Monday, October 18, 2010

IsReference Setting - Weak and Strong

I've written posts about Reference Planes in the past, these are a couple specific examples:

Once Upon a Reference Plane
Is you Is or Is You Ain't

I've neglected to mention this change: In the past using the Weak reference setting would not generate drag arrows. They've changed this at some point, which I haven't pinned down (2010ish) but I think it had to do with the changes to the massing conceptual design environment.

The Video that appears below demonstrates some subtlety between the Weak and Strong reference settings. The nice names like Front, Back, Top and Bottom are all Strong references by the way. When you combine Weak references with a dimension assigned to a Instance parameter you get "move" behavior when you use the Align tool. When you do the same for Strong references you get "stretch" behavior. If you want your family to move, think Weak. Think Strong for Stretch.


8 comments:

Unknown said...

G'day Steve
You can actually still stretch a family using a weak ref plane:
this link

Steve said...

True but technically you're stretching the "shape handle" now *-) same end result. Good point.

rgesner said...

Thanks for the tip.

The Is you Is or Is You Ain't page ain't there any more :-(

Steve said...

Still there but the title must have changed at some point slightly because the url has changed. I've fixed it.

Alfredo Medina said...

Hi, has anybody noticed that weak reference planes can be found by the dimension tool without using the Tab key? I don't know if this is the result of a recent upgrade. I am using Revit 2019, but today I have tested this also in Revit 2016, and I can't get the old behaviour to work, that we had to use the Tab key to find a weak reference with the dimension tool. That's what all the Help documents and threads say, but it is not working in my computer. I have tried separating reference planes by several feet, but nothing brings back the behavior that is explained in the Help documents.

Steve said...

That's been "gone" for awhile. There isn't much difference between Weak and Strong anymore, not that I've noticed anyway. The strong preset named reference planes, like Top, Right, Left and Center (Left/Right) are used to allow dimensions to "jump" from reference location in families and walls.

Seychellian said...

How can i make the grip snap to objects in the model?

I have tried all three options (weak strong and no reference)

Steve said...

Seychellian - I don't think you can "make" it snap but Revit might "choose" to snap to another element when you drag the grip or move the family toward another when they are parallel to each other.