Duplicating Views with Linework

This is just an echo of a post by Tim Waldock over at the 'Revit Cat' recently, about duplicating views with Linework overrides. 

If you use the linework tool on elevations for example to create your overrides and you want to duplicate the view, 'Duplicate with Detailing', does not retain any of those linework overrides. 

We now know, to duplicate the view and KEEP those overrides, you need to 'Duplicate as Dependent'. Then, right click on that newly created view and select 'Convert to Independent View'.

Nice one. 

Ceiling Hatch Pattern Lineweights

My mind has just been blown. I just learnt that the line weight of ceiling hatch patterns is actually derived from Pen #2 on the Revit line weight table, not Pen #1!!
You can see this in the image below. I have deliberately changed Pen #2 to 0.70mm to demonstrate the change. 

My line weight table in my template has Pen #1 set to 0.10mm and Pen #2 is set to 0.15mm. They are very close in weight so I never actually noticed this in ceilings.

Whilst I don't see the need to immediately change my template, it is certainly interesting. 

If you didn't already know, all hatch patterns in model object surface & cut patterns default to Pen #1. You cannot change this, it is hard coded into Revit. So, I have always left Pen #1 alone and started my pen weights at Pen #2. However, now learning that ceiling patterns are also hard coded, perhaps it is better to start your pen weights at Pen #3?? Hmmmm...

 

Revit Groups - Everything You Should Know

There has been a thread going on at the RevitForum since 2012 titled 'Best Practices for Groups In High-rise Tower Models'. 
There is some really valuable information that can be found throughout the thread from some very skilled Revit users. 
It was updated a few weeks ago with a fairly lengthy summary (see page 3) of those best practice tips. It is certainly worth a read. Even if you aren't working on high-rise models, there are things in this list every Revit user should be aware of when using groups. 

I really hope Autodesk are paying attention to this thread as well, because moving forward with development, some of these issues in my opinion need to be high on the list to fix.

You can find more information on groups from Ceilidh Higgins who did a talk at RTC Aus 2014 titled 'Get Your Groupon'. Aaron Maller also did a session at the same RTC, which I attended titled 'Abusing Groups in Revit'. A lot of what is covered in these handouts is mentioned in the RevitForum thread.

I will update this post if I come across further information about groups in the future.  

Room Volume Not Computed

I was working with room volumes today and in creating my room schedule I noticed the words 'Not Computed' in the volume cell. I hadn't seen this message before, so I did a quick search and realised I had not turned on volume calculations.

By default Revit has this turned off for performance reasons. It's an easy enough fix, simply go to the 'Area & Volume' Computations dialog. It can be found on the 'Architecture' Ribbon on the 'Room & Area' Panel. Click the drop down menu and select 'Area & Volume Computations'. 

Now switch on Volume calculations by clicking the radio button. 

Now the volume displays in the schedule.

Here is a link to the Autodesk Knowledge Network explaining.  

Number of Revisions on Your Titleblock

There was a question on the community forum recently asking how to show only the last 3 revisions in a revision table on your titleblock. This is certainly a good one to know, so I thought I would demonstrate the steps here.

As the project moves through milestones, we ultimately need to issue drawings to the relevant consultants and various clients to seek approval and or comments for changes & coordination. Sometimes, the number of revisions can get lengthy. In Revit we mark sheets with revisions using the Revisions tool found under the 'View Ribbon' on the 'Sheet Composition' panel.

For the purpose of this example, I have created 6no. revisions for the project.

By default, when inserting a revision table into your titleblock, it is set to 'variable', meaning the size of the schedule will be controlled by how many revisions there are. In my mock example, we see the 6 revisions showing on my titleblock, A to F. 

If there were 10 revisions, it would show all 10. However, what if your limited for space on your titleblock? What if you only want to see for example, the last 3 revisions on the table?

Start by editing your titleblock family. Select the revision table in the family and edit the appearance. You are looking for 'Height' and by default it is set to 'Variable'. Change this to 'User defined' and click OK. 

Now, when you select the revision table in the family, you will have a control point you can move up and down. In this example, I have reduced the revision table to 3 rows high. Save & Load the titleblock back into your project. 

You will now notice in my example that the revision table on my titleblock is only showing the last 3 revisions D, E & F. 

What is Dynamo?

At the beginning of the year I mentioned that Revit Link was going to see some posts in 2016 on Dynamo! Well I am keeping my word and this will be my first post about Dynamo. 

What is Dynamo?

I have taken the following explanation from http://dynamobim.org/.

"Dynamo is a visual programming tool that aims to be accessible to both non-programmers and programmers alike. It gives users the ability to visually script behaviour, define custom pieces of logic, and script using various textual programming languages".

This is the best bit about Dynamo, you don't have to be a programmer to use it because you don't deal with programming code as such, you are really just connecting 'nodes' together to create a visual program or algorithm. (You will hear a lot about the 'python' programming language, but you don't have to know this to use dynamo).

Dynamo programs can be used to do things like create geometry, manipulate data, & automate processes straight into Revit.

Pictures can be worth a thousand words, so here is a very simple example where I have created geometry in Dynamo, and that data has been passed into Revit to create the model line circle you see in the Revit environment.

In this second example, I have modified the 'Comments' parameter of this chair using Dynamo.

These examples are just to illustrate some basic function of Dynamo. If you are thinking, I don't really have a use for Dynamo, think again. For example, if you were to take the concept of the second example further, we used it to set all the parameters in our sheets prior to construction issue of our drawings. Instead of going sheet by sheet and ticking yes/no boxes for various drawing stamps to appear, we ran a dynamo program instead that modified all the parameters for over a 100 sheets in just a few seconds.
Have you ever wanted to delete all those 'IMPORT' line patterns that show up in Revit? There can be hundreds of them and it could take hours to delete them all. Well using Dynamo, you can delete them all with a single click! Does your office use an excel style drawing register/transmittal? How about transferring your Excel drawing register into Revit AND create all the sheets too?! No problem!
There are many practical uses for Dynamo to help us tackle the repetitive tasks we deal with on a daily basis. It is these practical uses that will be the focus of my learning. 

Computational design is also something Dynamo does very well and you can visit the gallery at the dynamobim website to see how others have used it to facilitate their design outcomes.

Dynamo can also be run as standalone software known as Dynamo Studio. It is the plug-in version for Revit, I will be concentrating on for all my posts.

If you are getting started, then http://dynamobim.org/ is your best place to visit. This website is dedicated to the software and is packed full of information for beginners as well as community forums so you can ask questions as you go. You can download the software here as well. There is also a twitter account #dynamoBIM & a Facebook account too! 

One last thought. As I write this post, the latest release of Dynamo is at version 0.9.1. Yes, you read that correctly, version 1.0 hasn't even been released yet!! So if this is what Dynamo can do now, imagine how powerful this tool will be in years to come. I started using AutoCAD at release 15.0 and I first learnt Revit at release 6.1, so I very much look forward to learning something that is still in the very early stages of its life.

I am only new to this, I would barely classify myself as a novice, but I am slowly getting there and I look forward to sharing what I learn! 

Milestones.

This week I reached over 3000 site visits!! As I write this, we are currently at 3014!! 

A HUGE THANKS to all my readers and friends who support this blog! It's nice to know I am writing about things that users find helpful! I had to look it up when I wrote my first post, it dates back to June 2014, not that long ago. I started this blog because I wanted somewhere I could record everything I was learning about Revit & the technology that impacts our industry.

Before creating Revit Link, I took notes in a digital 'Revit Bible' (it was a word doc on dropbox) that had years worth of notes, troubleshooting explanations and thoughts I had about Revit & documentation workflows. It was a digital upgrade of my previous AutoCAD bible! (An A5 notepad I kept on my desk at work).

They were my go to references when training or just trying to remember something myself. Then as more and more of my friends started using Revit and I started teaching at University, I realised life would be much easier if it was all online for others to see! (I still have my Revit bible for bits and pieces, although now I use Evernote).

I didn't post often to begin with, old habits I guess, which makes this milestone even greater for me personally, as a massive 75% of those site visits have come in only the past 7 months! With many visits a month now, I will do my best to keep bringing you new discoveries & the basic fundamentals about Revit! 

Thanks again for reading!!