Sometimes there are things above the plan cut plane that you want to show up the plan. A ceiling mounted projector and the projector screen are two examples of items that you might want to see on the RCP and the floor plan.
Normally an object hosted on a ceiling will not appear on the plan so you could manually draw in dashed lines for the item. However every time the object moves or changes, you will have to more or edit the lines.
Just adding dashed lines below the object in the Family where the floor would be will not make it appear in the floor plan.
But drawing an invisible line in the Family straight down so that it passes through the View's Cut Plane will trigger it to appear. You can then use the Linework tool to make the lines dashed.
Plan Regions can also be used for this. You will have to create a plan region for each object. So if you have multiple objects of the same Family, the invisible line trick will automatically do make all of them visible.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
When to use Design Options and Phases
Design Options > small scope changes
When you are creating a design option for an element, anything hosted or affected by that element must also be addressed by each option. So if you are creating 3 design options for a roof, any skylights hosted in that roof have to be addressed in 3 different options. If the change to the roof affects the way a wall connects to the roof, then that wall and anything hosted by that wall has to be part of each option.
So Design Options are effective for small scale changes, but can end up bloating file sizes and creating a lot of work for changes of a larger scope.
Phases > larger scope changes
Phases are not limited to the default "New" and "Existing Construction." They can be used in a similar way to Design Options to show multiple larger scale options. Phase Filters allow you to control the visibility of phases. This is a little more complex to set up than Design Options but can save on the amount of duplicated work.
Multiple Linked Models > large scope changes
If a large portion of the model is changing in each option or you are evaluating different schemes, using multiple linked models may be a better solution. Linking the models allows you to set up side-by-side comparisons easily. Each option is a separate file, so the changes in one will not affect the other. This is only a good option to use when the overall design is still very schematic and large scale changes are happening that need to be evaluated against each other.
When you are creating a design option for an element, anything hosted or affected by that element must also be addressed by each option. So if you are creating 3 design options for a roof, any skylights hosted in that roof have to be addressed in 3 different options. If the change to the roof affects the way a wall connects to the roof, then that wall and anything hosted by that wall has to be part of each option.
So Design Options are effective for small scale changes, but can end up bloating file sizes and creating a lot of work for changes of a larger scope.
Phases > larger scope changes
Phases are not limited to the default "New" and "Existing Construction." They can be used in a similar way to Design Options to show multiple larger scale options. Phase Filters allow you to control the visibility of phases. This is a little more complex to set up than Design Options but can save on the amount of duplicated work.
Multiple Linked Models > large scope changes
If a large portion of the model is changing in each option or you are evaluating different schemes, using multiple linked models may be a better solution. Linking the models allows you to set up side-by-side comparisons easily. Each option is a separate file, so the changes in one will not affect the other. This is only a good option to use when the overall design is still very schematic and large scale changes are happening that need to be evaluated against each other.
Schedules
Working View/Sheet View of Schedule
Schedules are just a view of information in the model like any other type of View. So you should set up a standardized view for a sheet that will be printed that only shows the information that you want to have printed. Then use a separate working view to edit the schedule. In this view other parameters that you do not necessarily want to show up in the printed view can be seen and it can be sorted in different ways that make it easier to use when working. This way project managers and anyone first coming into the project can see the information in the schedule without extraneous information.
Schedules are just a view of information in the model like any other type of View. So you should set up a standardized view for a sheet that will be printed that only shows the information that you want to have printed. Then use a separate working view to edit the schedule. In this view other parameters that you do not necessarily want to show up in the printed view can be seen and it can be sorted in different ways that make it easier to use when working. This way project managers and anyone first coming into the project can see the information in the schedule without extraneous information.
Schedule Keys
When you are creating a schedule there are often many items in the schedule that have the same properties. Rather than manually entering the same data for each one, you can automate the process using Schedule Keys.
They are created like a Schedule by selecting "Schedule Key" instead of "Schedule building components". Then you apply the apply the Key style to the objects that you want. As with anything in Revit, taking time to plan out what paramaters you want to duplicate will save you time in teh long run. Once a Key has been applied to an object, any values given by the Key will become read-only in the Schedule. To change them you would have to make the change in teh Schedule Key. The Revit Help Menu has more information on Schedule Keys.
Monday, December 7, 2009
My AU 2009 experience
We have been using Revit as a AutoCAD alternative to document our projects, but have only scratched the surface of what Revit can do. At Autodesk University 2009 I tried to focus on classes in Conceptual Design, Planning and Urban Design, and visualization to see how we might expand our use of Revit and use it more intelligently.
I think Jim wants to have a lunch-and-learn type thing to share what we learned. Some of the information will probably also get put into the blog by topic. I put some of the information I downloaded here:
K:\Autodesk University Class Data\AU 2009
Here area some of the topics:
Creating and Analyzing Conceptual Massing Geometry With the Revit API
Programming in the API is probably a little too advanced for most of us, but it gives you idea on how information could be brought into Revit from a variety of sources as data and used to drive geometry.
Autodesk-Revit-for-Film-and-Stage
Parts of iRobot, Snakes on a Plane, the Watchmen, X-Men: the Last Stand were modeled in Revit.
Autodesk® Revit® for Urban Design - HOK presented some planning work they have done at a variety of scales. They have a lot of information on their blog.
http://hokbimsolutions.blogspot.com/
I think Jim wants to have a lunch-and-learn type thing to share what we learned. Some of the information will probably also get put into the blog by topic. I put some of the information I downloaded here:
K:\Autodesk University Class Data\AU 2009
Here area some of the topics:
Creating and Analyzing Conceptual Massing Geometry With the Revit API
Programming in the API is probably a little too advanced for most of us, but it gives you idea on how information could be brought into Revit from a variety of sources as data and used to drive geometry.
Autodesk-Revit-for-Film-and-Stage
Parts of iRobot, Snakes on a Plane, the Watchmen, X-Men: the Last Stand were modeled in Revit.
Autodesk® Revit® for Urban Design - HOK presented some planning work they have done at a variety of scales. They have a lot of information on their blog.
http://hokbimsolutions.blogspot.com/
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