Drafting Views have an Origin Too

Drafting views look like a blank sheet of paper we can drop your pen and start sketching in. We can but it might help to know that they do have an origin and you can end up quite from from the origin if we use an external file to sketch over (which happens a lot). I routinely encounter projects that have very large drafting views, when you know where the origin is.

The old trick to find the origin in Revit was to import/link a DWG with a crosshair at the world coordinate system origin. Linked via Origin to Origin places that DWG at the origin of the view. The PyRevit application has a handy function to place a pair of intersecting lines at the origin of a view. I find I just use that now instead. It's about the same number of "clicks" either way.

Now, the natural question to ask is, "Does it matter?" I don't know but if large extents are bad in model views I can reasonably infer that it might also be bad in drafting views. I don't have any evidence that this model was bad because drafting views were huge. I do know that some bad models I've encountered also had drafting views with very large extents. When I deal with a such a model it is one of the things I consider (of the many things, so many things).

Good housekeeping isn't just for the model.

Insert From File and BIM 360

When we're working on a BIM 360 hosted project there are times we'd like to use the Insert From File > Insert Views tool. Unfortunately BIM 360 isn't an available path in the Insert From File dialog.

Yes, we can download a copy of the project or open both projects and use Copy/Paste but it would be nicer to be able to use the tool itself as it is an easier/faster (more obvious) process.

Drafting Views have an Origin

When we create a new drafting view we are presented with an empty view. We are free to begin our drafting exercise anywhere we see fit. It's not obvious but there IS an origin in the view. If we import a simple CAD file that has some lines that define where the 0,0,0 origin is we'll find out exactly where the origin is in the drafting view (use Auto-Origin to Origin).

What does it matter? It may not matter at all. I've often wondered about it since Revit cares about keeping us near the origin of the file for our model views and complains when we import external files that are very far from origin or very very large.

As such I can't help but wonder if we ought to be careful to keep our details near the origin of drafting views too. I have encountered drafting views that have their contents very very far from the origin. It's easy to do, just zoom out a bit and start detailing. It just seems inconsistent with the best practice expectations for model views.

I'm inclined to create a "template" drafting view in a project template to begin drafting views with (duplicate them) with the origin clearly marked, like shown above. I'd welcome someone from the factory chiming in to say this is a good idea or unnecessary.

Dept. of Subtle - Views Can't be Blank

Might seem a little picky but you can't put an empty drafting view on a sheet. You get this complaint/warning if you try.

If you had the idea that you could block out a few sheets with placeholder drafting views in your template, sorry...not if they are empty. A little text, or a drafting line, a symbol and it won't be empty though so you can fix it and get nearly what you want!

What if you remove everything from the drafting view after you put it on the sheet? Revit leaves the view on the sheet without a complaint. Tricked!! Add something to the view, put it on a sheet, remove the something from the view...empty drafting view on your sheet. You can even use activate view to remove the something from the view and it won't mind. It's just the initial putting it on a sheet that Revit complains about.

Technically it's true of other view types too. Before you put it on a sheet, try turning everything off in a plan view and then putting it on a sheet, sorry, same warning!

[Added 8/15/2011] Andrea with The Matrix Group, an engineering firm, wrote to let me know how they deal with this. She wrote:

The tactic we use for “blank” views is to place a single reference plane in the drafting view. We never print reference planes, so they won’t show, but will allow a placeholder on sheets.

Good idea!