Tuesday 1 March 2016

Revit Level Heads

Among the many annotation families that we update from the out of the box settings in Revit, one of the first is the Level Head for our elevation & section views.
Those changes may include a prefix in front of the level, we may make the text or triangle smaller, or change the symbol entirely. 

One common mistake I see with the editing of this family, is the placement of text objects in front of the level elevation. That prefix may be R.L., (Relative Level), S.S.L, (Structural Slab Level), F.F.L (Finished Floor Level) or here in Australia, sometimes A.H.D (Australian Height Datum).

The problem with placing a text object is that when the level head is used on the right side or left side of the drawing, the text you placed swaps sides! So then you end up creating a “left” & “right” level head to address the problem. This creates problems of its own though when setting up levels in views throughout the project. There is an easier way.


The solution is to use the PREFIX field for your elevation label. Here’s how:
1. Go to your project browser, under families find the name of your level head family, right click and Edit. (Note: You can identify the name of the family being used by selecting a level in the project and clicking Edit Type for your level head, look under the Type Properties for 'Symbol')
2. Select the Elevation label in the family
3.
Type your desired prefix & include a [SPACE] (In this example we will use 'R.L.')

4. Set the units. Click the little # icon with the hand, then untick ‘Use Project Settings’ 
(I always set units to Meters, with rounding set to 3 decimal places)


5. Click OK, and make any other text style & justification changes you wish.
To change the size of the triangle, go to the Family Types Properties or change the symbol entirely

6.
Load the family back into the project.
Test it! Create a level and click both left & right symbol boxes.

You're done! Isn’t it pretty!?

After Loading your Level Head Family (Configure Type Properties):


1. Select the Level & edit the Type Properties  
2. Select the Project Base Level: Project Base Point or Survey Point. See Below for more information.
(As a general rule of thumb, I typically have only one type in a project).

3. You can also change your line pattern, colour and line weight here.
4. Work out if you prefer “symbol at End 1 or 2”.
(Test this on screen. It determines if you see the level head on the first click, or second click when placing your levels. I typically go with End 2 only, you may want both, the choice is yours! Careful! This setting will change existing levels already in the project.)


Project Base Level vs Survey Point Level

I have previously posted about understanding the coordinate system in Revit here. It can be a bit confusing at first, but the Autodesk University video in this post, I think does a good job of clearly explaining it all. I find in most projects I work on, we are using shared coordinates & survey points. The exception may be on smaller projects.

You can also see these Autodesk knowledge explanations
  


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