Thursday, January 17, 2008

"Aaaah,The old invisible line trick, eh "99"?"

View Range in Revit proves quite confusing to people at times. An example of such confusion occurs when you model something that exists above a cut plane, like a closet shelf and pole. There is no geometry that intersects the cut plane of the view. As such Revit doesn't "see" the shelf or pole even though the Top of the Primary Range is higher than them. So you think to yourself that you'll just add symbolic linework to indicate the solids above. You try that and still nothing.

Maxwell Smart mutters, "tell them about the Invisible Line now". The trick Max is referring to is the addition of a Invisible Model Line. For the shelf and pole example you need only add this line to an elevation view, lock it to the geometry or reference plane of the uppermost solid and the reference level.

Now this invisible line will intersect the cut plane of a floor plan view and Revit will "see" your family. It still won't show you the solids, because they are above, but the symbolic dashed linework you added to the family will, now!


Now where did I put that shoe phone? "99"?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Steve,
Happy New Year

Anonymous said...

Diabolical! Great tip.

GeoffB said...

This is a good trick indeed. But it verily defines workaround and exposes the flaws in Revit's view range function. The logic should be simple: if an object is in the view range it should display using predefined graphics based on it's vertical position—above, cut, projected, or beyond. And yet walls do one thing, casework another, and this object does nothing unless you apply this hack. Why so complicated?

Steve said...

Flaw? What do you mean? It works perfectly!! *-) My post isn't passing judgement, just passing along a technique that I learned from the "old dogs" back in 2002.

Robert said...

If the shelf is in the casework category, and is within the extent of the view range then it should display in the floor plan.... But then again you might want your shelf to be speciality equipment, which would require Steve's tip...

-R

Steve said...

Good point Robert, thanks!

Anonymous said...

Thank you sir!