rest assured, the Factory is not unaware of the current state of Revit’s text tools, and is always working on ways to give users what they need. Not being a hard-core programmer myself, I can’t really talk about what the hold up is, but I do understand enough to know that AutoCAD and Revit are built on very different software platforms, so it’s certainly not as easy as pulling a module of AutoCAD code and slapping it into Revit. Good things take time, and I look forward to the day I can announce that Revit 20xx has had a text formatting overhaul!

Until then, workarounds like this can get us through, and still let us benefit from the vast number of things that Revit really does rock at!

Happy designing!

Revit 2012 New Features part 1

Well, one of our favorite times of the year is finally here… The Autodesk 2012 software lineup, including Revit Architecture 2012, Revit Structure 2012, and Revit MEP 2012, has hit the streets and we’re eager to help all of our  users get up to speed as quickly as possible on all the great new features and improvements. All of us here at CADsoft Consulting have some great educational events planned to teach these new features and get you productive in a hurry.

As with any release, there are usually a few big changes or new functionality, along with a lot of little tweaks and improvements that often go unnoticed. The fact that some things go unnoticed is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s just evidence that a tool now works the way you always wanted or expected it to. It may not get a lot of fanfare, but you may still find yourself smiling when you use it and think smugly to yourself, “Hey, Autodesk listened to me. That’s just what I asked for!”

Well with Revit 2012, I certainly found some of those features. Some of my specific wants have been met and some things I didn’t even know I wanted are now included and I can’t imagine going back to the old way. As usual, I’ve been part of the beta team, so I’ve been able to put Revit 2012 through its paces for a few months, and while there is always room to grow (and still some of those things I’ve wanted that haven’t been built yet), this release has a lot to offer.

Here are a few of my favorite Revit 2012 new features

In today’s post, I’ll focus on the topic of Collaboration, with more posts to follow throughout the week.

Enjoy! I think you’ll find some great new features of Revit 2012 that will make your day.

Revit 2012 Worksharing Enhancements

The display in Revit has been modified to allow us to easily color code elements based on the Workset they belong to or the user they are editable by. This alone is an amazing timesaver that lets you see how your worksets are organized at a glance, as well as understanding who is working on what.

Best of all, however, is the addition of … drumroll… pop up Editing Requests!

Pop Up Editing Request Window

At long last, we have the feature users have been begging for since worksets were introduced — a request that users will actually see! Now, when you need to work on an element that is owned by someone else, you can put in an Editing Request, as before, but now, on that user’s machine, in the lower right corner, they will get a message that pops up that allows them to accept the request. Brilliant! No more lonely nights spent pining away at your Revit system, hoping and praying that someone would grant your unnoticed editing request.

Thank you Autodesk!

Stay tuned for an upcoming post on new tools for sustainable design.

Have fun with Revit 2012.