Fill Pattern Alignment

I responded to a thread at Linked In this morning, something I almost never do. I find LI too frustrating to spend much time there. Regardless, the sought after result was to get horizontal and diagonal patterns (part of a material assignment) to line up, to appear to connect to each other. This is an image of what was shared in the thread.

The Fill Patterns (Model) need to use spacing settings that will allow their endpoints to meet. For example, if the parallel horizontal lines are 300 mm apart then we can use trigonometry to determine the parallel spacing of the diagonal pattern.

The formula b = c * sin(B) where c = 300mm and angle B is 45 degrees returns a length of 212.1 mm for the length of b. The diagonal pattern will need to use 212.1 mm for its spacing so it will align with the endpoints of the horizontal pattern at 300 mm.

Once the patterns work, it will still probably be necessary to fine tune each pattern's position on the surface of each wall so they each start at the correct location. That's because each wall will place/start the pattern you assign according to its own extents.

I like the the Align tool, I pick a segment of the horizontal pattern first then the diagonal pattern and the diagonal pattern will shift to line up as desired. That's how I aligned the patterns in the second image.

Alternatively we can use the TAB key to select one line within a Model Pattern and then use Move to adjust the pattern's location. If the walls are not parallel to each other it may be necessary to create a section view that allows us to see both patterns and use the Move tool. It may also be necessary or helpful to sketch a Detail Line from one endpoint of one of the patterns so we can snap easily while moving the other pattern's position.

Also, the taller the walls (the bigger the overall pattern) are the more important your choice of rounding (decimal places) for your calculated pattern spacing will be. You may find that the pattern begins to slip past or fall short of the adjacent horizontal pattern the bigger the pattern gets.

Moving Ceiling Grid Pattern

Scott wrote about an issue at Revitforum.org the other day. He's been using Revit about as long as a person could use it so if it trips him up I'm betting it trips up others too!

Jesse came to the rescue with advice that perked up my Dept. of Subtle ears. He wrote:

"When you tab through to the ceiling grid while in the move command, look near the top (meaning Options Bar) at the "disjoin" check box. Revit will automatically remember if you had this box checked the last time you used the move command. It's going to be greyed out when moving a hatch pattern, and when it's checked you can't move the pattern.

To fix it, select something else, do the move command, uncheck the check box and press escape to cancel. The next time you go to move the ceiling grid the box should be unchecked!"

It's easy when you know how? :) Thanks to Jesse!

Dept. of Subtle - Solid fill

Really subtle...the stock fill pattern "Solid fill" is spelled with a little "f" whereas all or nearly all other names in Revit's stock features uses Titlecase. Therefore it "should" be Solid Fill, capital "F". Subtle, yes but it actually made the ballot at the current AUGI Revit wishlist cycle!