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REVIT ARCHITECTURE

A Coordinated Approach

If anyone was to ask what was the single greatest strength of Revit, I’d have to say it’s ability to co-

ordinate written and drawn information.

With 2D (or 3D for that matter) “dumb” CAD systems, YOU have to do all the co-ordination of the

information yourself. Let’s use an example to clarify the point.

If I was to produce some construction documents for a simple building using AutoCAD, I would have to

draft out the plan, then draft out the elevations and sections, details, etc. It would be up to me to

ensure that the windows I drew on the plan where an accurate representation of the position they are

shown in any elevation or sectional views.

If I (or anybody else) moves a door or window in plan- then someone has to “manually” notes this

change and ensure that any other drawing that is effected by this change is updated. This is a time

consuming process and the room for error is quickly multiplied according to the scale of the project.

And it’s not just doors and windows, it’s everything in that set of documents: Schedules, Drainage Plans,

datum heights- the list goes on.

Well Revit takes a totally different approach. Rather than you having to draw a representation of your

design using lines, arcs, etc; you actually “model” your design (in full 3D) within Revit. Because you

develop a single 3D model of your design that is stored within the Revit database, Revit can easily co-

ordinate the relationship between the various elements.

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So when you make a change to a Revit model (ie you move the position of a door in plan), Revit can

easily update any view that the door appears in- be it plan, elevation, schedule, perspective, etc).

The “database” approach that Revit uses to store the model is also used to hold other (parametric)

information about the model. So you can ask Revit to produce (say) a door schedule automatically from

the model. So when you then decide to add (or remove) a door from the model, the schedule instantly

updates to reflect these changes.

How many times have you moved a wall in AutoCAD and then (days or months later) realised that there

are now drawings in your document set that don’t match correctly. Revit makes this a thing of the past

for the reasons we have discussed above

Building Maker: A basic introduction

This article will give you a basic introduction to Revit Architecture’s “Building Maker” functionality. We

will take a look at what the “Building Maker” is and when you would use it. We will also briefly discuss

all of the main tools within the “Building Maker” (Detailed instructions on how to use each of the tools

will be covered in separate articles)

So what exactly is the “Building Maker”? Well, if you have read this article you will know that Revit

Architecture contains some pretty powerful tools for forming and editing “Conceptual Mass Forms”.

This is all well and good but these forms are a long way off from representing real-world building

elements. It would be a real shame (and a huge waste of time) if after creating our conceptual massing

study, we had to start all over again modelling walls, floors, roofs, etc.

This is where the “Building Maker” comes into play. The work flow goes basically goes like this:-

1) Form the concept for your building using Conceptual Mass Forms (in the “Conceptual Design

Environment”)

2) Use the “Building Maker” to automatically create building elements (walls, floors, roofs, curtain

systems) from the faces of your mass forms.

Where do I find the “Building Maker” tools?

The Building Maker tools can be found on the “Massing & Site” tab, in the “Model by Face” panel….

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Let’s take a look at each one of these in turn.....

Curtain System

This tool allows us to quickly and easily create a Curtain System directly from the face of a mass form.

Here is a basic mass form….

And here is a Curtain System formed by selecting the appropriate face and using the “Curtain System”

tool….

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Please note that the mass face (and the resultant Curtain System) does not necessarily need to be

planar. In our example, you can clearly see that the mass face is warped. Revit will create an appropriate

curtain system- this is a really useful feature when you wish to create an organic shaped building.

Roof

This tool allows us to quickly and easily create a Roof directly from the non-vertical face of a mass form.

Here is a basic mass form….

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And here is a Roof element formed by selecting the top face and using the “Roof” tool….

Note: When creating your roof element, you have a choice of roof Type, from all those defined in your

Project Environment.

Wall

This tool allows us to quickly and easily create a (you know what's coming!) Wall element directly from

the face of a mass form. Here is a basic mass form….

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And here is a Wall element formed by selecting the top face and using the “Wall” tool….

Floor

And finally! Yes, you’ve guessed it: This tool allows us to quickly and easily create Floor elements directly

from “mass floors”. STOP right there! You will note that I didn’t write “directly from the face of a mass

form”. That’s because there is an intermediate step that you have to do first . You cannot create floors

directly from a mass face- but create “mass floors” first, THEN use the Floor tool to create your floor

elements. We will cover the use of “mass floors” in a separate article.

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And that’s an overview of Revit Architecture's Building Maker in a nutshell! In other articles we will

examine the use of each of the above tools separately.

Building Maker: Curtain System by Face

In this article I am going to take you (step-by-step) through the process of using Revit Architecture’s

Building Maker tools to create a Curtain System directly from the faces of a mass element. If the term

“Building Maker” means nothing to you, you may wish to take a look at this article first before

proceeding.

OK, let’s start right from the beginning by using the Conceptual Design Environment to create a new

Conceptual Mass element. We do this right from Revit Architecture’s launch screen……

Just click on the “New Conceptual Mass” button, as seen in the image above. Revit will now ask you to

choose a Family Template. I am going to choose “Metric Mass”. You may have a different choice of

templates depending on the regional settings of your installation….

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Upon selecting the file you are taken into Revit’s Conceptual Design Environment, which is a specialised

form of Family Editor. For the purposes of this exercise, I am going to create a simple extrusion. (If you

have not yet learnt to create extrusions in the Conceptual Design Environment, please take a look at this

article before continuing)

OK. So I’ve sketched out the profile for my extrusion…..

I can go ahead and choose “Create Form > Solid Form”…..

In order to create my Extrusion. And here’s the finished Master Piece…..

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Wonderful. Now let’s do something useful with it like generate a Curtain Wall System from its faces. In

order to do this, we need to save this Conceptual Mass Family and then load it into a new Revit Project

File. (This is because at present, we are still in the Conceptual Design Environment)

Right. I’ve saved my Mass family to the desktop and I’ve just created a new Project File. I now need to

load the Mass Family into the Project. To do this I use the “Load Family” tool (found on the “Insert”

menu)….

I select my Conceptual Mass family that I made previously and click OK. PLEASE NOTE: Before you go any

further, you will need to activate the “Show Mass” button or you will not be able to view your imported

mass….

All I need to do now is place an instance of my Mass into the model environment. Just use the

“Component” tool and place the mass on Level 1….

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OK, we’re already to go! Let’s start turning this Concept into a real building! Switch to the “Massing and

Site” menu and select “Curtain System” on the “Model by Face” tab….

Now before we actually create the Curtain System, let’s just cover a couple of key points:-

1) We can choose the type of Curtain System we wish to create- but picking one from the Type

Selector. By default I only have one type of System in my project- but you could load others into

it, or define them within the Project environment….

NOTE: I’ve added “Quick Access” to the Type Selector- straight to the Quick Access Bar, in case

you’re wondering where the above image came from!

2) I can select multiple faces BEFORE I go and create the System. Toggle this feature on or off from

the “Multiple Selection” panel….

I’m now going to go ahead and select a few faces….

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All I need to do now is hit “Create System” from the “Multiple Selection” Panel

And Revit then proceeds to create a Curtain System from all the faces selected...

And there we have it! Now before we end, a couple more key points for you.

1) The Curtain System was created FROM the Faces of the Mass. That is to say- the Faces are still there,

if you need them.

2) Conversely, the Curtain System is independent of the Conceptual Mass faces that it was created from.

So you can hide or delete the Mass, and you will be left with the Curtain System…

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And that concludes our article on the Building Maker’s “Curtain System by Face” tool.

Conceptual Design Environment: A Basic Introduction

Welcome to this Revit Zone article on the Conceptual Design Environment. In this article we are going

to take a quick overview of the CDE (I’ll call it that from no on!). We’ll discuss how you access the CDE,

what you can do it in and when it may be appropriate to use it.

Please note that the CDE was introduced in Revit Architecture 2010. So if you are still using a version of

Revit Architecture (or “Revit Building” as it was previously known) before the 2010 version, this article

may not make much sense to you. As you go through this article, if you have any

What is this thing you call the Conceptual Design Environment?

OK, so what is the CDE? The Conceptual Design Environment is a distinct set of tools within Revit

(complete with it’s own interface) that lets you explore (parametrically) various design ideas at a

conceptual level. So this is even before you have any idea of what materials you are going to use. It is

predominantly used to explore form and areas.

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Revit has always been about exploring architectural ideas from scratch, but with the introduction of the

CDE, that ability has taken a giant step forward. Prior to Revit Architecture 2010, Revit did contain a

series of massing tools and a “Building Maker” which allowed you to turn the masses you created, into

real building elements. But the Conceptual Design Environment takes the ability to create and

manipulate complex 3D forms to the next level.

So how do I find the CDE?

Go ahead and start Revit Architecture 2010. You now need to select “New Conceptual Mass”

If you are using the default Revit installation, you will probably find that you only have one file to choose

from; and that is “Metric Mass”

Go ahead and select that file and Open it. You are now officially in the Conceptual Design

Environment……

Note: There is also a second family template that can be used to access ther CDE. This is the file “Curtain

Panel Pattern Based.rft” The use of this template is covered in a separate article.

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At first glance the interface looks very simple. And it is, at this level. You will notice that there are no

menus for Walls, Doors, Rooms, etc, etc. This is all about creating and manipulating Mass forms. You

may want to take a few minutes just having a browse through the top level menus. These are: Create,

Insert, Modify, View and Manage, A lot of the tools on many of the tabs will already be familiar to you if

you are used to Revit’s “standard” tool set. Most of the new (and distinct) tools only become available

once you have a mass to manipulate.

So that’s what the CDE looks like. Just like the Family Editor, it’s a distinct part of Revit, separate from

the menu and tools that you will be using for the majority of your time. At this stage don’t worry too

much about finding your way around the various tools- we are going to cover that in other articles.

Remember: This is just an overview of the CDE in order to familiarise yourself with what it is, where to

find it and what you can use it for.

Note: You can also enter the CDE directly from the Revit Project Environment by accessing the “Massing

& Site” menu and selecting “In-Place Mass”…..

The only difference between this and the other method of entering the CDE is that this way (ie from the

Project Environment) you will not be presented with 3D reference planes or 3D levels)

So what I can I actually do with the CDE?

Now let’s take a very quick look at some of the things you can do within the Conceptual Design

Environment.

Create solid forms

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Creating solid mass forms is probably what you will spend most of you time doing when you are using

the CDE. Of course the beauty of creating a loadable mass form is that you can save it somewhere safe

and load it into multiple projects as applicable.

There are various tool available to you, to create your solid form. These are namely “Extrusions”,

“Revolves”, “Sweeps” and “Lofts” In other articles we look in detail (ie step-by-step) at theses various

methods of creating solid forms.

Create void forms

The method of creating void forms is virtually identical to that used for solid forms. You just need to

choose the appropriate tool from the “Create Form” drop down menu…..

Void forms are used to cut away at solid forms, like so………

In the above image you can see the circular void form cutting into the rectangular solid. The same tools

for creating solid forms are available to you to create void forms- namely “Extrusions”, “Revolves”,

“Sweeps” and “Lofts”.

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Load your mass forms into the Revit Project Environment

If you have created a “loadable mass form”, you are of course going to want to use it in the Revit Project

Environment. It’s of no particular use if you keep it in the stand-alone Conceptual Design Environment!

Just like the Family Editor, you simply use the “Load into Project” tool, to start using your new mass

form in the Project Environment…..

Load mass elements and manipulate them

Likewise, at any time you can edit your mass form family with the CDE tools by selecting the mass and

then choosing “Edit Family”

Rationalising surfaces

Now this is where it “really” starts to get fun! Revit’s Conceptual Design Environment has the power and

ability to:-

A) Automatically divide up your surfaces into a grid- even if your surface happens to be curved in 2

directions!

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B) Take this grid that it has just created and apply a “pattern” to it.

C) And then (wait for it!) load a custom “curtain panel by pattern” component into each of the pattern

faces…….

The above surface was produced by applying the custom “curtain panel by pattern” family seen below....

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So that’s our whistle stop tour of Revit’s Conceptual Design Environment! As you can imagine, there is a

LOT more to it than this. But hopefully this article has whetted your appetite and encouraged you to

start playing with some of the tools. In other articles we will look at each of the areas above in detail and

work through some step-by-step examples of their use

Forms: Creating a Loft form

In this article we are going to take a look at how to create a solid Loft form, from within the Conceptual

Design Environment. If you are totally new to the Conceptual Design Environment (or CDE) within

Revit, I suggest that you may wish to read this article first.

A Loft form is basically two or more profiles that have been blended together. The easiest way to explain

this is by a quick example. I’m going to start with a “New Conceptual Mass”- and I’m going to use the

“Metric Mass” template.

As I said above, in order to create a Loft you need two or more Profiles. And the Profiles need to be on

different work planes. The Metric Mass family template has a single work plane in it by default……

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So I need to add another work plane. I can do this by simply adding a Level. I switch to an Elevation view

(any will do) and add a new Level……

So now I can switch back to my 3D view and start sketching my profiles. In the image below you will see

that I have sketched out a fairly random profile, on the lower work plane……

Now I can switch to the upper work plane and sketch a different profile on there. NOTE: You can switch

work planes just by selecting them. Make sure the “Show Work plane” button is switched on if you’d like

the current work plane to be shown, as you work….

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Now you can either sketch your second profile in a plan view (choose “Level 2” plan view) or you can

sketch directly in a 3D view. Shown below are my two completed profiles that I am going to use for my

Loft…..

Now comes the fun part- creating the Loft! And this is as easy as it gets. Just select BOTH profiles and

then hit “Create Form”…..

And your Loft form is instantly created…..

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Now I have just used two profiles here but you can use as many profiles as you like. Here is a Loft form

created using five profiles…..

Please Note: All Profiles MUST be closed loops.

Forms: Creating a Revolve form

In this article we are going to take a look at how to create a solid Revolve form, from within the

Conceptual Design Environment. If you are totally new to the Conceptual Design Environment (or CDE)

within Revit, I suggest that you may wish to read this article first.

By far the simplest way of explaining this is to just show you step-by-step how to do it. So here goes! We

start off by creating a “New Conceptual Mass” family. This in turn starts the “Conceptual Design

Environment” in which we are going to form our Revolve.

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Two things are required to create a Revolve. A straight line (which acts as the axis for the revolved

form) and a closed profile (which is the element that is revolved around the axis to create the form.

Please Note: Both the axis and the profile need to be on the same work plane. If you create them on

different work planes, Revit will create a different form for you (ie NOT a Revolve)

So here’s our axis………….

And here’s our closed loop. I’ve just drawn something at random for the purposes of this exercise…..

In order to create my Revolve, all I need to do is select both (the axis and the closed loop) and then hit

“Create Form”….

And our Revolve is created before our eyes………

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If I only want a “partial” Revolve, I can select the Revolve itself (you may have to TAB through different

selections until you find the complete Revolve form) and then adjust the Start and Einish angles in it’s

Properties panel….

In the above image I have adjusted the End Angle to 270 degrees. This results in a Revolve which looks

like this………

Forms: Creating a Surface

In this article we are going to take a look at how to create a Surface form, from within the Conceptual

Design Environment. If you are totally new to the Conceptual Design Environment (or CDE) within Revit,

I suggest that you may wish to read this article first.

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In other articles we have looked at how to create solid 3D forms such as Lofts, Sweeps and Revolves. But

we can also use the “Create Form > Solid Form” tool to create a solid planar surface.

Compared with the other solid forms we have looked at, this one is by far the easiest to create- which

means this article is going to be pretty short!.

Let’s start with a new “Conceptual Mass” family template…..

To start with, I am going to create just a single plane- really, just to show you how easy it is. But you can

just as easily create far more complex and convoluted surfaces.

First, I simply draw a line. I’m going to use an Arc, just to make my Surface a little more interesting. Here

is my arc….

Now with my arc selected, I simply hit the “Create Form” button….

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And my Surface form is created like so……….

And there you have it! As I said before, you can of course create more complex surfaces by using multi-

segment lines. Here is an example…..

Forms: Creating a Sweep

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In this article we are going to look at how to create a solid Sweep form, from within the Conceptual

Design Environment. If you are totally new to the Conceptual Design Environment (or CDE) within Revit,

I suggest that you may wish to read this article first.

A Sweep is a 3D form that is created when you “sweep” a 2D profile along a 3D path. Along with

“Extrusion” it is one of the most useful ways of creating 3D geometry within Revit. You’ll find yourself

using it time and again.

Before we get started with an example, a little bit of theory first. Your 2D profile can be either open or

closed. HOWEVER: If the profile is open, then your path MUST be a single line (either straight or curved).

If you wish to sweep along a multi-segment line, then your 2D profile MUST be a closed loop. In both

cases your Profile needs to drawn on a plane that is perpendicular to your path.

OK. Enough with the theory, let’s get on and produce a Sweep. I’ll start with a fresh “Conceptual Mass”

family template…

You will probably find it easier to draw your path first. In the image below you will see that I have just

used the line tools to sketch out a funky, curvy path…..

Now as we said above, we need to draw our profile on a plane that is “Perpendicular” to our path. The

easiest way to do this is to place a “Point Element” onto the path. This will automatically generate a

plane at right angles to the line the point is placed on. You will find the “Point Element” tool located on

the “Draw”menu…

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In the image below you will see that I have placed a “Point element” onto the path and then selected it.

Upon selection the temporary plane is revealed….

Before I can sketch the profile I need to set the current Work plane to the one produced by the Point

element. I simply do this with the “Set Work plane” tool…

And then clicking on the Point Element. I can now sketch out my 2D profile. Remember: As my path is

“multi-segment”, my profile MUST be a closed loop. So here is my completed profile…

You can see in the above image that the work plane is highlighted while we are still in drawing mode. To

produce our 3D Sweep all I need to do is select BOTH the path and the profile…

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And then hit the “Create Form” button……

And my Sweep is then created….

Forms: Creating an Extrusion

In this article we are going to learn how to use the solid form tools in the Conceptual Design

Environment, to create a solid extrusion.

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If you are totally new to the Conceptual Design Environment you may want to read this article before

proceeding any further. The format of this article is a step-by-step exercise, that you can follow along

with. The actual form that we are creating is relatively unimportant, it is the “process” (or “Work Flow”)

that I want you to understand. Once you are comfortable with the process, you can use it create more

ambitious forms. And PLEASE remember: If at any point you get stuck or you have a query, just use our

Forums. Help is at hand to resolve any issues you may have with this exercise.

Right let’s start Revit and choose “New Conceptual Mass”, under the “Families” section of the Launch

screen. Choose “Metric Mass” as your family template (you may have a different family template,

depending on the localisation settings of your Revit installation). Once you choose to open this family

template, the Conceptual Design Environment will launch…..

You will immediately notice the 3D Level and 3D reference planes in the main 3D view. (that’s a lot of 3D

for one sentence!)

Let’s get straight down to business. We’re going to create a basic solid form by extrusion. Creating a

form (be it solid or a void) is a two stage process. First you define the shape by use of lines, arcs, etc.

Then you tell Revit to go ahead and create the form by selecting an option from the “Create Form” drop-

down menu. So go ahead an use any of the line tools in the “Draw” palette……

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….and define a profile for you extrusion. You can draw directly in the 3D view. (you can of course draw

your profile in a plan view if you wish). You “must” ensure that your profile is a closed loop- ie, that it

has no breaks in it.

So here is the profile that I’ve sketched out. You can reate parameters that will control all aspects of

your extrusion, including the profile- but that’s for another article. For the purposes of this exercise,

we’ll stick with a simple fixed profile. So all we have to do now is extrude it! Go ahead and click on the

profile to select it…..

Now click on the “Create Form” drop down menu and select “Form”….

As soon as you select “Form” your solid extrusion is created…….

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If you hover your cursor over the various faces of your form, you will notice how each face’s boundary

highlights. You can click on any of the highlighted faces to select it- upon which you will be see the “X,Y,Z

Drag Arrows”, which allow you to manipulate your form.

In fact you can select not only faces but edges and vertices too! Go ahead and click on an edge or vertice

and drag it about with the “X,Y,Z arrows”….

Using these tools, you can modify your form in many ways. In separate articles we will look at the

various methods of form manipulation.

Ceilings: An introduction to Revit Ceilings

Welcome to this revit.biz article on Ceilings. Before we get started on this particular topic it is worth

noting a couple of things:-

• The screen shots in this article are from Revit Architecture 2010. So if you are using an earlier

version of Revit, the User Interface will be significantly different from what you see here.

However the underlying principles will be exactly the same- it’s just a cosmetic change.

• If you have ANY questions or queries relating to what you read here, PLEASE post them on our

Forums. We are here to support you in you “Revit Journey”, so please make use of us!

OK. Without further delay, let’s dive into the world of Ceilings.

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Just like walls, floors and roofs; ceilings are Host elements. That is, they are able to host components

onto their surface. Examples of which include, light fittings, ceiling fans, CCTV cameras, etc, etc. Ceilings

are full 3D elements. So that when you place a ceiling into your model it appears in Reflected Ceiling

Plans, Sections and 3D Views.

The Ceiling Tools cans be found on the Home Tab, in the Build Panel…..

The best (and most appropriate) view in which to create and edit your Ceiling components is the

Reflected Ceiling Plans (RCP’s). If you look in the Project Browser just below Floor Plans, you will see the

Ceiling Plans category of View…….

Each time you create a new Level, Revit will automatically create a new Floor Plan AND Ceiling Plan

View, that is associated with that Level.

So let’s get onto the actual Ceiling Elements themselves. A Ceiling Element is associated with a Level.

The height that the Ceiling is placed above it’s associated Level is controlled by a Parameter which you

can dictate.

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So for example, if you want to create a ceiling for one of your ground floor rooms, you would associate

the ceiling with the Ground Floor Level, and NOT a Level set at the ceiling height. It’s the same principle

as windows. Ie a Window has an associated Level- which is the floor level for the room it is going to be

placed in.

Ceiling Types

Ceilings come in two main types: Plain ceilings (such as plasterboard) and grid ceilings (such as a

suspended lay-in grid system). They are both created in the same way- the only difference being the

Type.

Just like any other User-Defineable Type Element, you can hit the Edit Type button, duplicate the current

element and then modify it to your heart’s content

Defining and Creating your ceilings

The creation of Ceilings within Revit is a very similar process to that of Floors and Roofs- ie you can let

Revit do most of the work and “guess” where you want the boundaries to be. Or you can enter “Sketch

Mode” and literally sketch out the boundary of the ceiling yourself.

The main thing to remember is to be in the Correct Ceiling Plan View before you start. Revit “will” let

you place Ceilings in Floor Plan Views, but I would not advise this as you cannot readily see what you

have created.

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In the above image, you can see that I have selected Ceilings, I have then selected “Auto Ceiling” and I

have hovered my cursor over one of the Rooms. You can see that Revit is letting me know that I can

place a Ceiling in this room- by the fact that it is displaying a thick orange boundary where the ceiling

perimeter will be.

Once placed, you can edit the Ceiling Element properties at any time. Just select the Celing (as you

would any Element within Revit) and Click on it’s Element Properties button….

Once I click on the button, I have access to all the Instance Parameters for this particular Ceiling Type…..

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So that’s creating a ceiling automatically. How about sketching your own ceiling boundary. It’s really

simple. Just make sure you’re in the correct Ceiling Plan View, click Ceilings and then select Sketch

Ceiling.

You will see that we’re now in Sketch Mode. You can use Lines, arcs, etc; to sketch out the boundary to

your Ceiling. You can also pick walls or pick existing lines in order to speed up the creation of your

boundary.

Don’t forget to LOCK your Sketch Lines!

As you sketch your Ceiling Boundary, you will notice that small padlocks appear next to each line

segment. If you want Revit to automatically adjust your ceiling boundary if your wall positions change,

you need to LOCK these padlocks.

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PLEASE get into the habit of locking ALL Sketch Lines (Floors, Ceilings, Roofs) to existing geometry. The

more that you can parametrically link your model together, the better.

Aligning ceiling grids

Let’s assume that we’ve gone ahead and created a suspended ceiling system….

Upon creation of this ceiling, Revit automatically centres the ceiling grid on the centre of the room. But

you may want your grid aligned with (say) the left hand edge of the room. No problem. Just juse the

Align tool on the left hand wall and a grid line. Do NOT try to MOVE the ceiling gird- it will not work!

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Sloped Ceilings

I would imagine that the majority of your ceilings are going to be flat. But soon or later you’re going to

need to create a sloped ceiling. No problem. In fact Revit spoils you with a choice of 3 methods of

creating sloped ceilings.

Method 1

While you are sketching your ceiling in Sketch Mode, use a Slope Arrow. All you need to do is just hit the

Slope Arrow button (which is just below the Boundary Line button) and draw an arrow. It is important to

NOTE the length of the arrow you are drawing. Because it is it’s length, combined with Offset (height)

parameters that will actually determine the angle of slope of your roof.

Then just go into the Element Properties panel for the Slope Arrow itself………

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You cansee that you can use various combinations of Absolute values and Levels, to define the height of

the Tail and Head of the Slope Arrow. The heights, combined with it’s length will give you an angle.

Method 2

The next method does not involve a slope arrow at all. What you need to do is select two parallel

boundary lines- normally one on each opposite side of the ceiling. You then select BOTH these lines at

the same time and call up an Element Properties panel…..

If you’ve done this correctly you should the option (as in the above image) to check the “Defines

Constant Height” parameter, Go ahead and check this box and then click OK. By doing so you have

enabled the “Offset from Base” parameter for each of these lines. It is now just a case of going into the

Element Properties for each line and entering a (height) value that you wish this boundary to be above

it’s Base Level. This method is great if you know tha absolute heights that your ceiling needs to be at on

each side of the roof- regardless of the room’s width.

Method 3

For the third method, just select a SINGLE boundary sketch line. Access its Element Properties and then

check BOTH the “Defines Constant Height” AND “Defines Slope” parameters….

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You can now just type in the slope angle you want, into the Slope parameter. This method is good when

the ceiling has to rise at a certain slope from one edge of the room.

Ceilings are Hosts

We started off by saying that Ceilings are hosts. You will find that the stock Revit light fittings will

automatically snap to your ceilings. You can also create your own custom components that will snap to

ceiling elements- all you have to do is make sure you use a “Ceiling-Based” Family Template for your

Component.

I hope this article has given you a good introduction to the nature and use of Ceilings within Revit?

Curtain Walls: A basic introduction

In this article we are going to take a quick look at Curtain Walls, within Revit Architecture. We will

discuss what they are and how you use them. And to conclude, we will produce a very simple building

model containing a couple of Curtain Walls

Now before we start: Please don’t confuse Curtain Walls with Curtain Systems. Although they use the

same components (and produce basically the same thing)- they are different. Curtain Systems use a set

of pre-defined parameters to produce curtain walling with set centres for the mullions. Using simple

Curtain Walls along with curtain grids and mullions is a much more intuitive, creative process.

First of all, a little bit of theory:-

Curtain Wall

A Curtain Wall (within Revit Architecture) is a special type of wall. It can be found nestled in with all the

other wall types….

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Curtain Grids

The Curtain Wall is able to host “Curtain Grids”- which can be placed using the tool found on the “Build”

tab of the “Home” menu……..

Mullions

Once the Curtain Wall has one or more “Curtain Grid lines” placed onto it, the grid lines can then host

“Mullions”- which are found adjacent to the “Curtain Grid” tool…

The three components types described above have a hierarchical relationship between them. You MUST

have a Curtain Wall to act as a host for the Curtain Grid. You MUST have a Curtain Grid to act as a host

of the Mullions.

Right: No more theory- let’s just get started.

I’ll start with a blank Revit Project file. I’m going to select the Wall tool and set the wall type to “Curtain

Wall”. Once I have done this I can proceed to place a length of Curtain Wall within my model space…….

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And here is my section of Curtain Wall, as seen in a 3D view. Pretty uninspiring at the moment! If we

select the Curtain Wall and take a look at it’s Properties…..

…they are quite similar (in terms of the various parameters) to any other wall type. For example: You

can control the base and the top via Level constraints, etc.

Let’s press on and add some Curtain Grid lines. I first select the Curtain Grid tool….

Once the tool is selected, I can now just hover over the wall and click to place my grid lines. It is probably

easier to do this in an Elevation or Section view…..

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In the above image you can see that I have placed a number of Curtain Grid Lines. Once placed, the Grid

Lines can be easily moved by first selecting them-and then simply dragging them, or changing the value

of the temporary dimensions…..

OK: So we’ve got our Curtain Wall and we’ve got some Curtain Grid lines hosted onto it. Let’s add some

Mullions. First select the Mullion tool….

And then simply click on each of the Curtain Grid lines you have just placed, in order to add a Mullion….

I’ll switch to a 3D view and zoom in a little…….

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In the above image you can clearly see the Mullion elements that have

been added to the Curtain Grid lines. For a basic introduction to Curtain

Walls, that’s about it! In other articles we will look at how you can

create your own custom Mullion elements- so that you can accurately

model an “off-the-shelf” curtain walling system.

But before we finish, just a couple more things about Curtain Walls…..

Curtain Panels.

A Curtain Panel is the area bounded by Curtain Grid lines. When you start with just a single run of

Curtain Wall- then entire wall is one large panel. As you start breaking up the wall by adding gird lines,

you are automatically forming more panels. Each of these panels is “Glass” by default. But as each panel

is a distinct Revit element, you can do interesting things with them. Please Note: It can be a bit tricky to

select the a panel- you may need to use the “TAB” key to cycle through various selections in order to

reach a panel….

Once selected, you can change it to a different panel type, by using the Type Selector” drop-down

menu….

In the above image I have changed two of the default panels (one to “Solid” and other to “Glazed

Double Doors”). You will find a variety of different panel types in your Component Library

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Embedding Curtain Walls in other walls

You can easily create a nice glazed screen in a solid wall by “embedding” a section of Curtain Wall into a

“Host” wall….

To do this you use the “Cut Geometry” tool. A separate article is dedicated to explaining how to do this.

Editing the Profile of a Curtain Wall

Just like any other wall, you can easily “edit the profile” of a Curtain Wall. Just select the wall and then

click on “Edit Profile”. Before I start editing the profile….

And after I have finished editing the profile….

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Note that the profile can contain arc segments- to which Revit will simply add curved Mullions. For an

article on how to Edit wall profiles, see here.

Modelling flat roofs that are not quite flat

The term “flat roof” can be a bit of an anomaly- because the majority of flat roofs are not quite flat.

They are either built–up off an inclined sub-structure (ie the roof joists are slightly inclined, or firing

pieces are added to them) or the insulation layer is tapered, to provide a slight fall (ie as with tapered

cork insulation).

So how does all this relate to Revit? As you probably well know, Revit has the ability to define a flat roof

element, comprised of different material layers. By default, each layer in this “sandwich” is of a uniform

thickness. Consequently, the whole assembly has a completely horizontal top and bottom surface.

So how do we go about modelling a flat roof (which has a slight fall to it) in Revit. We could I suppose,

just use standard roof element and add a slope to it- but the problem with that solution is that it slopes

the entire assembly. We would like to be able to just taper a single layer in our sandwich.

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Well we are in luck! Because Revit has the ability to make one or more layers in our sandwich “variable”.

This lets us create a tapered layer, thus forming the slight fall to the roof we require.

In the image below, you can see the “Edit Assembly” for a basic flat room component…..

You will see the various layers that have been defined, which make up my roof element. Here is a

graphical preview of that ”sandwich”…..

Please remember that this article is about how to model a flat roof with a fall to it- not a debate about

the ideal composition of a flat roof construction! (Although I am more than happy to debate that subject

in our “Other Topics” forum)

Now where were we? Ah, yes- how do we taper one of these layers. The answer is “very easily”. Going

back to the “Edit Assembly” panel……

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You note the last column is headed “Variable”- and has a check box for each layer. Quite simply, if we

wish to have a layer that is of non-uniform thickness, we just need to make that layer “variable” by

checking its corresponding check-box. I’m going to go ahead and check the “Insulation” layer…

And that’s all we need to do at this stage. We form the actual taper, once we placed defined the roof in

the model. In the image below you will see that I have created a flat roof on top of a simple rectangular

building…..

If we take a look at a detailed section through the roof, we can clearly see our uniform layers…

So how exactly do we go about making the insulation layer tapered? Well, first of all switch to a 3D

View. Then select the roof….

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Now whilst the roof is selected, go ahead and click on “Modify Sub Elements” on the “Shape Editing”

panel….

Upon doing so, you will immediately see that the top edge of the roof is now defined by a green dashed

line. Go ahead and select one of the long edges. This should now be differentiated by being shown in

blue…..

Now all we need to do is type in a value (into the “Elevation” box on the “Options Bar”) that we wish to

elevate this edge by. Please Note: The “elevation” is the vertical distance from it’s default position. I’m

going to elevate it by 150mm….

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If I now switch back to my section view, you will indeed see that it is the insulation layer that has

allowed the roof element to become tapered…..

And there we have it! We have successfully (and easily) modelled a flat roof with a tapered insulation

layer.

Openings: By Face

In this article we are going to look at the Revit Architecture tool “Openings: By Face”. We will see where

the tool is located, how it is used (with a quick step-by-step example) and then finally talk about some

situations in which you may need to use this tool.

The “Openings: By Face” tool can be found on the “Home” menus, in the “Openings” tab….

Now before we go any further I think it is worth pointing out now that the “Openings: By Face” tool can

only be used on a select number of element types. And these are...

-Roofs

-Floors

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-Ceilings

-Beams

-Columns

If you need to make an opening in another type of element, you will have to use one of the other

Opening tools, all of which we cover in separate articles.

OK. Let’s just dive in and use the tool to make an opening in a roof. Here is a quirky little building I have

modelled, just for the sake of this example…..

Let’s go ahead and stick an Opening in to one of the roof planes. First of all I select the tool itself. Upon

doing this Revit now needs me to specify the face that I want to form the opening in. I do this simply by

hovering over the boundary edge of the roof plane. In the image below you will see the boundary is

highlighted as I hover over it….

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If this is the face I want, I go ahead and select it. Upon doing so, I am now in “Sketch Mode” where I can

simply draft out the boundary of my opening. You will notice the menu bar has changed accordingly-

presenting me with all the tools I need to sketch the perimeter of my opening…..

As my building is quirky, I am going to create an equally quirky Opening! This also demonstrates that you

can create any opening shape you require. Here is the completed sketch of the opening boundary…..

With my boundary sketch complete, I can now simply tellRevit that I am ready for it to produce the

Opening. I do this by clicking on the “green tick” (the standard method of completing the “Sketch Mode”

part of element creation)…

And sure enough, our Opening is instantly created…..

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And so the “Opening By Face” tool is as easy as that. Just a few things to note about this tool. The

Openings you form are elements in their own right. You can verify this yourself by just hovering your

cursor over the boundary of the opening- you will see it highlights, ready for selection. If you select the

opening and delete it- the roof (or whatever element you formed the opening in) is repaired. Also:

Openings do not contain their own Phase parameters- they take on the Phase of the element they are

created in.

So when would you use this tool? The obvious answer is every time you need to create an opening! But

it is particularly useful for cutting elements where you need service runs to pass through- through the

web of structural beams is a good example.

Openings: Dormer

In this article we are going to take a look at the how to use the “Openings: Dormer” tool to form an

opening in a roof, ready to receive a dormer.

The “Openings: Dormer” tool can be found on the “Home” menu, in the “Openings” ribbon tab….

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So without further ado, let’s just dive in and use the tool! First of all I’ll whip up a quick little building

with a dormer on it. Here’s my walls….

And I’ll now put a pitched roof on it……

And finally I’ll add the dormer- comprised of walls on 3 sides and a little pitched roof on top. Just like

this…….

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Now the things to note in the above image are: The dormer roof has been “joined” to the main roof. The

side and front walls to the dormer just come crashing up through the main roof. What we are going to

use the “Openings: Dormer” tool for, is to create an opening in the main roof, which will allow our

dormer construction to protrude correctly.

So first of all I elect the “Openings: Dormer” tool. Revit now asks me to select the roof that is “going to

be cut by the dormer opening”- this is our main roof….

Revit enters a version of “sketch mode”, where it now requires us to pick elements and e

dges that will define the boundary of the roof opening…..

So I’m going to go around the model and pick:-

-The dormer roof

-Each of the 2 “outer” faces of the side walls to the dormer

-The outer face of the front wall of the dormer.

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As I pick each one, Revit displays a sketch line- this line is part of the boundary to the opening- all these

lines will lie on a plane coincident with the slope of the main roof.

Here is my boundary lines….

I’m now just going to go round with the “Trim”/Extend to corner” tool, to complete the boundary loop….

In the above image you can clearly see the boundary of the opening we wish to create, sketched out on

the plane of the roof slope. All I do now is hit the big Green Tick on the menu bar to tell Revit to go

ahead and form the opening….

And there we are! A dormer construction sitting on top of a main roof with an appropriately sized

dormer opening in it. And just to demonstrate that the opening has been formed correctly, this final

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image is the same model with the dormer roof and walls removed- clearly showing the opening we have

just formed……

Roofs: Using Slope Arrows

The default method of creating a sloped roof within Revit Architecture is to make one or more of the

roof boundary lines “Slope Defining”. This is fine if we know what angle we want the roof slope to be at.

But what if we want to create a roof based on absolute heights? For example: We know the height at

the eaves and we know the height that the ridge needs to be.

Yes, we could always use trigonometry to calculate the slope. But there’s no need for that. We just use

Slope Arrows!

In the image below you will see that we have set a Level for the Eaves height and a level for the Ridge

height.

We will now create a roof that has it’s geometry based on these Levels. First of all we’ll use the “Roof by

Footprint” tool to set out our boundary sketch lines as normal…

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You will see from the above image that I’ve set an overhang to the roof (300mm in this case). Now:

Before we proceed, we need to switch the “Slope Defining” parameter to “Off” for each of the

boundary lines….

I have turned these off because I am going to use a “Slope Arrow” to set my roof out. So let’s add the

Slope Arrows now. You can find the “Slope Arrow” tool located on the “Create Roof Footprint” tab…..

One very important thing to note when using Slope Arrows is that the “Tail” of the arrow need to spring

from a boundary line and the “Head” needs to correspond with the highest point of the roof- ie the

ridge in this case. Here is the first Slope Arrow I have placed….

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Before we set the parameters, let’s add the second Slope Arrow. Notice how I have simply used a

Reference line to set out the centre line of the ridge.

Now let’s set the parameters. To speed things up I can select both Slope Arrows together, as the values I

set are going to be the same. With both Arrows selected, I can now change the parameter values

appropriately….

It is important that you leave “Specify” set to “Height at Tail”. We have changed the other parameters

accordingly- “Level at Tail” is set to our “Eaves” Level. And “Level at head” is set to our “Ridge” Level.

When we “Apply” these changes, our roof is created….

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Obviously if we had just used one Slope Arrow and spanned it between two opposing boundary lines like

so……..

…we would end up with a mono-pitch roof…..

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Stairs: A basic introduction

In this article we will take an introductory look at Revit Stairs. What I want to do is explain the basic

components and workflow that make up a typical Stair element in Revit. Once we are done with the

theory, we will run through a very basic, quick example in which we will create some stairs from scratch.

Hopefully this will give you the knowledge (and enthusiasm!) to then delve a little deeper into what the

Stairs tool can produce.

Methods of creating stairs

There are two basic methods of creating Stairs within Revit Architecture. You can either use the “Run”

tool or you can manually define the stair boundaries and the position of the risers. Both methods

require you to be in a Plan view while you create your Stairs. For the purposes of this article I am going

to concentrate on the second method of Stair creation- that is, sketching out the stair boundaries and

the riser lines. Once you can get your head around this method, the use of the “Run” tool is very

straightforward.

OK, let’s get stuck in! In order to create our Stairs element, we will need to tell Revit three basic things:-

1) At what (vertical) level do the stairs start and end. We do this simply by picking to corresponding

Levels that we have already defined. In the majority of cases, these Levels will correspond to two

adjacent finished floor levels- one above the other.

2) The boundaries of the stairs- ie the sides of the stair on your left and right as you walk up and down

them.

3) The location of the risers. In most cases, you will probably want the first riser to start at the base of

the stair, the last riser to be at the top and all other risers to be spaced equally in between. You can of

course do this, but you can space each riser differently if you so desire. But more on that later.

Let’s just dive in with a quick example…..

I’m going to start with a new Revit Project file. I will use the 2 default Levels in the Project file as the

bottom and top levels for my stairs…..

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We will now switch to a plan view (Level 1) and select the Stair tool…..

You will notice (in the above image) that the default creation method is set to “Run”. We will instead

select “Boundary”. Upon doing so, you will notice (see below) that we now have a choice of all the

standard sketch lines, pick tool, etc….

What we are going to do now is simply sketch one side of our stairs…..

The important thing to note (from the image above) is the text underneath the green line. At each stage

of the “stair creation process” Revit let’s us know how many risers we have created and how many we

still have to place. So how has Revit decided that our Stairs will have 22 risers- and not say, 34? Well, it

knows how high the stair has to span vertically- as we have told it the bottom and top Levels. It simply

divides this distance by the maximum height of an individual riser and then rounds the number up- to

get a whole number of risers. (NOTE: the value for the maximum height of an individual riser is set in the

Stairs preferences panel)

Let’s add the other side of the stairs, by sketching another boundary…..

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Note: We do NOT need boundaries at the top and bottom of the Stairs- we use “Riser” lines in those

locations. We only need boundaries on the SIDES of our stairs.

OK, let go ahead and add our Risers. Switch from the Boundary tool to the Riser tool by clicking on it’s

icon…..

First of all let’s draw in the top and bottom risers. Simply sketch out the lines at the top and bottom of

the stairs…..

Notice how the text on screen is now telling us we have created 2 risers and 20 more to place. So I’ll go

ahead and place the rest of the risers into the sketch. I’ll just do this at random- you will obviously want

to set out your stairs correctly, according to your particular design. NOTE: A quick method is to simply

“Copy” one riser in order to create the rest of them- ensure the “Multiple” checkbox is ticked, for the

Copy command…

Revit confirms that there are no more risers to place. So I can simply go ahead and click on the big Green

Tick to come out of the “Editing Mode” and let Revit create my Stair element. As soon as the stair is

created you will see that the plan view shows a “proper” architectural representation of the stair,

complete with “Up” text, breakline and up arrow……

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Let’s switch to a 3D view and take a look at our stairs….

You will notice that Revit has taken the liberty of adding hand rails to the side of our stairs for us. These

are created at the same time as the stairs but are independent of the stairs in so much as you can delete

them is so desired.

If we select our stairs and view the Properties of it………….

…you will see a vast array of parameters that can be customised- to change the look and composition of

our stairs. One interesting thing to note from the above image is the “Calculation Rules” button, near

the top of the panel. In here you will find the rules and formula that Revit uses to create the stairs. You

can adjust these yourself to suit any local Building Regulations that may apply in your area…

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The Stairs tool is very powerful and there is obviously a lot more to learn about it but that just about

covers the basic principle of creating stairs within Revit Architecture. Just a couple more things before

we end.

Creating landings in your stair element

To create a landing on your stair, simply create “breaks” in your boundaries that correspond to the start

and end of your landing. Let’s see how this works using an image…..

I’ve edited the sketch of our stairs and use the “Split” tool to place a couple of splits in the boundary

line, to mark the start and end of the landing (I’ve selected the split section of the landing- so you can

see it clearly) Obviously you need to do this for both boundaries- ie on each side of the landing. The

other golden rule is that the start and end of the landing must have a riser. Let’s go ahead and re-create

our Stair element based on this new sketch………..

And there is our landing! You can use this to create “dog-leg” stairs, etc.

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Finally, the boundaries of your stairs do not need to be straight. When you are sketching your

boundaries just use one of the other line tools to create some really funky stairs! This sketch………….

…results in…………

Topography: Creating a basic Topo Surface

Revit Architecture is not just about buildings! It’s also about the external environment that your building

is part of. Revit provides many tools that allow you to model this environment, thus letting you show

your design in context.

In this tutorial, we will use Revit’s Point tool to create a topographical surface. Please note that there

are various methods for creating topographical surfaces within Revit, depending on what level of

information you have to start with, how accurate you need your surface to be, etc. We will look at some

of the other methods in other tutorials.

So let’s just dive in and create a basic topographical (“topo” for short) surface.

Start Revit with a new, blank Project File. For the purposes of this tutorial, I am going to be using

millimetres for the Units. Depending on your regional settings, you may have to convert the dimensions

shown here.

Your new Project File should contain default View called Site:-

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Make this View active by double-clicking on it. We are going to create our basic surface in this View. You

can create topographical surfaces in any plan view- but by default Topography is NOT displayed in any

plan view except Site. For example, if we look at the View Properties>Visibility / Graphics Overrides for

the default view “Level 1”:-

We see that Topography is not checked.

So getting back on track, switch to the “Site” view, and make sure that the “Site” Design Bar is active:-

You can now select “Toposurface” which will take us into Sketch Mode:-

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You will notice that by default, the Point command is active and Revit is ready to start creating a

topographical surface. It’s at this point (excuse the pun!) that we’re going to take some time out to

explain just how Revit handles (and creates) topographical surfaces. We need to do this, so that you’re

totally clear on just what is it that you’re creating.

Topo’ surfaces in Revit are simply faces. Faces are infinitely thin. Faces are made up of THREE points. In

fact faces can ONLY be made up from three points. Here is a face:-

The most simple, basic of topographical surfaces in Revit would be a flat, single face, like the sketch

above. If you wanted to create a totally flat, square surface this would be formed by two faces joined

together:-

You will appreciate that if (in the sketch above) all four points are at the same elevational height, then

the resulting surface will be completely flat. But what if the point on the far right is higher than all the

others?

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Below I have attempted to sketch out the two faces in 3D- this time with one of the points at a higher

elevation than the rest. The orange coloured zone represents where the face would be if “all” points

were at the same level:-

Now this is just 2 faces. What if we added more faces? And we varied the heights of the points that

defined the faces? We would have a Toposurface!

As you can see, no matter how large or complicated the surface is, it is always formed from triangular

faces which in turn are defined by 3 points each. Remember: For each face, each of the three points that

define it can all be of different elevational heights, but each individual face itself will always be a flat

plane.

Enough of the theory, let’s get back to Revit and create a one-face topo surface. We’ve seen from the

discussion above that each point of a face can be at a different height- so we need to be able to tell

Revit what these heights are. This is where the Options Bar comes into play:-

Elevation refers to the height at which each point will be drawn at. You can draw as many points as you

like and they will all be at whatever height this setting is at, until you change it.

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So let’s leave it at 0.0 for the moment and create a single-face surface. Add 3 points to the View, so that

it looks like this:-

Don’t worry about the exact location of the points in plan- that’s not important. What is important is

that you’ve just formed the most basic topographical surface you can, within Revit. Well, you will form

the surface if you tell Revit that you have finished sketching it and instruct it to “Finish Surface”. Let’s do

that now. Hit the “Finish Surface” button on the Design Bar.

Immediately the Toposurface is created. It doesn’t look at lot different apart from the fact that the

points have disappeared. Our basic surface is pretty uninspiring, so let’s go and add some more faces to

it. Go ahead and select the surface by clicking on it (it will turn red once selected) and then hit “Edit” on

the Options Bar

You will now find yourself back in Sketch Mode, with the points shown again. As we initiated the skech

mode again from the Edit command, the default command on the Design bar is Modify.

so go ahead and activate the Point command (we do this so we can continue to add more points (and

consequently faces) to our surface. Now add two more points directly below the two that make up the

base of our face. For clarity the two images below show each of the points being placed in turn:-

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the first point….

and the second point…..

Let’s now finish the sketch and turn this into a proper Toposurface. Hit the Finish Surface command

again. Here is our new Toposurface:-

You may be asking yourself “But I thought that all surfaces were made up of triangular faces? I can’t see

any individual triangular faces here!” YES: The surfaces ARE made up from triangular faces with

coincident points. It’s just that at the moment Revit is not set to show us the edges of the triangular

faces. But we can easily fix that.

Right-clock in the Site View and activate View Properties. From here, activate the Visibility / Graphic

Overrides panel for this view.

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Scroll down to Topography and expand it so that you can see all of the sub-categories within

Topography:-

You will see that all sub-categories are checked apart from Triangulation Edges. Don’t worry about what

all the other sub-categories refer to- we will look at some of the other aspects (such as Contours) in

other separate tutorials.

Go ahead and check “Triangulation Edges” and click OK.

No we get to see exactly how our surface is made of 3 separate triangles. As we’ve seen, all you need to

do is choose the height for the points and choose where the points are to be placed. Revit will handle

the triangulation and creation of the faces.

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In reality, very rarely is the topography of your site flat. So let’s make our toposurface a bit more

realistic by adding in some undulations. Select the surface we have created and hit Edit to re-enter

sketch mode:-

So far all of our points have been at an elevation of 0.0, which means that the entire surface is flat. Let’s

add a small hill in the centre of our surface. We are now going to create a plateau 600mm high in the

centre of our surface.

So go ahead and change the Elevation the points that we are about to place to 600.

Now draw five points in the centre of the surface, in a rough pentagon shape. You should end up with:-

Because we are looking at our surface in a plan view, it is impossible to see the undulating nature of it.

Don’t worry- we’ll have a look at it in 3D in a minute. But for now, let’s add a little more to the top of our

hill. Remaining in sketch mode, change the Elevation height to 1200:-

Now add four points (in a rough square shape) to the centre of our “hill”.

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Your sketch should look like this:-

Now all we have to do is click on “Finish Surface” on the Site Design Bar and our surface is complete.

Switch to the 3D View, ensure your view setting is “Shading with Edges” and shadows are turned on.

Your surface should be similar to this one:-

Go ahead and rotate the view. Look at the surface from all angles, including underneath. You will see

that we have created a fully three-dimensional topographical surface.

Walls: A basic introduction

Welcome to the revit.biz article on Walls. If you are totally new to Revit you’ve come to best place on

the ‘net to get up to speed with Autodesk’s BIM platform, Revit Architecture.

The screen shots in this article are from Revit Architecture 2010. So if you are using an earlier version of

Revit, the User Interface will be significantly different from what you see here. However the underlying

principles will be exactly the same- it’s just a cosmetic change.

OK. Without further delay, let’s dive into the world of Revit Walls

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What you will find below is a series of points on what I feel are the most notable aspects of Walls. I am

not going to go into too much detail for

each one- we can look at the detail / process in separate articles and tutorials. The main aim of this

particular article is just to make you aware of what is possible with Revit Walls.

Walls are System Families

Walls are one of Revit’s System Families. That is, it is a Family that is hard-wired into Revit’s software.

You will not find a Wall Family Template. However, you CAN still do a LOT of things with Revit Walls. You

have the flexibility to make up any wall type you wish- be it a single skin of blockwork, or a wall with

many differing layers.

Walls are Host Elements

Walls can act as a host to a variety of Elements. The two most obvious are doors and windows. But Walls

can also host wall sweeps, wall reveals and any wall-based component such as light switches, electrical

sockets, radiators, etc, etc.

And the beauty of the “Host and Hosted” relationship is that if you move the Host, all the Hosted

elements will move with it. So if your electrical engineer has placed all his sockets and switches on a wall

that you wish to move back by 500mm, no problem!

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Location Lines

When you come to place a wall in your model, you have a choice of how the wall element relates to the

line you are drawing on screen. This is called the Location Line.

When you go to draw a wall, just take a look on the Options Bar…..

Controlling the base of walls

Walls must relate to at least one Level. Normally this Level is the floor level you are building your wall

on. For example: If you are adding internal partition walls to the first floor of your building, then the

Level that corresponds to the first floor slab is the Level you would choose. Take at look at the Element

Properties panel for a typical wall…..

You can see the “Base Contraint” parameter near the top. This ultimately determines the height of the

base of the wall. You can add a Base Offset is (for some reason) you need the base of the wall to float at

a finite height above the chosen Level.

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Controlling the height of walls

So we have seen above how Walls need to refer to a Level for their base height. But it is slightly different

for the overall height of the wall. For this you have two choices. You can either relate the top of the wall

to a Level. Or you can just specify an absolute value for the overall height of the wall. You can obviously

do either one OR the other. If you want to choose the second option, you need to choose NONE as the

Top Constaint in the Element Properties Panel. In doing so you then have access to the UNCONNECTED

HEIGHT parameter below it. This is where you type in the value for the hright of the wall.

NOTE: Wherever possible I would always urge you to relate heights to Levels. This gives you MUCH more

flexibility should you need it. For example: You are designing a building with a flat roof. The flat roof has

a parapet wall all the around it. When you model the parapet wall you could just decide on a height for

it and set this as an absolute UNCONNECTED height. But what if, later, you need to increase the height

of the parapet by 75mm. You would have to select every piece of parapet wall and change its

Unconnected Height. A much more efficient strategy would be to create a Level called TOP OF PAPAPET

and then use this as a Top Constraint for your parapet walls. Any change to the height of the parapet

can simply be made by dragging the Level up or down- all the walls adjust automatically.

Controlling the joining of walls

Wherever possible Revit Walls will always automatically try to join to other walls that they meet. A

series of Rules and Priorities will determine how the various layers in your wall types actually join with

each other. For the most part, this feature works really well and is seamless. But there will be times

when you do NOT wish for one wall to make a join with it’s neighbour. This is very easy to achieve. Just

select the wall in question and then right-click on the blue grip at the end of the wall. The floating

context-menu will have an option to Disallow Join. Select this and the end of your wall will now ignore

any adjacent walls, no matter how close they are.

This can be reversed by again selecting the same contextual menu- this time the option presented will

be to “Allow Join”.

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Attaching the top of walls to Floors and Roofs

It should be noted that the tops of wall do not automatically connect to roofs and ceilings above them.

Bit don’t worry- this is very easy to do.

Here I have created a new roof on top of some walls. You can see that the gable wall has not gone up to

infill the gap in the gable. All I do is select the end wall and then choose ATTACH from the Modify Wall

panel…..

And then select the Roof……

Editing the profile of walls

So what if you want to slope the top of your wall, or puncture it was crazy-shaped openings? The Edit

Profile command is your friend. What this basically does is temporarily reduce your wall to a sketch of

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it’s boundary lines. While in this form, you can use the line and edit tools to modify this boundary and

add in “Islands” which will form openings when the wall is recreated.

Here is a wall where I have chosen to Edit Profile…….

You can see that the wall has been replaced with just it’s boundary outlined with pinkish sketch lines. So

let’s go ahead and hack that boundary and add some islands….

Here is my new boundary. All I do now is select FINISH WALL……

Most of the time you will be forming opening using the standard Revit methods- either adding a

component that inserts itself (ie door, window, etc) or by use of the OPENING tool. But it is still nice to

know that you have an alternative method of manipulating your walls.

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Wall Sweeps and Reveals

We said at the start of this article that walls can host a variety of elements, including Sweeps and

reveals. At the risk of deviating away from the topic walls, I will just show you an image of what can be

achieved with sweeps and reveals….

You will notice that sweeps and reveals can both:

· be either vertical or horizontal

· Have multiple instance on a single wall

· Be either continuous over the length / height of the wall OR be confied to short segments.

Walls for the boundary of Rooms

Rooms are a totally different subjsct inRevit, but it is worth noting here that walls are (obviously) the

main element that form the boundary of Room elements. But there may be times that you do NOT want

a particular wall to form part of a room boundary. Let’s give an example. In the image below I have

created a small rest room. There are 3 cubicles in the room. The cubicle walls are “Room Bounding” by

default. Consequently, if I went to add Room elements to my drawing, I would end up with 4 separate

rooms….

But more useful would be to have a single Room Element that covered the whole of the rest room and

dismissed the individual cubicles. I can do this by selecting all the cubicle walls and the selecting their

Element Properties panel….

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Just near the bottom of the panel you can see the “Room Bounding” parameter. Untick this box and all

the respective walls lose their ability to define the boundary of rooms. I can now place a single Room

Element that covers the entire Rest Room…….

Editing the Structure of Walls

Walls can be comprised of as many layers as you wish. Each layer can be a different thickness, have a

different purpose (ie structural, finsish, etc) and be made from a different material. In addition, you

have the ability to control whether individual layers WRAP back to the core when they encounter either

an insertion or the end of the wall. To see a wall’s build-up, select the wall in question, select its

ELEMENT PROPERTIES, then select EDIT TYPE, then select EDIT (next to Structure). And this is what you’ll

see……

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Lot’s of settings- lots’ of fun! I’ll go into what all these do in a separate article. But for now, rest assured

that you have as much control over your walls as you’ll ever need.

Walls do not have to be straight!

Most walls that you create in Revit will consist of straight segments. But you can may circular walls, arc

walls, etc. It’s exactly the same process as for straight walls- but you just change your straight line tool

to another. So select the Wall tool and then pick the arc line…..

And go ahead and draw you wall…..

Just note that “some” doors and windows get a bit “picky” about being inserted into curved walls. It all

comes down to the particular Family and the radius & thickness of the wall. You’ll just need to

experiment to see what works.

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Curtain Walls

Curtain walls are a distinct System Family quite separate from the wall type we have been looking at so

far. These are covered in their own, distinct articles.

That’s’ it. We’re done!

If you’re still reading, well done! We’ve covered quite a few different aspects of walls- albeit with just an

overview rather than a detailed explanation. There are yet more advanced aspects of Revit Walls-

notably Vertically Compound Walls and Vertically Stacked Walls. But we’ll leave those for another

article.

Walls: Applying Functions to Compound Layers

In this article we will introduce the concept of Compound Layers within Revit Wall structures.

Specifically, we will look at the 5 hard-wired Layer Functions (6 if you count the “Membrane” layer

which typically has a thickness of 0). And to round off we will take a look at how the “Priority” system

works, with regards the Layer Functions. If you are very new to Revit, I would strongly suggest you take a

quick look at this article first, which gives a basic overview of Walls within Revit Architecture.

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In real life walls are very rarely built-up from a single layer of material. Normally, they consist of many

layers, each of a different material and performing a different function. Some layers are there to form a

structural support for floors or roofs, other layers serve to form an insulation or moisture barrier

function.

As you would expect Revit has the ability to model complex wall structures, representing the various

constituent layers that make up a wall.

Let’s just dive in and take a look at how this all works. I’m going to open a new Revit Project file and

select the wall command. As soon as I do this, the Type Selector gives me a choice of all the wall types

defined within this template. I am going to choose “Exterior- Brickwork on Mtl. Stud”.

Now instead of placing a wall into the model, I’m simply going to hit the “Edit Type” buttin on the “Type

Selector”….

Upon doing so, we are presented with the “Type Properties” control panel……

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You will notice that on the left hand side of the panel is a Preview of a section of wall. If this preview is

not immediately visible, just hit the “Preview” button at the bottom of the panel and it will pop out to

the left.

If we place our cursor in the preview pane and zoom in, we can see in detail the make up of this

particular wall type…

Now you can clearly see the various layers that make up the total thickness of the wall. But “how” do we

get to control these layers? Easy, just hit the “Edit” button next to “Structure” on the right hand side of

the panel….

Upon doing so, the panel changes to show the “Edit Assembly” control panel….

This is more like it! As you see from the variety of controls and parameters, there’s lots of fun to be had

in here! In fact there’s too much to cover in a single article, so we’ll save some of it for another day. The

main area we want to focus on today is the large panel on the right, labelled “Layers”….

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As you can see, there’s lots going on here. So let’s dissect it a bit at a time.

Each row in the table represents a different layer in the wall. Some layers represent “real world” layers

(such as the masonry brickwork, whilst other layers are notional and have no thickness (such as the two

“Core Boundary” layers).

Go ahead and click on each row in turn- it’s easiest to click on the row number on the left hand side of

the row. As you click on each row (form 1 to 9) notice how the corresponding layer is highlighted in blue

in the preview pane. In the image below you will see that I’ve highlighted row 6, and the corresponding

layer has lit up in the preview…..

An important thing to note is that the order of the rows matches the order of the layers in the wall- 1

being on the exterior of the wall and 9 being on the interior of the wall. When you create your own wall

assemblies, keep the order of the layers in the same format (ie the first layer being on the exterior and

the last one being on the interior)- this will make your walls behave correctly in the model.

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If we now look at the columns in the table, you will note that there are 4 different parameters:-

Function

This parameter stores the function of each layer. The function is inherently linked to a “priority system”

which we will discuss in a short while

Material

From here you can choose a material for your layer

Thickness

Self-explanatory really. This controls the thickness of the layer. PLEASE NOTE: The two “Core Boundary”

layers (rows 5 and 7 in our example) have a thickness of 0. Additionally, any “Membrane” layers should

also have a thickness of 0 (take a look at row 8 in our example).

Wraps

This is a simple on/off parameter for each layer. It controls whether the layer tries to wrap back to the

core, at the end of each length of wall. Wall wrapping is a whole topic in itself and we’ll cover it in a

separate article.

OK. Let’s get back to “Function”- after all, that is the topic of the article! Go ahead and choose any row

and click on the function entry itself. This will cause a drop-down list to appear- allowing you to choose a

Function for this layer….

The important things to note are:-

There is a total of 6 different functions to choose from. The first 5 each have a number in parenthesis,

whilst the last one (“Membrane Layer”) is unnumbered

These functions are hard-wired into Revit’s compound structure assemblies- ie walls, roof and floors.

You cannot create new Functions, rename the existing ones or delete any. You are stuck with the ones

here!

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The most important thing to know is that the numbers represent the “priority” of the layers that you

assign the functions to. “Priority” is used when joining walls together- to ensure the various layers

“clean-up” correctly.

There are some basic rules of Priority, that all compound structures follow, when joining together.

1) The higher priority layers always take precedent. For example, a Priority 1 layer will barge it’s way

through lower priority layers in order to join up to another Priority 1 layer.

2) Lower priority layers cannot cut through higher priority layers, during the “clean up process”-

they are just stopped by them.

3) The exception to both of the above are layers that fall within the Core boundaries. A priority 2

layer “within the core boundaries” will override a priority 1 later” that is situated “outside of the

core boundary”.

Let’s take a look at this is practice. Let’s put a small section of wall into our model…

Now let’s add a second piece (of the same wall Type) and get it to join the first, forming a “T-junction”….

You will note that the “Structure” function / layers have joined together. “Structure” is a Priority 1

function- so they just pushed through everything else in their way and got together!

The plasterboard layers (“Finish 2” / Priority 5) both met up and joined because there was nothing at all

in their way.

But all three of the other layers coming in from the right are stopped in their tracks by the big grey layer

(Priority 1). They are not allowed to get past this and hence cannot join up with their corresponding

layers on the left.

Obviously in this example, we have joined two section of wall that are of the same Type. But the Priority

rules still apply when you are joining 2 different compound structure types.

So the whole moral of this story is that when you are creating your own compound structure assemblies

(be it walls, floors or roofs) think carefully about they will interact with other assemblies when they

meet.

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Walls: Editing the Profile

In this article we are going to look at the use of the “Edit Profile” tool, used to manipulate the profile

boundary of a Revit wall element.

I’ll start off by placing a very simple, single wall element. The type of wall is totally unimportant. Here’s

our (very uninspiring) wall segment, in a 3D view...

As you’ve probably figured out by now, you can easily change the height of the base of the wall and of

the top of the wall; from it’s “Element Properties” dialogue panel. Changing any of these standard

properties still results in a basic rectangular (in elevation) section of wall. So what if we want to be

creative? How about a sloped top to the wall? Or castellation? This is where the “Edit Profile” command

comes into play. Go ahead and select the wall to highlight it…

Now take a look at the menu bar at the top of your screen. You now have access to the Edit Profile

button…..

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When you select this command, two things happen: Firstly your menu bar is replaced with a new set of

tools, specifically for editing the profile of the wall….

If you’re used to “Sketching” in Revit, (ie when defining boundaries for floors, ceilings, pads, etc) this

menu will be very familiar to you. It basically consists of tools to enable you to sketch and edit boundary

lines.

And secondly, your wall element disappears and only it’s “current” Profile is displayed- by a lovely pink

rectangle in our case…..

And now it’s over to you to let your creative juices flow! I’m going to use the line and editing tools to

change the profile boundary….

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OK, so I went a bit mad! But I just wanted to show you that you can use any combination of lines, arc,

etc, etc. The number one rule to keep in mind is that the boundary (no matter what shape) MUST be a

“Closed Loop”. So no loose ends allowed! When you’re happy with your modified boundary, go ahead

and click on the “Finish Wall” button….

And our wall is created…..

Notice that the original “default” profile is shown dotted. You can always restore the wall to it’s original

profile by highlighting it and then using the “Reset Profile” command…..

If we deselect our wall- simply press the “Esc” key (or click anywhere else in the view) so that nothing is

selected, we get to see the finished wall in all it’s glory….

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One last thing: Whilst editing the wall profile, you are free to define “islands” inside of your boundary

profile. Just use the line tools to sketch the islands- again, they MUST be closed loops. There's no limit to

the number of islands you can create within the overall boundary. Here’s an example….

Which results in (as you may predict) this……

Walls: Embedded Walls

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Welcome to this article on embedded walls. Although this is one of the more simple “tools” within

Revit, it is still very useful and often overlooked by the beginner.

The concept is that you can easily embed one wall type within another. Why would you want to do this?

Well, you may wish to add a section of curtain walling into a larger masonry wall. You may with to add a

rendered panel of masonry into a brick wall, as a feature panel. With a little imagination you will

probably come up with lots of uses for this procedure.

So rather than “drone on” with lots of text, lets just dive in and produce an embedded wall.

Start off with a new, blank Revit Project file. First of all draw a section of wall. Don’t worry about it’s

length, it’s height or it’s type- just produce something that looks like the image below….

And here it is in 3D…..

It’s pretty uninspiring at the moment! So lets embed a section of Rainscreen into it. Go back to the plan

view (Level 1) of your wall. Select “Wall” command again- this time change the Wall type to

“RainScreen”….

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Now draw a small section of wall directly over the existing wall…

You should just be able to make out the shorted section of wall in the centre of the first wall. What you

will notice when you place the second wall is the Warning Message that immediately springs up in the

corner of your screen…

And it’s the last line of the Warning message that is central to this Tutorial: The use of the “Cut

Geometry” tool.

What the warning message is really saying is this: The two walls (as you have drawn them) have no

“proper” relationship- using the “Cut Geometry” command will “formally” embed one wall within the

other. So let’s do that now!

Select “Cut Geometry” from the Tool Bar…

Now simply select the larger wall first, followed by the smaller wall (the one you want to embed). And

there you go- Job done. Switch to 3D to take a look at the result….

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A couple of things to note:

The embedded wall behaves just like any other Revit Wall- it has all the same parameters available (ie

you can control it’s base and top with Levels, etc)

The embedded wall is fully “hosted” by the larger wall- meaning that moving the larger wall results in

the hosted wall moving with it (ie just like a door or window)

Lets’ make some changes to the embedded wall to demonstrate that no flexibility has been lost. Let’s

change the embedded wall’s base and top constraints…

Results in…..

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One of the more useful applications of this concept is the embedding of curtain systems into solid walls.

In the image below you will see how I embedded a Curtain System into a solid wall to form a glazed

viewing screen into a sports hall…

Dimensions: An introduction

Welcome to this Revit Zone article on Dimension types. In this article we are going to take a look at all

the various types of dimensions that are available to you within Revit. For each dimension type, we will

describe it’s type and take a look at an example of it in use.

In a separate article we will take a look at how you can customise the look of your dimensions

(overriding the automatic values, for example). Please also note that this article focuses on permanent

dimensions- as opposed to temporary dimensions, which will be discussed in a separate article.

The dimension tools available to you can be found on the “Annotate” menu, in the “Dimension” tab…..

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Aligned dimensions

The first dimension type that we are going to look at are Aligned Dimensions. The key thing to note

about Aligned Dimensions are that they can be placed between 2 or more parallel references or 2 or

more points- wall ends for example. The dimensions in the image below are all Aligned Dimensions….

One important thing to note here is that when you select “Aligned” to start dimensioning, the Options

bar presents you with some important choices that will aid you in creating your dimensions….

You will see above that you have a choice as to what Revit snaps to when dimensioning. The “Place

Dimension” drop down box contains Wall centrelines, Wall faces, Centre of core and Faces of core. The

second choice you have when placing your dimensions are “Pick”….

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At this point it is worth taking a moment to look at the differences between these two options because

this is something that you will use time and again.

If we leave “Pick” set at “Individual References”, you have the choice where to dimension to, along a

wall length- ie from the end of the wall to the start of the first window opening….

However, if you change “Pick” to “Entire Walls”, you can now just pick anywhere on the wall and the

entire wall is automatically dimensioned….

Note that all the dimensions were added in one go, following a single click on the wall. To tell Revit

exactly what elements of the wall you wish to be dimensioned, click on “Options” on the Options Bar

(this is only available if you have “Pick” set to “Entire Walls”….

You will see that you can dimension (automatically) to openings, intersecting wall and intersecting grid

lines. Used appropriately, this feature can save you a vast amount of time. Imagine a long elevation with

14 windows and 3 doors- and being able to dimension all of it with a single click! Ok, that’s enough of

Aligned Dimensions, let’s move on.

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Linear dimensions

Next on our list are “Linear Dimensions”. We use Linear Dimensions, when we want the absolute

distance (measured vertically or horizontally) between two offset points. This is better explained with a

diagram….

Angular dimensions

As you may expect, Angular Dimensions are used to measure the angle between two reference points

that share a common intersection. Quite simply click on the first reference element (be it a line, wall,

etc) and then on the second one….

Radial dimensions

Radial dimensions are used for measuring the distance from an arc to it’s centre point. In the case of

Walls, you can measure either to the wall centreline or the wall face. Pressing the “tab” key when

defining your dimension will toggle between wall face and wall centreline….

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Arc Length dimensions

Radial dimensions are used for measuring the distance along an arc segment. This could be a line or

wall. Again the “Tab” key will toggle between centrelines and faces, in the case of walls.

Baseline and Ordinate dimensions

Two other linear dimension types that are available to you (but not obviously evident) are “Baseline”

and Ordinate” dimensions. These are basically two different types of “Running Dimensions”. In order top

use these, you will need to first create the dimension types. This is really easy to do- just pick the default

Linear (or Aligned) dimension family and duplicate it (renaming it of course). Once you have a copy of

the family, you can go into it’s properties and “Edit Type”…..

You will notice that the first parameter in the list is “Dimension String Type”. This is the parameter we

are interested in. If you activate the drop-down menu for this parameter- you will see that you have a

choice of “Continuous”, “Baseline” or “Ordinate”. Go ahead and change the parameter to “Baseline”.

This results in a dimension like this….

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And if then produce a second dimension family with the “Dimension String Type” set to “Ordinate”, this

is what you get….

On the face of it this looks just like a standard aligned / linear dimension. But if you look closely you will

see that each dimension value is measured back to the base point of 0.

Spot Dimensions.

There are 3 types of Sot Dimensions: Spot Elevations, Spot Coordinates and Spot Slopes…

Spot Elevation dimensions

Spot Elevations are used in elevation, section, plan and 3D views to display the absolute (or relative)

heights of reference points. They can also display the upper and lower height values of an element with

thickness (eg a floor), in plan views.

Here is a Spot Elevation in a section view, telling us the height at the top of the wall……

And here is a Spot Elevation in a plan view. This time it is displaying the bottom and top heights of a

floor plate element…..

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Spot Coordinates dimensions

Spot Coodinates display the North / South and East / West coordinates of the reference point it is placed

at. It can also display the elevation at that height too….

Spot Slope dimensions

And finally…….. Spot Slope Dimensions! As you might well expect, these are used for displaying the angle

of slope on various surfaces and elements. They can be placed in section, elevation and plan views. Here

is one being used on a roof slope in a section view…..

You have a choice of an arrow or a triangle for the symbol- we have obviously chosen the triangle

symbol in the above example.

And that concludes our introductory look at Dimensions in Revit. In other articles we will go onto to look

at how we can manipulate and customise the look and operation of these various dimension types.

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Building Blocks

It's all about Building Blocks. No matter how complicated your custom component needs to be- it's all

built from basic blocks! In this particular article we are going to take a look at the basic geometry that

makes up any components.

Revit comes complete with a whole range of 3D components. Some of these are simple objects, while

others are relatively complex. Let's take a look at a specific example....

This kitchenette is a 3D component, pre-loaded in Revit's component library. It has some quite complex

geometry- for example, if we look at a close up of the tap...

Note: I've turned off the shading for this view, for the sake of clarity.

The neck of the tap is formed be "sweeping" a circle along a two-dimensional path. If we edit the family,

we can actually get right back to the creation of each element. So by editing the tap neck, we can see

the profile (ie the circle) and the 2D path along which the profile was swept....

Sweeping profiles along paths is just one of four methods of creating the basic geometry for ANY

component. In Parts 12 and 13 we will look in detail at Solid Extrusions and Solid Sweeps respectively.

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But for now, the main lesson to be learnt from this article is that ANY complex 3D component is

comprised from a number of (more simple) 3D geometrical elements.

Let's go ahead and create our own television. I will not be explaining step-by-step how to do this- all I

want you to understand in this particular article is how ANY object in Revit is made up from simple

geometry.

So let's start off with a basic mass for the main body of the TV....

Now I'll add a rectangular void to cut-away at this mass- this will form an indentation, representing the

screen...

Now, I'll create a long rectangular mass on the front of the main body, to represent a control panel....

And finally, I'm going to create a stand for our television. I'll do this by creating two upright cylinders and

a horizontal base board....

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And there's our completed television. Obviously this is just a very simple model- but the fundamental

concepts are just the same for any component- of any complexity.

Summary and conclusion

• Any component is made up from a number of indivdual mass elements

• These mass elements are created by use of the Extrude, Sweep, Revolve or Blend methods.

• The mass elements may be modified by either adding other elements to them, or subtracting

volumes from them by use of Solid Voids.

Creating a parametric rafter

One of our Forum members recently asked how roof rafters could be modelled in Revit. He wanted the

ability to be able to model the roof structure in detail and also produce schedules directly from the

model. Modelling roofs and their structure is an interesting topic. There are various methods of

representing roof constructions within Revit- and just like anything else, it depends on how much detail

you need and what you wish to do with the information. For some, just drawing the roof construction

using detail lines will be adequate. For others, a full 3D model of the roof structure (and all the inherent

data that goes with it) is required. Anyway, back to the focus of this article. The parametric rafter was

relatively straightforward to produce. It was formed using the Family Editor and was based on a

“Generic Model” template.

The first thing I did was set up the Reference Planes that would control the geometry of the rafter

The reference planes are the green dashed lines. These form the skeleton that the geometry is fixed to.

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In the image below, you can see the parameters that I have defined for this component.

All these parameters are Instance Parameters, which means that we can change their values for each

instance (ie each separate rafter) in the model.

Now I add the geometry- there are two parts to this. The first is a solid extrusion to form the rafter

itself…

And then a Void Extrusion to “cut out” the birdsmouth notch from our (previously created) rafter.

With regards controlling the thickness of both the solid extrusion and the void extrusion, I set up a

reference plane (vertically)- in which I sketched the profiles of the solid and void. I could then set the

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extrusiuon properties to start the extrusion at 0 (which means the start of the extrusion is coincident

with the reference plane it is sketched on) and the "Extrusion End" can be set to the parameter Rafter

Thickness

Look carefully at the Extrusion Start and Extrusion End properties. Notice how the value for Start (0) is

shown in black, while the value for End is shown greyed out- also notice the small = sign at the end of

the "Extrusion End" line. This is because I have set the value for Extrusion End to a parameter, rather

than an absolute value. Extrusion Start will ALWAYS be 0 (ie will always be on the same reference plane

in which it was sketched), while Extrusion End will always be the value of the parameter "Rafter

Thickness"

OK, so that’s the rafter. Now let’s load it into a project and see how it performs…

Here’s our rafter sitting onto of a wall. There are 6 instances of our component. If I pick one of the

instances and look at the Element Properties for it….

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You can see that we have access to all the parameters that we created. Just to prove how flexible the

component is, I will change the values of these parameters for each instance. Here’s the result…..

I can’t imagine a roof formed like this! But is demonstrates how flexible our family is. Now, the only

thing I haven’t done here is use Shared Parameters. If I had, we could have then produced a schedule of

rafters- automatically extracting the values for each shared parameter, for each instance of the

component.

Doors: Creating your own Door Family: Part 1

Welcome to the Revit Zone series of articles on creating your own Door family. In this 7 part series we

are going to take you through (step-by-step) everything you need to know in order to create your own

bespoke Door Families, within Revit Architecture.

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Part 1: Introduction / Table of Contents)

This series of articles will focus specifically on creating your own custom door family. However, the

concepts and principles that we will discuss and utilise as we work our way through, will be applicable to

many different types of families and elements. Time and again with Revit, the same set of tools and

concepts are used to create anything that you can imagine.

Part 2: The Metric Door Template

In this article we will take a look at the default Metric Door Template. We will talk about the included

Reference Planes and dimensions.

Part 3: Creating the architrave and door frame

In this article we will create additional Reference Planes and parameters- and then use these to help

create a door frame and architraves.

Part 4: Creating the door leaf

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In this article we will now create our door leaf. We will look at the use of “Materials” parameters to

allow us to change the material of the door leaf from within the Project Environment. We will also talk

about the use of Symbolic Lines and Visibility Settings.

Part 5: Adding the door handles

In this article we will add door handles to our door leaf. We will talk about Nested Families and how they

can be utilised to cut down on your modelling time.

Part 6: Creating different Family Types

Now we have finished the basic geometry of our door family, we will take a look at creating pre-defined

Family Types. We will test (or “flex”) these Types, before loading our family into the Project

Environment.

Part 7: Conclusion

In this article we make a quick review of everything we have covered in this series. We will pick out the

most important concepts and look at how they relate to other families that you may wish to create.

Doors: Creating your own Door Family: Part 2

Page 110

Welcome to the second part in this series of articles in which we explain how to create your own Door

Family using the Family Editor, in Revit Architecture. If you have missed the first part in this series, you

may wish to start here.

In this article we will take a look at Family Templates and in particular, the Metric Door Template. We

will briefly discuss Instance and Type Parameters and examine how they control the geometry of your

custom door family.

Let’s get started by loading up the Metric Door Template: Depending on where you are in the world,

you may be using a different Revit Library format- ie Imperial, etc. The units may differ, but all the

principles and concepts we will be discussing will be the same. From Revit’s “Recent Files” screen, I am

going to open the “Metric Door” template…..

Because we are opening a Family Template, Revit automatically starts in “Family Editor” mode. I am

assuming (for the purpose of this particular series of articles) that you have a basic familiarity of the

Family Editor. If not, please read this article first.

This basic Door template is what you will use for the creation of your loadable door components, in

almost all cases. Let’s switch to a 3D view and take a look at what our template consists of…..

So we have a section of wall, a basic opening formed in the wall and what appears to be an architrave

around the opening- on both sides of the wall. Now as I want you to learn how to create everything

from scratch, I am going to go ahead and delete both architraves- we will then form our own in due

course. Go ahead and select each architrave and delete them. We are now left with a blank opening…..

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This is now the bare minimum we need in order to create our own door family- a piece of wall and an

opening in it! Don’t worry about the width of the wall of the dimensions of the opening- we are going to

explain how these work in due course.

I’m now going to switch to an elevation view of our family and then a plan view. Here are the two

respective views. First the elevation….

And then the Plan view………

Let’s discuss each of them in turn. First the Elevation. Now, there are a few key things that I want you to

notice. First of all the Reference Planes. These are the green dashed lines around the opening. And then

the dimension labelled “Height”. In fact the 3 elements (Reference Lines, Opening and Dimension) are

intrinsically linked- and it’s crucial that you understand their relationship.

The Reference Planes CONTROL the size and position of the opening itself. The Dimension CONTROLS

the height of the horizontal Reference Plane at door head height. So to summarise: Dimensions

CONTROL the positioning of Reference Planes and Reference Planes CONTROL the positioning of the 3D

geometry- which in this case, includes the Opening itself.

Now let’s move onto the Plan View. Here it is again for reference…..

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Again, there are some VERY important things to notice and discuss here. Firstly the Reference Planes.

There are a number of Reference Planes here. Horizontally, there is one running along the centre line of

the wall. This will ALWAYS lie on the centreline of your wall (regardless of wall thickness) when you add

your door family to a wall element, in the Project Environment.

What isn’t clear from the image above is that there are Reference Planes on the Interior and Exterior

faces of the section of wall, in the template. These Reference Planes are CRUCIAL- as they enable you to

refer your geometry (with regards it position / size) back to the external faces of any wall (regardless of

the wall type or thickness)

Vertically, three Reference Planes can be seen. The one in the centre will always be the centre of the

insertion point, when placing your door in a wall, in the Project Environment. The other two Reference

Planes (running vertically up the screen in our plan view) are the left and right side of the opening- so

are in fact, the same Reference Planes we saw in elevation. All the Reference Planes in this template are

names. Just select any of the Planes and take a look at it’s Properties to see it’s name. Below are the

Properties for the Reference Plane which lies of the Exterior face of the wall….

Also notice the “Width” dimension in the Plan view. Just like in the Elevation view, the Width dimension

CONTROLS the Reference Planes, which in turn CONTROL the width of the Opening.

In the next article we will use a Sweep to form the door frame and architraves. We will look at how to

use Reference Planes (both the defaults planes and additional ones that we will create) to control the

size and location of the door frame and architrave.

Doors: Creating your own Door Family: Part 3

Welcome to the third part in this series of articles in which we explain how to create your own Door

Family using the Family Editor, in Revit Architecture. If you have missed the previous parts in this series,

you may wish to start here.

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In this article we are going to create the door frame and architrave for our door family. We will add

some more Reference Planes to control the solid geometry that we are going to create. And we will also

add some Parameters to control one of the dimensions of our door frame.

So where did we leave off in the previous article? Well, we just go as far as taking a look at the stock

Metric Door template and deleting the included architraves. Here’s what we have at this stage….

So let’s start right away with our door frame. For the purposes of this exercise I’m going to keep this

very simple, with regards the technical detail of the frame. This is all about learning some important

Revit concerts- and not about how to produce sound joinery details!

What I want to do is set my door frame back from the exterior face of the wall. And I want to be able to

vary this distance from within the Project Environment- ie once my door family is actually placed in a

Revit Wall. So I need some way to control this set-back (or “rebate”). To do this I’m going to use a

“Length” parameter, a dimension and a new Reference Plane. I’ll walk you through this step-by-step as

there are some VERY important concepts going on here- concepts that you will use time and again in

your Family Creation process.

First of all let’s create our new Reference Plane. Simple select the Reference Plane tool from the “Home”

menu…..

And then draw a “horizontal” Reference Plane in the Plan view- draw it some distance back from the

Exterior face of the Wall- the exact distance is unimportant as we are going to control it with a

parameter anyway. Here is my new Reference Plane…..

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You can see it highlighted in blue, in the image above. Now we need to NAME our new Reference Plane

so we can “refer” to it when we create our door frame. Make sure the Reference Plane is selected and

then go to its’ Properties and name it “Face of Frame”….

Now let’s create a new parameter to control the rebate of this Reference Plane. Go ahead and click on

the “Family Types” button….

And then in the “Family Types” control panel, click on “Add…” next to “Parameters”….

Up will pop a “Parameters Properties” panel. Let’s go ahead and create a new parameter called

“Rebate”. Change the parameter type to “Instance” (it is on “Type” by default). You can leave all other

settings as they are….

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In order to use our new parameter to control the position of our Reference Plane, we need to label up a

dimension. First of all add a dimension between our new Reference Plane (“Face of Frame”) and the

default Reference Plane named “Exterior”….

IN the above image you can see our new dimension, It just happens to be 33(mm) at the moment. Go

ahead and select the dimension. Upon doing so you will see the “Label” drop-down menu on the

Options Bar. Go ahead and pick our new parameter from the drop-down menu….

Don’t worry that the value of “Rebate” is set at 0. It will immediately change to reflect the current

length (ie 33mm) as soon as you hit “OK”.

So now we have a Reference Plane that will always be set back from the outer face of the wall, by a

distance that is equal to the value held by the parameter “Rebate”.

With that done we can now get on and make our frame. To do this we are going to use a Sweep. You can

read all about the basics of Sweeps here. First of all w will switch to an elevation view (“Exterior”) and

set the “Work Plane” to our new Reference Plane- this will enable us to sketch the path for the sweep

on the correct plane (ie our new plane).

Here is the elevation……

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Now just before we form our Sweep- let’s remove those 2 diagonal dashed lines in the centre of the

door opening. These are “Symbolic lines” and they are included in the template by default. I will explain

Symbolic Lines to you later- so let’s just select both lines and delete them….

That’s better. Now let’s crack on and form our door frame. First set the Work Plane to our “Face of

Frame” Reference Plane. Do this by using the “Set Work Plane” panel- and choose our Reference Plane

from the drop-down list….

We can now just hit the “Sweep” button to enable us to start defining our Path and Profile. At this point

I am going to refer you to this article if you are unfamiliar with the concept of Sweeps. When you’ve

digested that, come back here and continue reading.

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First of all I’ll sketch my path. I do this in an elevation view and the path only needs to be on 3 sides of

the opening. Here is my sketched path…

With Path complete, I can now start sketching my Profile. The shape of the profile will be the cross-

section through the door frame itself. I sketch the Profile in a Plan View. Here is my completed Profile….

And if I zoom out you can see the sketched profile in the context of the door opening…

If I go ahead and complete my Sweep, the door frame is formed….

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NOTE: When you build your own door families you may well wish to create all sorts of parameters to

control (say) the frame size itself. You can make your families as complex of as simple as needed. It just

involves more Reference Planes and Parameters.

And finally (for this article) we will create our architraves. We can do this one of two ways- we can either

create an extrusion in an elevation view OR we can use the Sweep tool again. Which method you choose

is determined by the complexity of your architrave. For a simple rectangular profile, I would simply form

an extrusion….

You can see the sketch for my extrusion in the image above. A few IMPORTANT NOTES: Remember to

change the Work Plane to “Exterior” BEFORE you start sketching your extrusion. Also remember to LOCK

your sketch lines to the Reference Lines that control the Opening. If you do not do this- your architrave

will NOT adjust accordingly when you change the width or height of your opening. And finally,

remember to put some absolute dimensions into your extrusion sketch in order to maintain the correct

“width” of architrave, when the door width changes- see below…

It’s very easy to just create various Sweeps and Extrusions that initially behave correctly- but your job is

to anticipate how the various forms (INCLUDING their respective sketches, profiles and paths) will

behave when you start adjusting the parameters! My Golden Rule: Always TEST your geometry as you

create it- CHANGE the parameter values and SEE if all your elements are still formed CORECTLY and are

WHERE you EXPECT them to be. You’ll get better at this over time and with practice.

Here is my completed architrave….

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I just need to create the same thing on the interior wall- remembering to set the Work Plane to

“Interior” before sketching out my extrusion. Here is the plan view of my family so far…..

I think that’s enough for one article! Have a play around with Reference Planes. Get used to controlling

them by the use of parameters. Also please note my comments about LOCKING your sketch lines-either

by locking them to Reference planes OR by setting locked dimensions. MOST of problems that you will

encounter when creating your own families are down to geometry definitions (ie sketch lines, etc) NOT

being properly constrained.

In the next article we will press on and create the door leaf itself. We will also test out the parametric

nature of our family by creating some Family Types.

Doors: Creating your own Door Family: Part 4

Welcome to the fourth part in this series of articles in which we explain how to create your own Door

Family using the Family Editor, in Revit Architecture. If you have missed the previous parts in this series,

you may wish to start here.

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In the last few articles we looked at which family template to use, set up reference planes and

dimensions in order to control our door and also formed a basic frame and architraves.

In this article we are going to create a door leaf and also introduce the concept of Symbolic Lines. We

will also take a look at how you control the visibility of your 3D geometry- so that it displays correctly

when you use it in a Project Environment.

So let’s crack on and create our door leaf. Just like the door frame, we are going to use a parameter to

control the thickness of the door leaf. Let’s go back in to the “Family Types” control panel and choose

“Add” in the parameters section…..

I’m going to call this parameter “Door Leaf Thickness”- makes sense, doesn’t it?! Again, it needs to be an

“Instance” parameter- this is so that is can hold a different value on a door-by-door basis. Here is our

“Parameter Properties” panel, for our new parameter…………

So let’s go ahead and create our door leaf. We are going to make it using the “Extrusion” command. First

of all, we need to define a new Reference Plane, which will control the placement of the extrusion. Go

ahead and form a new Reference plane and name it “Face of Door Leaf”…..

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In the image above, you can see the new Reference Plane- and you will note that it’s set back slightly

from the face of the door stop. Again, if you wanted to you can easily add parameters and constraints to

control exactly where this plan lies- for example- you may wish it to “always” be 3mm back from the

face of the door stop- wherever that happens to lie.

I’m now going to change to an Interior elevation view, change my Work Plane to the newly-created

“Face of Door Leaf”. I’m now ready to sketch the profile of the door leaf and form the geometry from an

extrusion…..

Remember to LOCK your sketch lines onto the frame geometry. This will ensure that you door leaf

automatically changes size, to match the width of the door opening. I cannot stress this enough: When

you create a “parametric” component- you need to carefully consider the relationship between all the

individual parts- and ensure that when one part changes, related parts do so as well.

When you come to define the thickness of your Extrusion- remember that we want to control this

“parametrically”- so go ahead and click on the little grey box at the end of the row marked “Extrusion

End”. You can now associate a parameter……

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If you get an Error Message stating that “the Extrusion cannot be created”, it is probably because the

parameter “Door Leaf Thickness” has a value of 0. Go ahead and set it to a non-zero value and try again-

it should work this time.

Going back to a plan view, you should now see your completed door leaf…..

You will note that I’ve switched to a “Shaded with Edges” view, so that you can see the various

geometry more clearly.

Right, it’s all starting to take shape! We have an opening, a door frame, architraves both sides and a

door leaf. At this point we’re going to take a break from the 3D Geometry and talk about Symbolic Lines.

Symbolic Lines are lines that are used to depict conventions- such as door swings, etc. They need to be

included in the Family element, but are not part of the sold geometry. It’s going to be much easier to

explain this by means of a demonstration rather than reams of theory. Let’s go ahead and use Symbolic

Lines to show door swing in Plan and Elevation. Let’s start off with the Plan View first. Symbolic Lines can

be found under the “Annotate” tab…..

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There’s only two things to remember about Symbolic Lines:-

a) Remember to choose the right line type for the job. Most Family Templates have a number of

Line Types already set up- that are appropriate for the category of element. For example, if we

look at the type of Symbolic Lines that are pre-defined in the Door Template, we see the

following:-

b) Make sure you set the appropriate Work Plane that you wish to place these lines upon. This is not

so important in Plan Views, but does need consideration when you are working in elevation.

OK. We are in a Plan View, let’s choose Symbolic Lines, select “Plan Swing (cut)” as the subcategory and

draw on the door swing. Here is my completed effort!

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Now, the great thing about Symbolic Lines is that they only show up in the views that they were created

in. So for example, when we use this door family in a live project, we will only see the Cut Plan Swing

(we have just drawn) when we view the door in a “cut plan”. Let’s go ahead and add the Elevation

Swings. As you may guess, we use the “Elevation Swing (Projection)” subcategory of lines for this.

Now what was the second thing I said you need to remember about Symbolic Lines??? That’s right,

make sure you have the correct Work Plane set. So when you switch to your elevation view, go ahead

and ensure the Work Plane is set to Exterior (if you picked the Exterior elevation)….

You can see in the above image that I’ve added my Elevation Swings. These lines should be visible from

either side of the door.

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One last thing we’re going to do in this article is add material parameters for the door frame, architraves

and door leaf. In reality, you would do this as you create each element. Bit for the purposes of this

tutorial, it’s easier to deal with it as a separate concept. Defining material parameters is easy! You don’t

need to worry what the material is actually like when you are creating the family- you just need to make

sure that every component that you need to have material control over, has a unique material

parameter associated with it. So let’s go into our “Family Types” control panel and select “Add…” in the

parameters sub-section…..

First of all I’m going to create a parameter to control the material used for the architraves. So I give it a

name (“Mat_Architrave”), I change the parameter from “Type” to “Instance” (and by now you should

know why- if not, join our Forums and we can start discussing it!). And finally we need to change the

actual parameter type to “Material”- choose this from the drop-down list…..

Repeat the above to create two more parameters called “Mat_DoorFrame” and “Mat_DoorLeaf”. Now

all we need to do is click on each of the respective geometrical elements and associate it with it’s

respective parameter. Let’s do the door leaf fist. Select the door leaf and then take a look at it’s Element

Properties…

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Under the “Materials and Finishes” heading, you will see the Marterial selection box. Click the grey

button at the end of the row to tell Revit that you wish to assign a parameter to it. Upon clicking the

button you will be presented with a list of available parameters which may be associated….

Go ahead the choose “Mat_Doorleaf”. Go ahead and do the same for the door frame and architraves.

Remember, there are 2 architrave elements- one each side of the wall. You will need to assign

“Mat_Architraves” to both elements.

OK. We’ve covered quite a lot in this article. I hope it’s all sinking in. If not, PLEASE ask- that’s what

we’re here for. In the next article we will add a door handle- this will allow us to talk about the concept

of nested components.

Doors: Creating your own Door Family: Part 5

Welcome to the fifth part in this series of articles in which we explain how to create your own Door

Family using the Family Editor, in Revit Architecture. If you have missed the previous parts in this series,

you may wish to start here.

In this article we are going to concentrate on creating a door handle. In doing so, we are going to talk

about the concept of “nested components”. We will talk about what they are, how you create them and

what the advantages are in using them.

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So let’s just dive in to the whole topic of “Nested Components”. The term “Nested Component” is

simply used to describe

one Family that is loaded in to another Family. For example, we are about to create a new “door handle”

component, that we will then load into our Door family.

So why would we want to do this? Isn’t it easier to just create all the geometry we need, in one single

family? Actually, there a number of reasons why we would want to split the components into a number

of sub-components. Let’s look at each one in turn:-

· Reuse / time-saving: Let’s say that the door handle that we are going to create, is a standard door

handle that we would like to use again and again, on may different door types. Why would we

wish to model it from scratch time after time? Let’s just model it once as its own distinct

component- and then load it in to any door family we like

· Scheduling: Nested Components can be scheduled separately (from the component that is hosting

them). So again taking our door handle example, it may be really useful to schedule all the

different types of door handles within a project, irrespective of what door types they are hosted

by.

· Simplification of modelling: Generally (in Revit and in life) things get a lot more simple and easy to

tackle if you break them down into smaller chunks. This is particularly true when modelling

complex components. So if you can rationally sub-divide the component into a number of

constituent parts; you will find it easier to produce- with less chance of mistakes.

OK, enough theory, let’s make a start. Just like the door family, we will keep the modelling very simple-

this is so that the tutorial doesn’t become too long and laborious- and more importantly, allows us to

remain focused on the principles, rather than the details.

To form the door handle component, I am going to use a new “Metric Generic Model face based”

template…..

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Why am I using a “face based” template? Simple: When we have created our door handle and loaded it

into our door family, we want to be able to have it “hosted” by the “face” of the door leaf. Hence the

choice of family template for this particular nested component.

Before we add any geometry, let’s take a quick look at the blank template- I’ll use a 3D View for this…..

So the only thing that is in this new template is a simple horizontal block. The top surface of this block

represents “the plane” that the final nested component will attach to. If we now look at the Plan View of

this template………

Looking down on the block, we can now see that there is also a couple of Reference Planes included in

the template. These are named “Center (Front/Back) and Center (Left/Right). Together they form a

“cross-hair” which represent the “Insertion Point” when you come to use this component in a Project

Environment.

We are going to create our door handle geometry on its side. This is because it has to relate correctly to

“the plane”, and when we come to insert it into our door family, the plane that it will be hosted by is the

face of the door leaf.

So let’s create a simple back plate to our handle. I’ll use an Extrusion for this. Please don’t worry about

the detail or the exact dimensions- but if you are struggling with the theory (ie why or how are we doing

this), please get in touch via the Forums.

Here is our finished back plate, formed by a simple Extrusion…..

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If I view the back plate from above (ie in a Plan View) you will see that I created it “off center” from the

Insertion Point…..

This is because I want the Insertion point to coincide with the shaft of the handle. I’m going to go ahead

and form the rest of the handle by using the Sweep tool. First of all I’m going to sketch out the Path….

Now I’m going to sketch the Profile (a simple circle) and create the solid geometry….

Very simplistic I know, but I hope you can recognise this as a door handle? When you create yours, feel

free to make it as detailed or complex as you like. Hopefully now you can appreciate why we have

created it in this orientation? When we insert it into our door family and choose the door leaf as the

plane- the door handle component will be orientated correctly.

So go ahead and save the door handle family- I’m going to name mine “door_handle_type_01”

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If you do not currently have the Door Family open in Revit, go ahead and open that Family now. Here is

my door family that I’m going to add the handle to….

The next we need to take is to “Load” the door handle family into this one. This is very simple- just

choose “Load Family” from the “Insert” tab…..

Now that the Door Handle family is loaded, we need to actually place an instance of the Component, in

to position. Go ahead and choose “Component” on the “Home” tab. Your Door Handle family should

now be on the end of your cursor- ready for placement!

Hover over your Door Leaf and then click to place your handle into position. Of course, if you were doing

this for real, you would probably want some parametric control over the position of the handle. You

would do this by use of Reference Planes, labelled dimensions and parameters.

I’m going to simply “mirror” the handle in a Plan View, so form the duplicate on the other side of the

door leaf.

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When you do this, you may notice Revit grumbling about the “Loss of association with the Work Plane”-

don’t worry about this right now.

And there we have it folks- A simple door assembly (door opening, frame, architraves and door handle

furniture) ready to use in a Revit project.

But just before we end this particular article I want to quickly discuss the “Shared” family Parameters.

PLEASE do not confuse this topic with “Shared Parameters”, because they are NOT the same thing.

Component families have a specific parameter named “Shared”, which can either be “on” or “Off” (0 or

1, etc., etc.).

If a nested component is “Shared” (that is, it’s “Shared” parameter is set enabled) then that component

is capable of being scheduled (in a Revit Project environment) independently of it’s host. So in our

example, if the Door Handle components have their “Shared” parameter enabled, we will be able to

schedule just the door handle, should we wish. By default, the “Shared” parameter for newly-created

components is disabled. Let’s go ahead and enable the “Shared” parameter for our door handle

components. Before we do this, there is one strange idiosyncrasy we must remember: You need to

enable the “Shared” parameter BEFORE you nest the component into it’s Host. So unfortunately, we

now need to delete the door handles from our door family.

No we can open the Door Handle family up in the Family Editor. Once we have the family loaded into

the Family Editor, go ahead and click on “Family Category & Parameters”……

If you take a look towards the bottom of the panel (in the “Family Parameters” section), you will see the

“Shared” parameter- and you will notice that it is currently unchecked. Go ahead and check the tick-box

for this parameter….

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Save your door handle family and then repeat the process described earlier in the article, in order to

load this component into the Door Family Host- and place an instance of the Handle on each side of the

door leaf. Finally, Save the completed Door Family.

All there is left to do is load our completed Door Family component into a Revit Project and place it in a

wall! Here is a simple wall with 5 instances of the family placed into it….

Now because we made the door handles “Shared”, we are able to Tag these “as well as” the complete

Door assembly. You will note in the image below, that we are able to Tag the Door Family AND the Door

Handle family that is “nested” into it….

As we said before, we are also able to “Schedule” these sub-components separately too. In the image

below, I have created a very simple door schedule, you will not that BOTH the Door Family and Door

Handle Family Instances have been scheduled….

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PLEASE NOTE: In order for this to work, I had to change the Family Category of the Door Handle family to

“Doors”- If you recall, we used a “Generic Model” category of template. It is absolutely fine to start with

one Category of template and then to change it’s Category to suit it’s use.

We have covered quite a lot in this article. But hopefully you have now grasped the basic concepts of

“Nested Components” and the “Shared” family parameter? The principles that you have learnt here can

be used on any type of component that you create within Revit.

Doors: Creating your own Door Family: Part 6

Welcome to the sixth part in this series of articles in which we explain how to create your own Door

Family using the Family Editor, in Revit Architecture. If you have missed the previous parts in this series,

you may wish to start here.

If you have been following the series from the start, you will know that we have now completed the

modelling part of the exercise. That is to say, we have created all the 3D geometry that is required to

represent our door assembly- including the door handles.

To get the maximum value out of the time we have spent modelling this door, we can go ahead and

easily create a number of pre-defined “Types”, all based on the same basic family. Needless to say, that

is the focus of this particular article: Types.

If you don’t have the door family open in the Family Editor, go ahead and open it now.

And there it is: Magnificent!

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So what is the purpose of creating Types? Well, quite simply it is so that we can use the same basic

family to form different elements. When I say “different”, I actually mean that their parameters are

different- The basic 3D geometry stays the same.

So for example, with our door family we may wish to set up several Types, each one having a different

“opening width”. Or we may wish to set up different “Types” that contain various thicknesses of door

leaf. Hopefully, you get the idea? (As always: If you’re not sure, ask!).

So let’s go ahead and start defining some Types. Click on the “Family Types” button, on the “Home”

tab……..

Upon clicking the button, you are presented with the “Family Types” control panel…..

You will note that the “Name” box at the top of the panel is blank and greyed out- that is because there

is currently no Types defined for this family. So go ahead and click “New” in the “Family Types” section

on the right hand side of the panel. I’m going to call this Type “1010 X 2010mm” to represent a door

that is “1010mm wide by 2010mm high.

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Of course you can name your Types however you wish.

Once this Type is created, you can go ahead and change / set any of the Parameters to suit. So in my

example, I am going to go ahead and set the Width and Height accordingly……

To create additional Types, all you do is repeat the above process and set different values to the

parameters accordingly.

In the image above, you will see that I’ve created 3 three different Types for this door family. At this

stage, it is a very good idea to “flex” your family. That is: Change the active “Type” from the drop-down

list and check (visually) that the family has adjusted in the way that you expect. With our simple door

family example, there is very little to go wrong. But you will appreciate that large, complex families with

many parameters can sometimes behave in a totally unexpected manner, when you try flexing them. It’s

much better to resolve the issues now (whilst you are creating the family) than when you need to use

the family in a live Project environment.

When you are happy with the Types you have defined, go ahead and “Save” a copy of the family and

then “Load” it in to a new Project file. Create a single length of wall and insert an instance of the door

family into it……

Making sure that you have selected the door itself, take a look at its “Properties” panel. You will notice

that the current “Type” is shown at the top of the panel and that by clicking on this, you get a drop-

down list of the various “Types” that are available…..

Just before we finish, it is worth reiterating that Types can control a variety of parametric aspects of

your family- not just dimensions. For example, you can create Types to control the materials within a

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family, or even the visibility of certain nested components within the family. Like most things in Revit,

only you can decide on the trade-off between modelling time and the value that you will get out of it.

In the next (and final) article in the series, we will take a very quick look at all the key concepts we have

covered to date- and how some of these can be used in other areas of Revit.

Doors: Creating your own Door Family: Part 7

Welcome to the final part in this series of articles in which we have explained how to create your own

Door Family using the Family Editor, in Revit Architecture. If you have missed the previous parts in this

series, you may wish to start here.

In this article we are going to take a very quick overview of all the key concepts that we have covered in

the previous 6 parts. I’m not going to go in to detail here, as we did that in the respective sections. What

I would like you to take away from this article is a thorough understanding of the key concepts, the

thought processes and overall workflow.

In this particular series we have focused on creating a Door family. But the process and concepts can be

applied (and “should” be) to virtually any type of family that you wish to create within Revit. With that in

mind, I am going to keep the rest of the article fairly general.

So let’s attempt to define a systematic process for creating a 3D component family using the Family

Editor, in Revit:-

Picking the correct family template.

Revit Architecture comes with a vast array of family template files. It is crucial that you pick the correct

one based on:-

a) The proposed category of element that you are wish to create. For example: If you are creating a

new wall cupboard family, you will probably want to use the “Casement” family template

b) Make sure you consider how your component needs to relate to it’s surroundings. For example:

Does it need to be wall-based, floor-based, face-based, ceiling-based, work-plane based, etc,

etc. This will have a bearing on your choice of template.

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The image above shows you just some of the vast range of family templates you have to choose from.

Remember too that most templates have appropriate symbolic lines styles and sub-categories already

pre-defined. This saves you a lot of time and work.

Decide on what you need the component to do

Will your component be used in photo-realistic renderings? Do you require it for scheduling purposes?

Does it “need” to be 3D or will a 2D symbol be sufficient. The answers to these questions (and more) will

dictate how you go about creating your component. Remember the Golden Rule: You should keep the

component as simple as possible- whilst also performing the function it needs to do. It may be very

tempting to do a highly detailed 3D model of a desk- when in reality all you need to do is see it’s

footprint on plan and have it appear in a schedule.

Planning your “parametric strategy”

If you are creating a “fixed” component (i.e. it is one size and will always remain exactly the same) then

this step is not so important to you. However, if you are creating a parametric component (c’mon-

parametric is the future!), then I would strongly suggest that you create a “plan” or “Strategy” for your

component “BEFORE” you start modelling. If you don’t you may find you get yourself tied up in knots,

when the model does not flex as you would expect. Taking a look at some of the parameters used in a

door family that ships with Revit……..

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…should convince you that parametric families can get very complicated, very quickly! Have a clear

vision of WHAT you need the Family to DO- this will then dictate WHAT type of parameters you need.

Creating custom components can be one of the most rewarding aspects of using Revit. It can also be one

of the most frustrating. You have been warned!

Place your key Reference Planes and labelled dimensions first

This point is closely tied in with the previous one. Try to form a “parametric skeleton” first BEFORE you

start adding your solid geometry. As you get more experienced in creating component families, you will

quickly learn that the “order” in which you create things, is just as important as the objects themselves.

Use the correct tools for the job!

Think about the geometry you are going to create. There is often more than one way to produce (what

looks like) the same solid. Should you use an Extrusion or a Sweep, for example?

Depending on which method you choose, will influence where your Reference Planes need to be and

what parameters (and / or formulas) you will need.

Type or Instance parameters

Give plenty of thought as to whether each parameter you create, needs to be a “Type parameter” or an

“Instance parameter”. In making these decisions, you will need to ask yourself “Do I need to vary the

value of this parameter on an as-Instance basis; or would it be more beneficial to change the value once

and have all Instances of the component change. The choice is yours!

Assign Materials to your new geometry as you go along

It can be quite a pain to go back and edit every extrusion, sweep, revolve, etc; just so that you can assign

materials to them. It is much better to assign material names as you create each piece of geometry.

What “material control” you need over your finished component should be part of you “parametric

strategy” that we talked about earlier. PLEASE NOTE: If you think there is a remote possibility that you

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may need to vary the material of an element once it is in the “project environment”, make sure you

create a parameter to store the material “value”.

Break your components down into a number of smaller, logical parts

Where a component is comprised on a number of distinct sub-components; it is often a good idea to

model these individually and load them into a “host” component. When doing so, think about whether

you will need to “schedule” these sub-components from within the project environment. This will then

influence whether you enable their “Shared” parameter.

Remember: If you don’t enable “Shared” before you nest your component into it’s host and you

subsequently wish to enable the “Shared” parameter; you will need to DELETE the sub-component from

the Host file, enable the parameter and THEN load it back into the Host file. This can be a laborious

process, so better to get it right first time!

Define Types

Save time for yourself and everyone who uses your components by pre-defining Types. This is obviously

only applicable to real world components that come in a range of standard sizes- doors and windows are

a prime example.

Flex your geometry

Parametric geometry can behave in unpredictable ways when pushed to extremes. Consequently, it is

highly advisable that you “flex” (or “test”) your geometry with realistic parametric values to see if you

get the results you expect. For example if you create a parametric door family, how does it behave if you

set it’s width to 5mm, 1,000mm or 100,000mm? In reality, there will be a range of values that you would

use for the door width- make sure the family behaves correctly for both ends of that range.

Conclusion

And that concludes our series of articles on creating your own custom door families. As you will have

observed from the information in this last part, many of the key concepts and decisions that we have

discussed are applicable to most other types of components that you may wish to create. Using the

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Family Editor and creating 2D and 3D components from scratch can seem a daunting and complicated

process at first. But like anything, it gets easier and quicker with practise.

Families, Types and Instances: An overview

One of the main concepts that anyone new to Revit should endevour to fully understand is the

relationship between Families, Family Types and Instances. I thought that a good way to convey and

explain this concept may be by use of a graphical example.

So first of all let's create a very simple 3D component (ie a new Family).

So there it is, a simple cube. Nothing too exciting, but it will serve our purpose well.

Now, in creating this new Family, I have defined 3 parameters (ie 3 variables that will have some effect

on the family). 2 parameters are dimensions (Width and Length) and the third is Material (ie what our

cube is created from)

Now the important thing to note here is that when I created each of the Parameters I had to tell Revit

whether they were Type Parameters or Instance Parameters.

So I chose to make both "Width" and "Material" Instance Parameters and Length a Type Parameter.

The next thing I did was set up 3 default Types for our Family. Here is the Type data:-

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OK, job done. We've created our Family and set up 3 Types. Here's a graphical representation of what

we have so far:-

So now lets drop down some instances into our model. We'll add 2 of Type A, 1 of Type B and 2 of Type

C. This results in...

So now we start to have fun. First of all we are going to change a Type Parameter. I'm going to double

the Parameter Length (from 500 to 1000) for Type A. This results in....

Notice how ALL the instances that are of Type A change their length. The other 2 Types remain

unchanged.

Now let's change an Instance Parameter. I'm going to choose Instance number 3 and change it's material

to Buff Brick...

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Note how only that specific instance of the family changed material. All the others remain unchanged.

This is the power of an Instance Parameter.

Finally, let's go back into the Family editor and triple the height of the cube. Note: There is no variable

parameter for the height (because I chose not to create one)...

So I just increase the depth of the Solid extrusion to 750mm (from it's original 250mm). Now all I do is

Load the Family back into our project and the existing version of the Family will be updated...

And as you may expect, every instance (ie ALL Types) have their Height changed.

Summary

It does not matter if we're discussing cubes, doors, windows, trees or desks- The basic fundamental

concept behind Family Definitions, Family Types and Instances remains the same. Change a Type

Parameter and all Instances of the that Type will also change. Change an Instance Parameter and only

that specific Instance of the Family will change.

Parameter Power!

Welcome to this revit.biz article on Parameters

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Parameters are at the very heart of Revit. They are what make Revit so very powerful and flexible.

Everywhere you look in Revit, you will see parameters at work…

Let’s take a section of wall. This wall is absolutely overflowing with parameters. If we look at it’s element

properties, we can see…..

Each one of these settings is a parameter that we can change- either now or anytime in the future- and

the effect on the wall will be made as soon as we confirm the change to the parameter. A very

important thing to note is that parameters come in various “types”. An obvious type is length. For

example, our wall has an Unconnected Height of 2000. The parameter “Unconnected Height” is a length

parameter- if we were to enter the value “cherry pie” against Unconnected Height, Revit wouldn’t have

a clue what we are trying to tell it- it is expecting a length here.

But if we look at “Room Bounding”…..

We either have a choice of ticked or unticked. This is still a parameter but it is of the type “Yes / No”,

“0/1”, etc.

Likewise, if we look at the parameter “Top Constraint”…..

We can see that we have a choice from a pre-defined list.

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Now the good news is that when you create your own custom components, you can create your own

parameters- that you can name as you wish; and also specify what type you wish them to be.

So let’s go ahead and make a very simple component and then add a parameter that will allow us to

modify the component within our project. For this exercise we are going to create a very simple 3D

cube.

From a new Revit Project file, select File>New>Family..

From the File Explorer window, select “Generic Model”, and then “Open”….

This gives us a very basic template upon which to build our simple component.

Because we haven’t yet covered an explanation of the Family Editor (in which you are now in!) we will

keep this example very simple- remember, all we are trying to demonstrate here is the use of your own

parameters.

Go ahead and select “Solid Form > Solid Extrusion”…

…upon which Revit will enter Sketch Mode, allowing you to sketch the plan profile of you extrusion. Use

the line tools to draw a square 1000 x 1000….

So that’s the shape for the base of our extrusion. Now we need to define the height- ie how far we wish

it to be extruded. Click on “Extrusion Properties”…

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And change Extrusion End from 250 to 500, like so….

Click OK, and then select Finish Sketch, to tell Revit to go ahead and form the Extrusion…

Revit has now created a box that is 1,000 x 1,000 in plan and 500 tall. Switch to View 1 (under 3D Views)

and use the eye tool to spin the box around so that you can see it in 3D…

And there we have it! Our very first custom component. Let’s save it somewhere, so that we can use it

again in the future. Select File > Save As. Choose where to save the component and give it a name. I’m

going to save mine to the Desktop and call it “Small Table”….

And there it is. So let’s go ahead and put this component into a Project. Going back to Revit, select “Load

into Projects”…

Upon selecting this command, you will be taken from the Family Editor back into the Revit Project File

that you previously had open (before we started creating a new Family). To use our new component,

just select “Component” from the “Basics” Design Bar….

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You should immediately see our new component on the end of the cursor, ready to be placed! Go ahead

and place 4 instances…..

Switch to the default 3D View to see our 4 tables in all their wonderful simplistic glory!

So there we have it. We’ve created a very simple component that can be used in any Revit Project. But

this article was about Parameters! And we haven’t created any parameters? Adding parameters to our

component would give us a great deal of flexibility, in terms of what we can do with it from within a

Project.

As we know, our component has a base of 1,000 x 1,000 and a height of 500. But what if we wanted one

of the instance to have a base of 200 x 750 and a height of 1,200? And another to have base of 100 x

2,000 and a height of 300? Well, we could create a new Family of each of the variations. But why would

we want to do that when the underlying geometry of each variation is identical. Let’s just create some

Parameters for the aspects that we wish to make flexible and then we can modify each instance to suit.

So far we have created a very simple custom component, which we then loaded into a Revit Project.

Now we’re going to edit the Family that we previously created in order to add some Parameters to it

So first of all select one of the instances of our component….

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and then select “Edit Family” from the Options Bar…..

Click OK to the prompt asking if you wish to “Open Small Table for Editing”. Revit now takes us back into

the Family Editor where we can edit our custom component.

Switch back to a plan view of our component by double-clicking the “Ref. Level” view..

Before we go any further, let me explain what (exactly) we are going to do. We are going to add two

parameters to our component. We are going to call the 2 parameters “Length” and “Width”. We are

going to use these parameters to control the dimensions of our table, in plan.

In order to control our table size in plan, we need to be able to adjust the plan profile of the extrusion.

So first of all we need to edit the extrusion we previously created. Select the geometry itself, ie click on

our box- once selected, the box will highlight in red…

and then select “Edit” from the Options Bar….

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This now takes us back into Sketch Mode, where we first sketched out the profile for our extrusion. In

order to control the dimensions of this sketch we need to first add dimensions that we can then add our

parameters to.

So go ahead and add two dimensions like so…

Now as they stand, these dimensions will have no effect on our component. They just confirm what we

already know- that the profile for our extrusion is 1,000 x 1,000.

In order to “Control” these dimensions from within a Project, we need to add Parameters to each of the

dimensions. Let’s do this now. Go ahead and select the bottom dimension. Make sure the dimension is

selected- if it is, it will be highlighted in red….

Once selected, take a look at the Options Bar. You will notice a drop-down box called “Label”….

Click the black triangle to activate the drop-down menu. You will now see that you have the option to

add a parameter to this dimension….

Go ahead and select “Add Parameter”. This will bring up the “Parameters Properties” control panel. You

use this panel to tell Revit about the parameter you wish to define. Start off by naming the parameter-

let’s call it “Length”….

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While we have the Parameter Properties control panel open, let’s take a look around the rest of the

options available to us. At the top of the panel is the option for this parameter to be either a Family

Parameter or a Shared Parameter….

Family Parameters can only be accessed from within the Family in which they are created. Shared

parameters are more powerful and allow us to share their data between families and also have it

automatically populate schedules and tags. For our example, leave the Parameter Type set as “Family

Parameter”

Moving back down to the bottom of the panel again, we see the following…

We already know about “Name”- this is what we want to call our Parameter.

“Group Parameter under” allows us to select where our parameter will appear, when we access it via

the Element Properties box- go ahead and change this to “Dimensions”.

The Instance and Type radio buttons allow us to specify whether this parameter is an Instance

Parameter or Type Parameter. Let’s change it to an Instance Parameter- this will let us have a unique

value for this parameter, for each instance of the component in the model.

“Type of Parameter” allows us to choose what type of parameter we want it to be. You will recall from

part A of this article that there are many types of parameter- ie “Yes / No”, etc. In our example, “Type of

Parameter” is already set to Length and is greyed out. This is because we are adding a parameter to a

dimension- and dimensions can only accept parameters of the type “Length”. It wouldn’t make sense to

add a “Yes / No” parameter to a dimension, would it?

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Once you have made the changes listed above, go ahead and click OK. You will notice that Revit has

added the name of the parameter to the dimension. It also displays the current value of the parameter-

in this case 1000.

Now you need to go through the above process again for the other dimension. This time name the

dimension “Width”. Make sure you make all the other changes as before- ie select “Instance” as the

parameter Type, etc.

So there we have it. The profile that defines the plan of our extrusion is now controlled by two

parameters that we have created. Go ahead and select Finish Sketch to create the extrusion. And what

do you know? Our component does not look any different than it did before! Don’t worry- the

difference will become evident when we work with our component from within a project. So let’s do

that now.

Because we have modified our component in the Family Editor, we need to load the current (new)

version into a project- this will automatically update all old versions of the component already in the

project. So go ahead and select “Load into Projects”. Upon doing so, you will receive the following

warning….

This is just warning us that a version of this component is already in use in our project. Click OK to

overwrite the old version.

Again, no visible difference to our components! Go ahead and select one of the components- and then

select the Element Properties…..

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If you look at the Element Properties panel, you will see our two new parameters listed under

“Dimensions” (because we chose to “Group under Dimensions”). Because we made them Instance

Parameters, we can now change their values for each instance of the component within the model. So

go ahead and test it out- change the values of our parameters for each of the 4 instances of the

component…..

So there we have it- our first custom parametric component! Very simple, I know- but we’ve covered

some very important, fundamental concepts. The ability to create dynamic geometry than can be easily

modified and reused is a very powerful aspect of Revit.

Solid versus Void

In this article we are going to take a look at the basic geometry that makes up any components-

specifically Solids and Voids

In this article we looked at how every component is made up from a number of individual mass

geometry. We also said that there are four different methods for creating this elemental geometry.

In this article we are going to look at each of the four methods in turn. In doing so, we will look at the

basic method of using each tool and also explain when it would be appropriate to use them.

Solid Extrusion

Extrude is the simplest of the four Solid Form Creation Methods. The use of this tool requires two

distinct steps.

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Sketch the profile that you wish to extrude.

Set the Depth for the extrusion. Note: You can also set the absolute Start and End for the extrusion.

Selecting Finish Sketch, tells Revit to go ahead and create the geometry based on the profile and

extrusion depth settings we have made….

Note:

Extrusions have the same profile over the entire of their length

The Profile can only be extruded perpendicular to the plane in which it was drawn.

Sketching closed loops within the overall profile we define, will result in voids being created in the

extrusion- see below

Sketching this profile…

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Produces this extrusion….

Solid Sweep

Along with Extrude, the Sweep tool will be used to create 95% of the geometry you need for your

components.

Using the Sweep tool is a two step process. First of all we need to draw a 2D path along which our

profile will be swept. Note: The 2D path does NOT need to be closed. If we want to create a picture

frame, we would wish for a rectangular path….

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Note: The 2D path is shown in pink. It is a closed rectangular loop because we wish to create a

rectangular picture frame.

Now for the second step: We need to draw a 2D profile- ie we need to define the shape that we want to

extrude (if you like) along our path. For our picture frame, we need to sketch an appropriate moulding

for the cross-section of timber….

Selecting Finish Sweep results in…..

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Below is a close-up of the frame, so you can see how the profile we sketched has been “swept” along

the path we defined. NOTE: I have taken a segment out of the path (and consequently the finished

sweep) to allow you to see the cross section of the geometry we have created. It also highlights the fact

that your 2D path does not need to be a closed loop.

Solid Revolve

The next tool that we are going to look at is the Solid Revolve. This tool is allows you to define a profile

and then revolve this 2D shape around a central axis, to form a 3D mass. Examples of when you may

need to use this tool are:

• Creating a domed roof

• Creating a door knob

Once again, the use of this tool takes a two step approach. With this particular tool, either step may be

performed before the other.

So let’s start by drawing our profile. The profile must take the form of a closed loop.

Now we have defined our profile, let’s define an axis about which we will revolve the profile. We define

the axis simply by drawing a line….

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The axis is the blue line in the image above. Note: The axis can be drawn to any length- The only

constraint is that it is drawn in the same plane as the profile.

All we need to do now is select Finish Sketch and let Revit produce the solid geometry…

And there it is, in all it’s 3D glory! The default angle for revolving our profile around the axis is 360

degrees- but we can change that value to an angle less than 360. Let’s change the end angle to 270 from

the start angle.

Our geometry is modified accordingly……

This allows us to clearly see the shape of the profile that has been revolved around the axis.

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Solid Blend

Now to the last of the four Solid Form creation tools: Solid Blend. Quite simply, this tool works in the

following manner:-

· Draw a shape to define a Base profile

· Draw a shape to define the Top Profile- this shape does not have to have any relationship to the

one used for the Base Profile.

· Specify the relative distance between the two profiles

· Let Revit blend (or morph’) one profile into the other over the distance between them.

It is probably easier understanding this tool by use of a graphical example…

Let’s draw a base profile. For our Base we draw a square (approximately!)

And now let’s draw the Top Profile. We will draw a simple polygon….

And now we will tell Revit the distance between the two profiles- we’ll set this at 800….

Selecting “Finish Sketch” let’s Revit produce the following geometry..

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You can see how Revit has morphed the Base Profile into the Top Profile, over the 800mm distance that

we specified.

Summary and conclusion

In this article we have looked at the four methods of creating primary Solid Forms. Void Forms work in

exactly the same way and have the same four tools…

Through the use of these tools it is possible to create (virtually) any three dimensional geometry that

you can imagine. Obviously we have used very basic, non-parametric examples to help convey how

these tools are used and what they produce. In future articles we will look at how Reference Planes and

Parameters allows us to create “dynamic” geometry that can be modified “on the fly”, within a project.

Linked Files: Reference Types

In this tutorial we are going to take a look at the two different types of referencing systems (Reference

Types) that you can use when linking one Revit project into another. This system is the same no matter

what combination of Revit projects files you link. ie Revit MEP into Revit Architecture, Revit Structure

into MEP, etc.

The two Reference Types that are available to you when linking Revit files are: Overlay and Attachment.

In order to keep this tutorial to a reasonable length and to convey the concept as efficiently as possible, I

am going to demonstrate the difference between the two Reference Types by means of a worked

example.

For this, I am going need 3 Revit Project files. I'm going to use Revit Architecture Project files for all 3.

But as stated previously, you are free to mix and match between the various flavours of Revit.

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My 3 project files are:-

File 1 (The site)

File 2 (The building shell)

File 3 (The furniture)

So let's start with the Reference Type "Overlay". First of all I am going to Link in File 3 into File 2 as an

"Overlay". In the image below you can see the furniture file has linked into the house shell...

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Now I am going to take a look in the "Manage Links" control panel. You find this on the "Manage"

menu...

In this panel you will see a list of all project files that are Linked into the current one. In our case there is

only one linked file- File 3. The thing I want you to note (as it is the topic of the tutorial!) is the Reference

Type.....

You will see that by default the linked file has come in as an Overlay. Dont worry what this actually

means because I am going to show you now by use of an example. I am now going to Link File 2 into File

1. As soon I use the "Link Revit" command, BOOM.......

....there we have it! Revit tells us now that it is not going to display "File 3" because it is set as an

"Overlay". So I proceed and Link File 2 in. Here is a Floor Plan View taken from File 1....

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and true to its word, you can see that Revit has hidden File 3 (ie the furniture).

NOW: Let's go back and open File 2 and change the Reference Type for the "File 1" Link to

"Attachment"....

The Linked File is still visible from within this file (File 2). But if we now save this file and open File 1....

Ah!!! Now we CAN see both File 2 AND File 3 from within File 1 This is because File 3 is now an

"Attachment" with regards its Reference Type.

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Summary

Hopefully the above example has explained the differecne between the two Reference Types: Overlay

and Attachment. If you are only linking "one deep" ie one file into anther, you dont really need to worry

about this concept. But if you are "sub-nesting" Linked Files- use the most apropriate Referecne Type to

suit whether you wish the sub0nested files to be visible from within the master Host file. This is most

useful when you are linking in MEP/Structure files into your Architectural model AND THEN linking your

Architectural model into a site file. You probably dont need to see the MEP/Structure in the site file-

hence you would chose "Overlay" as your Referecne Type.

Linked Files: The Basics

In this article we are going to take a look at the basics of linking files in Revit. For the purpose of this

exercise we are going to use Revit Architecture 2012, but the same principles can be applied to all

flavours of Revit- e.g. Revit Architecture, Revit Structure and Revit MEP. You can also mix and match. I.e.

you can link one Revit Architecture file into a another one or you can link a Revit MEP file into Revit

Architecture file, and so on.

Before we actually start with the tutorial, let's just take a few minutes to discuss why we would actually

want to link one Revit file into another. Generally there are two main scenarios where you would want

to to do this. The first one being when you want to split your project into a "site file" and a "building

file". This helps keep each one smaller and also helps with collaboration. This would proabbly be

appropriate when either of the files is large in size or you are developing a "campus" model- ie a site

with many different buildings on it.

The second scenario is where you want to split your project into different disciplines. For example the

MEP and structural elements of the project are being developed independently (in Revit MEP and Revit

Structure) and you want to bring everything together in one "master£ file.

For the purposes of this tutorial we are going to deal with the first scenario (seperate site and building

files). We will cover linking between disciplines in a seperate tutorial- where we will also cover the use

of the Copy/Monitor tools.

OK, lets get started. Let's start off with our site model. For the purposes of this exercise, I'm just going to

use a very simple site model consisting of a basic toposurface with a subregion on it . In the image below

you can see our basic site model.

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And thats it for the site model. I have saved it as a Revit project called "Site". Now onto the building.

Again I'm going to keep it very simple. Four walls, some windows, a door and a roof. Please note that

this is created in a completely seperate Revit project file. At this stage, there is absolutely no

relationship between the site file and building file. Talking of buildings, here it is.......

I dont think it's going to win any architectural awards, but you get the idea. Right, so we now have a site

file and a building file. All that's left to do is link them together. Now for the million dollar question-

which way round do you do the linking? Or let's put it in more basic terms: Do we link the Building INTO

the Site file? Or, do we link the "Site File" into the "Building file"? There are pros and cons with both

approaches. But I would suggest for now that you link your Building INTO your site. So first of all let's

open the Site file again. Once we have the site file open we go to the "Insert" menu and choose "Link

Revit".....

When we select this, we are then presented with a fairly standard "Open File" dialogue panel.....

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We now select our building file as the file that we wish to link inside the current one. But wait just a

minute: Before we go on, let's take a very quick look at the little drop-down panel at the bottm, the one

titled "Positioning". In the image below you can see all the options you have with regards how the linked

file relates (with regards to its position) to its Host file....

In other tutorials we cover the concept of Shared Coordinates and Project Coordinates. The topics are a

little too in-depth to cover here and really warrant their own discussion. But the thing to note now is

that you do have a choice (at the time of linking) as to how the two files relate to each other in the X, Y

and Z planes. For this tutorial, we are going to select "Manual- Base Point". This bascially just lets us click

where we want the linked file to be placed.

As soon as I click OK on this panel, Revit asks us to click where we wish to place the linked file. As you

move your cursor about, you will see a ghost image of the linked file, ready to be placed.....

Im going to go ahead and place the building in the middle of my site.....

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And there we have it. We have linked our building into our site. Please Note: This is a "Link" and not an

import. As such, It is important to maintain the absolute path of the linked file so that the Host File can

find it every time it opens. The linked files behaves as a single entity for the purposes in moving and

rotating. So once your building is in your site you can select it and tweak its position and orientation

manually.

To give you some degree of control over the files you have linked into the Host, Revit provides a "Link

Manager" (actually titled "Manage Links"). You can find this on the "Manage" menu.....

Upon selecting this, you are presented with a table showing you details of all the files you currently have

linked into this Host....

Things to note on this panel are "Reference Type"- which determines whether nested linked files are

visible. Also worth noting is the ability to determine whether the path to the linked file is absolute or

relative. Both of these topics we will cover in seperate tutorials.

And that's it for our basic primer on "Linked Files" in Revit.

Color Schemes

I’m going to start this article by saying that it feels a bit odd typing “Color” instead of “Colour”, but

despite me being physically located in the West Midlands (United Kingdom) Revit still insists on the

American spelling of the word. Which is fine by me!

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With that out of the way let’s get started with Color Schemes. Have you ever needed to produce

architectural plans for a presentation, where you need different rooms / spaces to be colour-coded?

Well that’s exactly what “Color Schemes” are for.

There is a pre-requisite to using Colour Schemes- and that is, you need to base them on “Rooms” or

“Areas”. That is, before setting up a Color Scheme, you need to have added Revit “Rooms” or Revit

“Areas” to you model. For the purposes of this exercise I am going to use “Rooms” as the basis for my

Color Scheme. The principle for using them with Areas is very similar. Any problems, please ask on our

Forums and we can take you through it.

OK, let’s get started. As usual with our step-by-step examples, we’ll start with a blank Revit Project file.

I’ll quickly set up a very basic building by adding Walls and Windows. I will then add a Revit “Room” to

each space and name each room. This takes us to here………….

You can see from the above image that I have tagged the Rooms and given each room a distinct name.

Please Note: If you are new to the concept of “Room” within Revit Architecture, please read this article

before proceeding.

Now before we proceed any further, a little bit of theory: Color Schemes basically “colour fill” each

Room (or “Area”) based on a parameter that you specify. And it’s the last bit of that sentence

(“Parameter that you specify”) that is important. If we base our Color Scheme on the “Name”

parameter, then Revit will colour fill in each room that has a different name, with a different colour.

Where 2 rooms have the same name, they will acquire the same colour.

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One of the more useful ways to use Color Schemes with Rooms, is to produce a Color Scheme based on

the “Department” parameter. If we pick any Room at random and look at it’s parameters, we can see

the full list of default “Instance” parameters…..

We can base our Color Scheme on any of these parameters, or indeed add our own custom parameters

to the Room category. But let’s stick with using the “Department Parameter”. Before we actually

produce our Color Scheme, we will need to add some values to the “Department” parameter. By far the

easiest way to do this is to create a simple Room Schedule and add the “Department” values there…..

OK, I’ve added values to the “Department” parameter for each of my Rooms. I’m using this particular

parameter to convey the use of each space- ie circulation, office, storage, etc, etc.

So let’s now produce a Color Scheme based on these values. I can add a Color Scheme to any floor plan

view. So I make sure I have my “Level 1” floor plan active and I then select “Legend” from the “Room &

Area” panel on the “Home” tab….

Upon doing this a “Legend” element appears on the end of my pointer in the drawing area- go ahead

and click to add this to your view. When you click to place, Revit will display a small panel asking you to

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“Choose Space Type and Color Scheme”. By default, it is set to base the Colour Scheme on “Rooms” and

the “Department” parameter associated with Rooms….

Go ahead and click “OK” to accept this. And upon doing so, Revit immediately creates a Color Scheme

for this specific view….

Now, a very important things to notice here: Each room that contains the same “Department”

parameter value is coloured the same, regardless of what the room is named. For example: Rooms 1, 5,

6 and 7 all have different room names but are coloured the same. This is because each of those rooms

have their “Department” parameter set as “Office”.

So what if we don’t like the colours that Revit has chosen for us. No problem: Just select the Legend

element on the screen and then click on “Edit Scheme” on the ribbon bar at the top….

This takes us to the “Edit Color Scheme” control panel where we can tweak all the settings associated

with our Color Scheme…..

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While we are on this panel, let’s see what happens when we change the parameter that the Color

Scheme is based upon. I can do this by use of the drop-down box labelled “Color”….

I’m going to change the parameter to “Name”. Upon doing this, I will get a brief warning informing me

that the current colours will not be preserved. Don’t worry about this. Hitting “OK” to dismiss the

warning message, I am greeted with the new Color Scheme…..

Notice that now only two of the rooms share the same colour- that is because they both share the same

name (ie “Office”).

Two other things to mention about Color Scheme before we end this article. If you have a floor plate in

your model that is associated with the floor plan view that you are creating your Color Scheme in, you

will need to turn off the visibility of the floor in order to see the colours. Secondly, you can change Color

Schemes for any particular view by going to the Properties panel for view and changing the “Color

Scheme” parameter….

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And that concludes our basic introduction to Color Schemes in Revit Architecture

Decals: Applying images to Revit elements

In this article we will take a look at Revit’s Decal tool and how it can be used to apply a graphic image to

the face of an element. Decals are used to add realism to your rendered scenes. For example, you can

add paintings and artwork to the walls of your interior scene. Or you can add images to the “screen” of a

TV that you have modelled in Revit. The Decal tools can be found on “Insert” menu, in the “Link” tab….

Let’s work through a very simple step-by-step example in order to show you how this all works.

First of all let’s create something to apply our decal to. A simple length of wall will do….

So let’s say we want to portray a painting on this wall, when we render it. (Note: Decals only display

properly when you render the scene. In any other graphic mode, they appear just as a place holder).

Here is a lovely (in my opinion!) piece of art that I would like to hang on the wall, in my rendered

scene………

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So let’s go about getting this into Revit and hanging it on the wall! First of all I have to set up a new

“Decal Type”. Go into “Decal” and select “Decal Types” from the drop-down menu….

You are now presented with the “Decal Control Panel”. If (like me) you do not have any decals in your

project yet, the panel will be pretty much blank. Go ahead and select the “new” icon from the bottom

left of the panel, to “create a new decal”…

Go ahead a name your new decal…..

A “profile” for your new decal is created and shown in the list on the left. Setting appear in the right,

which let you control a variety of parameters……

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What we need to do now is load in our graphic file. At the top of the panel, to the right you will see

“Image File”. It is currently blank- go ahead and hit the selector button to the right. You are now able to

browse your various drives in order to find the image file you wish to use…..

Notice how you have the choice of a variety of different image file formats. Go ahead and find the image

file you want to use and select “Open”. You will now see the file name listed as well as a thumb nail of

the image; in your decal profile…..

So far so good! In this article we are not going to explore what all the different settings in this panel do-

we can save that for another day. Let’s just press on and put the decal in our scene. Select “OK” to exit

from the “Decal Types” control panel. Now go back to the drop-down menu and select “Place Decal”….

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Upon doing this the menu changes to show you a drop-down selector so you can choose which decal to

place. We only have one, so the list is pretty short…..

Right, here’s where we start having fun! I would suggest being in a 3D view in order to place your decal.

Make use of Section Boxes (or the “Temporary Hide” function) if you need to gain “access” to the inside

of a complex 3D model. As you hover over the different faces of your model, you will see the decal place

holder follow the cursor….

Do not worry about the size of the decal right now. We can easily resize it once we have placed it. When

you are happy with the location, just click to place the decal onto the face. You will notice that you can

go on to place as many instances of this decal as you like. I’m going to stick with one. Now I want to

make my decal much larger. So I select the decal that I have just placed. I can now either drag the whole

decal about (on the same face as it was placed) OR I can change the size of it by dragging on one of the

corner grips….

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I have dragged the corner of the decal so the image is of a more appropriate size, compared to the

wall…..

I’m afraid this place holder is all you are going to see until you come to render your scene. So let’s do

that now….

That’s a bit more interesting! Our lovely painting is now hanging on our interior brick wall. One thing

worth noting here is that decal can also be applied to curved surfaces too.

The process is exactly the same. Revit will automatically detect that the plane is curved and it will apply

the decal accordingly.

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There’s no limit to what you can do with decals within a Revit project. They are a really efficient way of

adding a lot of additional detail to your scene- ie the controls on a Hi Fi unit, for example.

Legends: An overview

In this article we will take a quick overview of Legends, within Revit. Legend views are common to all

flavours of Revit (Revit Architecture, Revit MEP and Revit Structure)- so once you can use it in one

flavour, you’ll be conversant with it in the others. For the sake of clarity I should point out that in this

article we are talking about “Legend Views” and not “Colour Legends”. So what is a Legend? Simply put,

it is a way of displaying a list of various model components and annotations used in a project.

Legends fall into 3 main types. These are as follows:-

-Component Legends

-Keynote Legends

-Symbol Legends

Please note: There are other types of Legends including Line Style Legends, Materials Legends and

Phasing Legends.

We’ll take a look at each of these 3 main types in turn. For each Legend type we will look at both how

you create the Legend and also at a typical situation in which you would use it. After that we will look at

some attributes that are common to all Legend types. And to round off we will look at a limitation of

Legends. So without further delay, let’s make a start….

Component Legends

Component Legends are used to display symbolic representations of model components. A typical

examples of elements that would appear in a component legend are electrical fixtures, wall types,

mechanical equipment and site elements. Let’s go ahead and create a Component Legend. I’ll start off

with a very simple model- it has four walls, a door, a window and an electrical light switch. Here is a plan

of the model……

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Now let’s just drop this onto a Sheet….

Now what we want to is to add a legend to the left hand side of the plan, which shows us what all the

various elements are. To do this we need to create a new Legend view. Go to the View/Create menu and

choose “Legend”….

When you do this, you will be prompted to choose a name and a scale for your legend….

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For the purposes of this exercise, I am going to stick to the default values offered. Once you click “OK”, a

new blank Legend View is created for you. You will note that Legends are a distinct view type in their

own right and as such they are all grouped together within the Project Browser….

Right! Let’s start adding some elements to our Legend. There are various ways of adding elements to

our Legend. Lets’ briefly look at each method now….

Dragging a model family type from the Project Browser into the Legend View. So for example, I can

highlight a particular wall type in the Project Browser….

…and drag it onto my Legend View…..

Notice how Revit places just a small sample section of the wall into the Legend. By default it has placed a

sample of the wall type in “plan”. If we select the sample and then look on the Options Bar, we can see

that we have a choice of “Floor plan” or “Section”…..

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I am going to go ahead and choose “Section” for my sample….

Of course, all the standard View settings still apply to legends- ie the Detail Level, scale, etc.

Another method for adding components to our Legend is as follows….

Go to the Annotate tab. Click on “Component” on the “Detail” panel. Form the drop-down menu,

choose “Legend Component”.

Upon doing so, you can then choose which component to add from the drop-down selector on the

Options Bar…..

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Now you have the graphic representation of your element on the Legend View, you all you need to do is

simply add some text to describe it. Just use the standard text tools for this.

Repeat the above process to add additional elements and text to your Legen. Here is my finished

Legend….

Now just like any other view, you simply drag it onto the Sheet that need it to be displayed upon….

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So that’s Component Legends covered. Let’s move swiftly on to the other types…

Keynote Legend

Keynote Legends automatically create legends from the Keynotes that you have used in your project. So

in the following example you can see that I have keynoted all of the elements in the model…..

I’m now going to create a Keynote Legend….

After choosing a name for my legend, I am presented with a control panel which lets me choose which

parameters to add…..

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I’ll stick with the default settings and click OK. Upon doing this Revit creates a Legend in the form a

Schedule. This schedule contains all the keynotes used in my project….

Because a keynote is basically schedule, you have access to all the normal schedule-editing tools such as

formatting, sorting, etc.

Symbol Legends

Pretty much the same as component legends really. You’re going to use the same menu to create the

blank legend…

The only difference is that now you are placing annotation symbols onto the view. These can be symbols

that you have created yourself (such as North points, etc) or system symbols (such as Section line

bubbles, elevation markers, etc).

Now that we’ve covered the various types of Legends, let’s just talk a little bit about Legends in

general….

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A single Legend view can be placed on as many different sheets as you like. As you know, the vast

majority of view types within Revit can only be placed on one sheet at a time- Legends are one of the

few exceptions to this rule. This makes them very powerful.

Because Legends are bespoke to each project, they are one of the few elements that cannot be ported

(using “Transfer Project Standards”) to another project. Consequently, if you have some basic legends

that you need to use over and over, just make sure they are part of your office template.

And finally: One use of Legends that isn’t instantly apparent is as “palette” of elements. For example:

You could create a Legend with all the internal doors you normally use for a project. Then from the

Legend view you can use the “Create Similar” tool to quickly add these elements to your model….

And that’s it for Revit Legends!

Levels: 2D and 3D Extents explained

In this article we are going to take a look at how 2D and 3D Extents work in relation to Levels. And you

probably know what I’m going to say next! Rather than just repeating the theory, we are going to use a

simple building example in order to convey the principle.

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Hopefully by now, you are conversant and comfortable with the general concept of Levels within Revit.

If you need a quick refresher on Levels in general, you may wish to read this article first before

proceeding.

Let’s start a new Revit Project and take a look at the default Levels that are created…..

Now, I have shorted the horizontal lengths of the Levels and moved them closer together vertically- this

is just so they fit in to a screen shot a little better. It will make no difference to what we’re going to

discuss. Now I am going to select the upper Level. Upon doing so, I want you notice some important

things….

At the left hand end of the Level line, there is an unfilled circle (it is at the other end of the line

connected to the padlock). Also notice the text that says “3D”. In fact the unfilled circle and the text are

related. The unfilled circle denotes the end of the “3D Extents”- a bit more about this in a minute.

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Let’s take a look at the other end of the Level line…..

Again, another unfilled circle and the text “3D”. As you may have guesses, this is the other end of the 3D

Extents. Don’t worry- all will become clear very soon.

What I am now going to do is click on the “3D” text….

How strange! The text changes to “2D” and the circle gets filled in. Yes, you’ve guessed it: A filled circle

denotes the end of the 2D Extents. Now I am going to click in the centre of the filled circle and drag it to

the left. This is what I am left with….

Now I have both the filled and the unfilled circles on screen at the same time. They were both there all

the time- except they were sitting on top of each other. Think of each Level line as being two Level line

on top of each other. A “2D Extents” line and a “3D Extents” line.

Let’s now explain what the 2D and 3D Extents are. 2D Extents control what portion of the Level line you

actually see on screen (and consequently, is printed).

3D Extents is totally different. Think of the each Level as being a horizontal plane in 3D space, which has

boundaries (or “Extents”). So what are these boundaries for? Well, they control whether the Level Lines

actually appear in other Views.

And it’s at this point that we going to go straight to a real example, before we become totally confused!

A simple building consisting of 4 walls. That’s all we need……

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Two default Levels. Both Levels have there 2D and 3D extents set to the same distance. Now let’s create

a Section View….

If we actually switch to the Section View, we can see the 2 Levels….

Now here’s the crucial part: The ONLY reason that we are seeing the two Level lines in this section view

is because the 3D Extents of the Levels intersects the clipping plane of the Section.

Let’s go back to our Elevation view and shorten the 3D Extents of the upper Level, so that it is “outside”

of the Section Line clipping plane…..

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To do this I need to select the upper Level, “unlock” the padlock (which is locking the Extents of each

Level together) and drag the 3D Extents over to the right. PLEASE NOTE how the “3D Extents” (the

unfilled circle) of the upper Level is to the RIGHT of the Section Line. Let’s now switch back to the

Section view….

Because the 3D Extents of the upper Level no longer encroaches into the Section view extents, it’s line is

not displayed in the Section View. OK, let’s switch back (again!) to our elevation….

Let’s say that I am happy with the 3D Extents of the both Levels, but I wish for the upper Level to have

it’s line extended to the left to match the lower one. To do this, I must leave the 3D Extents alone and

adjust only the 2D Extents. I swap between 2D and 3D Extents by clicking on the “3D” text.

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Once the text turns to “2D” and the circle is filled, I can simply move the extent to the left by dragging

on the filled circle…

In the above image, you can see that the 2D Extent of the upper Level has moved to the far left, while

the 3D Extent has remained to the right of the Section Line- hence the upper Level will still not be

displayed in the Section view itself.

So to summarise….

The 2D Extents controls the display of the line itself, while the 3D extents controls whether the line will

appear in other referring views. The same concept (2D and 3D Extents) applies to other datum planes

within Revit such as Grids.

Matchlines

Welcome to the Revit Zone article on Matchlines. In this article we are going to take a look at what

Matchlines are, within Revit. We are going to show you how to produce them and also when you would

want to use them.

So what exactly are Matchlines? Matchlines are basically sketch lines that are used to show where a

view is split. Matchlines are most commonly used in conjunction with "Dependent Views". If you are yet

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conversent with "Dependent Views" in Revit, you can find a couple of introductory articles HERE and

HERE.

So let's just dive in with an actual example of a Matchline in use. This will probably be the best way to

explain what they are and why you would use them. Let's start off by creating a large floor plan. Here is

one......

For the sake of this example, we're not concerned with what the plan looks like- just that it is a large

building plan that we wish to split into two seperate zones.

To do this we need to create two "Dependent Views". As stated above, refer to this article for

instruction on creating Dependent Views in Revit. If we look at at the Porject Browser, we can now see

that I have a Primary View and two associated Dependent Views.....

I now need to take each of the Dependent Views in turn and resize the Crop Regions to just show the

area I wish to depict for each zone. Once I have done this I can go to the "Primary View" and (as long as I

have "Crop Regions" displayed) I can see the crop regions (shown dotted) for each of my Dependent

Views. The image below is of the "Primary View"- you can clearly see the 2 crop regions dividing the plan

up into two zones.....

So I'm now ready to place each of these views onto a seperate sheet- effectively splitting the plan into

two seperate areas- which we wish to detail / annotate seperately. All we need is a line to clearly define

where this split occurs. A Matchline! That should do the trick. Let's add out Matchline now. We find the

Matchline tool on the View Menu, in the "Sheet Composition" tab...

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If we select the Matchline tool, Revit immediately enters the all-too familiar "Sketch Mode"....

You will notice the Draw pallete is pretty sparse! It's either "Draw a straight line" or "Pick a Line". Let's

go ahead and sketch out our Matchline....

You will note that I've placed my Matchline on the centreline of an internal wall. This neatly splits the

building so that all rooms fall either within one zone or another. All I need to do now is go ahead and

click on the "Big Green Tick" in order to complete the sketch and place the Matchline. And here is the

finished Matchline.....

You can now see our Matchline- depicted as a thick blue dashed line. We can of course alter the way this

is drawn either by "Object Styles" (which sets the visual parameters for all Matchlines) or by the use of

"Graphic Overrides" to control Matchline appearance on a view-by-view basis.

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Now that we have our Matchline in place, we can simply place our Dependent Views onto different

sheets. Here is one of our views.....

For the sake of clarity (in the above image) I have applied a "Graphics Override" to beef-up the thickness

of the Matchline and colour it red, instead of the default black. Before we finish, there are a couple of

other things to say about Matchlines. Let's take a look at a Level 2 Plan....

YES! Our Matchline shows up in other views. So it's NOT a "View-specific" annotation. NO, It's NOT a

Detail Line. Matchlines transcend through all levels of your model, UNLESS you don't want them to. SO

how do we control what levels the Matchlines appear on? We simply select the Matchline and use it's

parameters to set the vertical limits....

And that's it for Matchlines. Although obviously limited in their use, you will see that if you do need to

show a break in your views- Revit has a tool for the job!

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Model Patterns: Aligning model patterns to your geometry

Fill patterns of the Model type are actually part of your overall 3D model and behave accordingly. For

example, they view correctly in perspectives and can also be snapped to. Another fact about Model Fill

Patterns is that they can be aligned to elements. That is, you are not stuck with the default placement of

the Model Fill Pattern on the face of your object. Let’s take a look at this by example…. Take a section of

wall with a door in it….

If we take a closer look at how the Brick Model Fill Pattern meets the door….

You can see that the lines that make up the Brick fill pattern have no relationship to the door opening. In

reality, we would probably want the brickwork to “course in” with the door opening. Revit allows us to

re-align the model fill pattern. To do this we select Align from the Tools drop-down menu…..

We now go ahead and select the item that we wish to Align TO. Ie the side of the door frame. In the

image below you can just about see that the edge of the door frame has been highlighted as I hover the

cursor over it….

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Now go ahead and select the a reference line (on the fill pattern) that we want re-aligning to the

previously selected element. So we can just go ahead and click on any vertical joint in the brickwork. As

soon as we do this, the whole of the fill pattern is shifted over to the left to align with the side of the

door frame.

We can do the same thing with the top of the door frame and the horizontal bed joints of the brickwork.

Just remember to get the order in which you make your two selections correct. The item to be moved is

always selected second. Here is the brickwork re-aligned both vertically and horizontally, to align with

the door opening....

Notice how you are also given the option to lock the aligned pattern to the elements- you do this by

clicking on the padlock icon.

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Plan Regions

In this article we are going to take at look at Revit’s Plan Region tool. I’ll use a very simplistic example to

demonstrate the type of problem that the Plan Region was created to solve.

Let’s take a very simple length of wall and stick a window in it….

If we take a look at a plan view of this wall, we see……

There are no surprises here. We clearly see the window in this plan, as the “View Range” settings for

this particular view cut the plan at a height that includes the window.

But let’s go ahead and add a high level window to our wall….

I’ve set the sill height of the second window at 1,700mm above the base of the wall. Now if we switch

back to a plan view of our length of wall…

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It doesn’t look much different to the previous plan view. No sign of our second window anywhere! This

is because the second window is physically higher than the Cut Plane, as set in the View Range

properties for this particular plan view. Now for most architectural plans, you will want to show both

windows in the plan view. So how do we go about fixing this? Well, we could change the Cut Plane

height (in the View Range properties) to a height that crosses through both windows. But if the sill of the

second window was at a height ABOVE the head of the first window, there is no height that cuts through

BOTH simultaneously. So we need another, more flexible solution. This is exactly where we use a Plan

Region. Go ahead and select…

View > Plan Views > Plan Region

Upon doing this, you are immediately put into “Sketch Mode”. Go ahead and draw a boundary around

the window in question- it may take a little guess work as we can’t actually see the window (yet!).

When you’ve drawn the boundary, go ahead and select “Finish Plan Region”. A Plan Region is now

officially created and displayed in your plan view……

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But still no high level window! So what exactly is a “Plan Region”? Well, a Plan Region is a small section

of a plan view that has it’s own specific View Range settings. Or to think of it another way, it is a method

of applying View Range Overrides to a particular area of your plan.

So returning to our example: We have already defined on the plan where we need to override the

default Cut Plane. Now all we need to do is go into the View Range settings for this Plan Region and

change the Cut Plane height.

Clicking on the View Range button, presents us with the View Range settings for this particular Plan

Region…..

You will notice that I’ve changed the Cut Plane height to 1800mm. This is above the sill height of the

high level window. I go ahead and OK the changes.

And what do you know?! Our high level window appears alongside the low level one. By default, you will

be left with a dotted line showing the boundary of the Plan Region. If you prefer not to see the

boundary, just uncheck the “Plan Region” category on the “Annotation Categories” tab of the Visibility

Settings panel….

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Of course it is not just for high level windows that you will use Plan Regions. It can be used for

controlling the display of any element that is out of range of the default View Range settings, for the

particular plan view it appears in.

Section Boxes

When working in 3D, Section Boxes area a really productive tool that allows to access to the centre of

the model. You will of course have Section Lines defined- but unless you keep altering the position of

the Section Line itself, the Section View is somewhat static.

Personally, I like to keep at least one 3D View reserved for a Section Box. This then allows me to quickly

adjust the bounding planes of the box and consequently give me access to any component within my 3D

model- all from one View.

Section Boxes are only available in 3D Views. To turn on a Section Box:-

Switch to a 3D View

Right click while hovering over the view itself.

Select View Properties

Scroll down until you find Section Box and tick this parameter....

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A Section Box will now appear around your model. If you select the box itself (by clicking on it) you will

see a set of arrow grips for each face of the box....

With these grips you can move each plane in / out, up / down, etc. Wherever these planes cut through

your model, everything outside of them will be cut-away.

Of course Section Boxes can be used to produce cut-away presentation views but they should not be

dismissed as a really useful way of working with your model.

Silhouette Styles

With regards graphical presentation, Revit sometimes receives criticism that its output is a little too

sterile. Sure, it does not produce (out of the box) the “hand sketched” visual style of SketchUp. But there

are things you can do within Revit in order to produce drawings that are a little more “easy on the eye”.

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One such technique is to add a “Silhouette Style” to the edges of your model elements. Thankfully Revit

has the ability to determine the silhouette for each specific view in your project- be it an elevation,

section, perspective, etc.

Take the view below for example….

If we want to make it a little more “artistic” we can go and add a Silhouette Style to it. First of all we

look in the View Properties for the “Graphics Display Options”….

Go ahead and click “Edit” to bring up the Graphics Display Options…..

At the bottom of the panel you will see the option for “Edges”- the only option you have is the choice of

“Silhouette Style”. The default is <none>, as you can see in the above image.

If you open the drop down list, you will see all the Line Styles that you have defined in your project. So

basically, a “Silhouette Style” is just a certain type of Line Style applied to certain edges of your

elements. Let’s go ahead and choose “Wide Lines” from the drop-down list….

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When we apply this “Silhouette Style” to our view, the result is……

Depending on what resolution you are viewing this webpage at, the result will look more or less

impressive. But trust me, it does make a real difference to the visual appeal- particularly in the case of

perspective views.

Topography: Changing the section cut material

When you take a section through a Toposurface, the default “cut material” that you see is “Site-

Earth”….

But what if you want to change this to something else? It is of course possible- but finding “where” to

change the setting can sometimes prove frustrating to new users.

In order to find the parameter, you need to click on the little arrow at the base of the “Model Site” tab-

located in the “Massing & Site” menu…….

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NOTE: The arrow has a blue box around it, in the image above.

When you click on this arrow, you are presented with the “Site Settings” control panel…..

And half way down the panel you will a couple of parameters in a group called “Section Graphics”. In

here you can change the “section cut material” and also the “elevation of poche base”. This second

parameter controls the (absolute) height at which this “cut material” starts from.

In the image below, I have changed the “section cut material” to one that has a solid hatch pattern. I

have also changed the “elevation of poche base” so that it is only 500mm thick….

I am sure you have your own conventions / preferences for how you would like the cut material to be

displayed. It is just good to know where to find the setting!

View References

In this article we are going to take a look at "View References" within Revit. View References are an

annotation symbol that you can use to direct someone to a different view on another sheet- or the same

sheet, if you wish.

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View References are commonly used with Matchlines but (with a little immagination) they can be used

for a variety of purpose- especially if you are prepared to edit the family.

Let's kick-off with a quick example of the use of View References in conjunction with Matchlines. Here is

a plan I have split into two zones, using "Dependent Views". The image below is of the "Primary View"

so that you can see the crop regions of the two Dependent Views.....

Now, I'm going to place each of the Dependent Vioews onto a seperate sheet. Here's the first sheet....

and here's the second sheet...........

Now what would be REALLY useful (to anyone trying to read our drawing set) would be a reference near

the matchline to tell you what sheet to find the other part of the plan. This is where "View References"

come into play. At this point you may be saying to yourself "why don't I just add a piece of dumb text

with the sheet and detail number of the corresponding Dependent View?" I'll tell you why not- because

this is BIM! And with BIM, we are trying to erradicate coorindation errors. If you go and add some text

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with displayes the Sheet and detail number- and then change your mind as to which sheet your place

the other view on- will you remember to update the dumb text? On EVERY view it appears? EVERY time?

Don't create the problem inh the first place- use a "View Reference"- the CORRECT tool for the job. Let's

go and add a "View Reference" to each of the Dependent Views now.

You will view the "View Reference" tool on the "View" menu, in the "Sheet COmposition" tab.....

There is only two stages to using the View Reference tool:-

1) Select from the drop-down list (on the Option Bar) your "Target View". This is the view name that you

with to reference. So in our example I am going to add a View Reference to "Dependent (2)" ON

"Depedent". Let me try and clarify what I mean. I want to add an "intelligent" label (ie a "View

Reference" onto the view named "Dependent"- which tell us WHERE (ie the sheet and detail numbers)

to find the view named "Dependent (2)".

So I select "Dependent (2)" from the drop-down list.....

2) And all I do now is click on my view in order to place the View Reference. And here is the View

Reference placed on my view....

Now depending on whether you have already placed your views onto sheet will effect what is displayed

for the view reference. As we have already placed our views onto sheets, the view reference is

displaying where to find the "target view" that we specified. In plain English: It is telling is that we will

find view "Dependent (2)" on sheet number 110 and that it is detail number 1 on that sheet.

And here is the REAL point of using View References: If we go and change which sheet we place view

"Dependent (2) on- the View Reference will be updated automatically. It is exactly the same principle as

the View Referecne that are embedded into Call Outs, etc.

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You can use View References for any scenario where (a) you need to tell someone where to find another

view and (b) you woould like Revit to handle the coorindation of the reference.

View Templates

In this article we will look at how View Templates can really aid your productivity rate when using Revit.

As I’m sure you know by now, there is a huge variety of parameters that control the look and “style” of

the views that you create within Revit.

View Templates are a really elegant way of capturing the values of all those settings and then allowing

you to create new views based on them. This saves you a lot of time- as without View Templates, you

would have to go through each of those parameters again.

For example. Below is a plan view that I have played around with, in order to get the look I want.

I have turned off Section Lines. I have played around with the darkness of the shadows. I have set the

Detail Level to “Medium”. Etc, etc. So basically, I have spent a while getting this View to look how I want

it to.

So how do I take a “snap shot” of this View, such that I can easily create (say) a second floor plan view

that is presented in the same way. The answer is easy! I just use View Templates.

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I simply go to the View menu and select “Create Template from Current View”- which is located under

“View Templates” on the “Graphics” tab…..

I am immediately asked to give the Template a name. I am going to call mine “Presentation Plan”…..

As soon as I have confirmed a name for my Template, I am taken to the main “View Templates” control

panel……

You can see the list of Templates on the left hand side of the panel. On the right hand side are the

bespoke settings for the Template that is currently highlighted on the left. As you can see, there are

loads of settings that you can adjust- including all View Range Settings, the Visual Style, the Detail Level,

etc, etc.

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So how do we use our new Template? First I will switch views to another plan….

Now if we want to make this particular View look exactly like our other one, I simply select “Apply

Template to Current View”, from the “View Template” menu….

…and make sure I choose “Presentation Plan” as the View Template to apply. Our View suddenly

acquires all the graphic and presentation settings from our Template….

You can use View Templates on various types of Views, not just plans. I think you’ll agree that this is a

really useful tool for speeding up the process of creating and tweaking the presentation of views?