Fence Linestyle?

Revit doesn't allow us to create a line style that includes text as a symbol. Common uses for this are pipelines, fences, overhead electrical lines and many more. Revit’s repeating detail makes this somewhat doable if you create a detail component that has the symbol you need, not text though, you must draw the letter with lines. The line based detail component is another possibility. The thinking goes that we should use tags to identify things like pipe. Instead of drawing a line with HW embedded as a pattern we just apply a tag for the pipe system's abbreviation of HW. That doesn't really help for a fence though...

...and about a fence and mimicking a fence line style...an idea popped in my head, “What about a railing and baluster to do this?” We probably want a 3D fence anyway but what if we want the --X-----X-- in plan? At first I thought, “naah, can’t do it because you can’t create a baluster that gives you subcategories to manage visibility of parts”.

So I dismissed it until now. Then I thought, if you nest a detail component for the ---X--- and nested a generic model family for the baluster or fence portions you can assign each to visibility parameters that will give you control over each via visibility graphics under Generic Models and Detail Components. Ultimately we need the ---X--- with no rail visible in plan and the rails/baluster/panel in 3D with no ---X---.

It all comes down to what you really want but this is what I mocked up, messing around. Maybe the concept will spur some other ideas?


Hopefully they’ll just give us more options with line styles and it’ll be easy!

Download the sample File