Monday, December 12, 2005

A Cut Above

Only two kinds of families have special behavior when viewing them in a project with respect to a view's cut plane. Those are doors and windows. All others use the view's cut plane setting in the project environment.

Doors and Windows use the cut plane defined in the family to determine how the object will look in a project's views.

When you need a family that is above the cut plane in your project to be visible you can use the Invisible Model Line trick and in many cases a Plan Region.

The Invisible Line Trick...an oldy but goody...is where you add an invisible model line (working in an elevation or section view) from the reference level to another reference plane, usually at the highest point of the family, aligned and locked to these planes. This line is also usually aligned and locked to the Center (Left/Right) reference plane if one exists.

This model line travels through the cut plane of a plane view and lets Revit "see" the family that is actually above the cut plane. You can take advantage of Symbolic Lines to show dashed lines to represent the object above.

Be sure to check Joe Kendsersky's comment, I forgot about columns and he provided some more good info!

4 comments:

Steve said...

Thanks Joe! I forgot about them! My Bad!

Anonymous said...

Hello Steve,
In addition to doors, windows and columns, the following component families can choose between cuttable and non-cuttable behaviour for each object within the family editor:

Casework, Site Elements, Structural Columns, Structural Foundations and Structural Framing.

On the other hand, the following component families are always shown in plan (projection) and do not have the Cut Option available within the family editor:

Balusters, Curtain Wall Panels, Detail Items, Electrical Equipment, Electrical Fixtures, Entourage, Furniture, Furniture Systems, Generic Models, Lighting Fixtures, Mechanical Equipment, Parking, Planting, Plumbing Fixtures and Speciality Equipment.

I like your invisible Model Line trick!
Thanks

Steve said...

Hi!

The real essence of the article is not which objects are "cuttable", rather I'm trying to explain that only windows and doors (and as Josef pointed out, architectural columns) that the family cut plane is used in the project as opposed to all other families which assume the cut plane of the project. These three family types are unique. Maybe I didn't make it clear enough?

Anonymous said...

Hi Steve
It was clear but I somehow misread it. Thanks for the reiteration.
Regards