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.

Voids and Material Orientation

When we use a void to cut a solid sweep it will affect the orientation of a material applied to it. Here's a sweep that is not cut and has a wood grain material assigned to it. I've got a void poised to cut it.

Here's the orientation of the material after using Cut Geometry.

This happens to a sweep but not an extrusion. The material sort of flashes when Cut Geometry is used but it doesn't change the orientation of the material.

If we create a Revolve solid and apply a material it will look like this when we use the End Angle setting of 180 degrees (or 360).

When we change the angle to 45 degrees the material orientation changes.

Then this happens when we apply a void using Cut Geometry, it fixes the orientation. Well it fixed the orientation of the "dome", not the "steps".

Quirky squared by subtle

Phase and Poche Materials

As you're likely to know already Revit provides a feature to change the appearance of elements to distinguish between phases of work. When you examine the Materials dialog the "Phase-X" materials were created by the development team and they exist to support the way that feature is intended to work. The templates are configured (OoTB) to automatically "work" if you use the phase features.

When I visit the 2014 Architectural template I find three "rogue" phase materials in the dialog (image above). The four highlighted in yellow are assigned to the Phases Graphic Overrides.

I've no idea what these three other materials are assigned to. When I examine the Materials dialog and the icon for "asset use" (highlighted with the red circle in the first image in this post) the four "good" materials report that the associated asset is shared with 8 materials. The three rogue ones are not using an asset shared with any other materials. Easy enough, I deleted them. Revit will let you delete any of the phase related materials even though the Phase feature is technically relying on them to work as intended out of the box.

In general nobody will use the materials for anything else, not really suited for anything else. They "work" as intended and are preset so they do. The only real interaction anyone needs to have with any of these materials is if something about how they look isn't quite what we want. If we don't think demo elements should be red we can change the material to use something else or increase or decrease the transparency for example.

The other material highlighted in yellow is the poche material (pronounced Poe-shay). It's also a feature that was originally tied to the graphic display of the model when Coarse Detail Level is in effect. However they've made the Poche material assignment a Type Property of 3D views.

You have to assign a material to have it take effect. In the past Poche was hardwired to the effect. Now you can technically use any material in the library instead. Poche isn't required itself to work anymore. Here's an example of it being used on the section through a pavilion model.

Reference Planes and Wall Closure

Daniel Stine wrote to let me know that his new Interior Design book is now available for 2013.

It covers the new Materials and uses the new stair tool to create the stair shown in the image below (actually, the reader creates everything in the image).

He was also worried about me not posting as much lately so he shared something that's part of his book too...so I could post it here. Cool, I don't have to be creative and come up with something to post on my own! Aah...I feel so relaxed, thanks!

Control Wall’s Material Return

A door or window family has the ability to control the return of materials (i.e. Layers) for the host wall in a project. The exterior and interior materials can be controlled separately. These adjustments change the 3D model, not just the 2D plan-view. A single door family is controlling the various conditions shown below.

Note the two “wall closure” parameters (shown below) need to be “locked” so they stay positive (in the correct direction) when the host wall thickness changes. Also, these values can be set to 0’-0” for the default instance value.

You can set two Reference Planes to “Wall Closure” in a family.

In plan you get something like this.

[Edit: added this section 08/18/2013 - realized I didn't mention this part]

It is also significant that the Reference Plane setting works together WITH Wall Type Properties. If you don't tell the wall to allow the wrapping at inserts it won't do anything. I've added this image below to help explain.

Revit 2012 Materials and Property Sets

I like it when someone at the Factory chimes in with some insight like David Conant did at the AUGI forums the other day. Regarding a members confusion about the new material concepts added to Revit 2012 he wrote:

Think of the Material as a container. It contains sets of information that represent different aspects of materiality: Appearance (what it looks like in a rendering), Structure (how strong it is), Graphics (what it looks like in a non rendered view), and general information about the material. In some cases (appearance and structure) the information can be provided to the material by linking to a seperately defined property set (by Property Set), or can be input directly into the material (Independent). This allows several materials to share a single set of properties and changes to that property set to propagate to all those materials.

Imagine you are working with several materials of different types that are all covered with the same finish, green paint for example. In that case you would create as many Materials as needed and assign the same green paint appearance property set to each. To change the paint tint on all, change the definition of the appearance property set. The appearance of all those materials will change together.

Conversely, you might have four kinds of concrete with the same strength but different appearances. In that case you would create the four concrete materials linked to the same Structure property set, but with different appearances.

If you need to tweak the appearance of an individual material without changing any others, set its appearance property to Independent. Your changes will then be confined to that material only.

Pipe Materials

A fairly common comment from someone using the Piping/Plumbing features in Revit MEP is, "Where is Cast Iron?" Fair enough! Where is it? It ain't there! Getting it there is a matter of editing the Pipe Sizes.xml file (default location: C:\Program Files\Revit MEP 2008\Program). At least that's true for past versions. The information is now embedded in Revit MEP 2009 and accessible from a dialog found under Settings menu > Mechanical Settings. This is the dialog you get:


You click on "Sizes" at the bottom left of the dialog and you get the information displayed on the right side. You can now add Material, Connection, Schedule/Type as well as Sizes. Using the check boxes offered, you can filter the list of sizes so only appropriate ones will be offered to you when you use specific types of pipe. You also use this to allow RME to use the size when calculating "sizing" for you.

Keep in mind that the Project Units of your project will affect the pipe sizes displayed on the Options Bar too. You adjust this via Settings menu > Project Units and then choose Piping for Discipline. Like this:


Similarly Wires Sizes and Duct Sizes are embedded within RME.