Wish - Copy, Rotate and Mirror Sub Elements

I really wish I could copy Split Line or Point while using Modify Sub Elements. It's really quite silly that I have to sketch or pick to place these things over and over (and this is a 2016 image...so no joy there either).

Tagging Elements and their Area

Revit allows us to tag rooms and spaces to display their area. If I'm tempted to do the same for Walls, Floors, Ceilings or Roofs the list of available system parameters (built into Revit) does not offer Area. Revit MEP users can tag a Duct's area.

It seems to me a bit arbitrary to disallow the tagging of data that is part of the element. We can see it in the element properties and include it in schedules. While a schedule is an ideal way to summarize data a floor plan is useful to provide context AND display a variety of information, like area.

It would be excellent to see more parameters unshackled.

Quirky Roof - Roofing Around

A recent thread at the Revitforum.org asked about this roof form.

Don't worry about the dimensions. I used them to make sure a roof would work if I was "careful". I later messed around with it a bit to see if I could reproduce the error the original poster described, like this.

The other day I was discussing roofs with someone and I brought this situation up. I used the arrow keys to nudge walls around and thought the result was worthy of a quick video to demonstrate how different proportions affect the roof outcome. It's certainly quirky, maybe even "buggy"?

Finish and Cancel Inequity

In the past Aaron Maller and I have had long conversations that oddly enough focus on Revit. He mentioned the inconsistency between the way some elements that are sketch based are finished and the way shape editing for floors and roofs finish. He recently reminded me of it, for example he put forth this list.

Floor, roof, stair or ramp Sketch Creation = Finish and Cancel
Edit Profile = Finish and Cancel
Model Groups = Finish and Cancel

Floor or roof Shape Editing = Accidentally hitting the escape key and getting kicked out of it. We are supposed to click the Modify button to finish Shape Editing.

It would be great if Shape Editing were consistent with the others!!

Five Minutes of Roof Sloping

I've posted a five minute (slightly over) video of sloping roofs for two conditions, sloped structure and flat structure with built-up rigid insulation. It demonstrates taking advantage of the Variable setting for roof layers (appropriate for flat structure).

This is the roof form I use in the video, sloping the structure in the larger section and using flat steel in the corners and the "L".

I used the Shape Editing Pick Supports option to define the sloping roof over the sloping structure. I used the Shape Editing Add Split Line feature to slope the roof membrane and insulation in the smaller areas.

You can watch the Video or also at You Tube.

The Difference Between Join and Attach

There are two kind of messages that Revit shows you regarding how walls, floors and roofs interact.

The first kind (Attach) occurs when the geometry of a wall touches a floor or passes through the floor. If you edit the sketch of a floor, when you finish the sketch Revit asks you if you'd like to attach this wall (or any other walls that intersect too) to the underside of the floor.

The point of this is to establish an "automatic" relationship between the underside of a floor and various walls. If the floor type (thickness) changes the top of the wall(s) will change as well. If the level the floor is assigned to is raised/lowered the walls adjust accordingly too. It's meant to be "quicker" than manually doing it yourself by selecting walls and using the Attach Top/Base tool. However you may want some walls to do it and others not so much. Many times the "correct" answer is NO.

Here are the results for yes and no responses (note that there is no "joining" of geometry, just the wall height is changed).

Same thing happens when a wall and roof geometry intersects except the dialog message is slightly different.

The second kind (Join) is when a floor intersects a wall, like at exterior walls. Revit asks if you want to join geometry so the cut/projection lines that it draws better represent how these elements would really intersect.

The first message does appear too, just before the second message appears. It's good to choose NO to the first so the wall does not get attached (which would change its height) and then YES so the geometry joins nicely. If you aren't cutting a section through this part of the building then you could argue there is no need to join geometry since nobody will see the clumsy connection between wall and floor.

Now for this message to appear it is necessary to "Pick Walls" and use the "Extend into wall (to core)" Option. If you don't use these then you just get the first message.

If you choose NO for both "questions" you can always use the Join Geometry tool later between any elements that need to "clean up" better. Again the point of this second kind of question is to provide a "speedier" way to end up with a better section(s) when you cut one later.

Roof Eave - Edge Conditions

A question via email prompts this post. The writer is trying to figure out how to change the roof edge condition to represent what he needs.

Roofs have one parameter that offers three options to define a roof edge condition:

• Plumb
• Two Cut - Plumb
• Two Cut - Square

This is what each of the three options look like in a section view.

This portion of the Construction Group (groups are the blue "bars, dividing boundaries in the dialog) defines how the roof fascia/edge is adjusted. When you choose either of the Two Cut techniques you need to provide the Fascia Depth value.

Related to this in a way is the setting for Rafter or Truss. This is only available to roofs that have been defined using the Pick Wall technique. Roofs that are not sketched with Pick Wall use the Rafter configuration and do not offer this option in the properties dialog.

I created a short video to show what I'm writing about. As usual I've embedded the video here too so you can listen and watch now.

Roof Example - Slope and Shape Editing

A post at AUGI asked about a roof condition that followed a curved wall. They wanted the roof to use a 1/12 pitch (1 inch rise per 12 inches of run for metric and slope in degrees folks). This is easy to do by specifying one segment of the roof as Defining Slope. This is the result.

Notice that the edge at the far left in the elevation is sloping? This is the sketch view using a slope arrow but it could have been done by assigning the Defines Slope parameter to the side sketch line segment too.

It was easy except they want the roof edge at the start to be parallel to the ground AND the roof edge at the end to be parallel too. Using this technique creates a roof object that represents a flat plate roof (imagine building it on the ground first, flat) structure that is lifted into place and the far end lifted up to create the pitch.

To create a roof that provides the parallel conditions at both ends we can use the Shape Editing tools instead. This will let us specify the elevation at each point of the roof. This also means that we are creating a warping roof surface. The rafters will each have a unique slope/pitch. Here's the result.

This is the sketch view of the roof using the Shape Editing tools and specifying a four (4) offset at the far left end.

Two approaches with different results. It all comes down to the desired result.

STC - Can't Place Room Solution

And the winner is:

Under some circumstances you cannot place a room when a roof is the room bounding element beneath your room. I can only assume this is because a roof is expected to be above a room for volumetric calculations. If you adjust the bottom of the wall to sit on the roof it will work or what we did is...

We created an opening in the roof so we could place a floor instead. Problem solved. Technically speaking it is more consistent with the construction methods for a penthouse anyway. It definitely did provide a "what the" opportunity though.

For more depth you can review Erik's blog post.

Freeform Roof via WikiHow

James Vandezande, with SOM, has shared how to use a freeform roof made in software other than Revit (Rhino) and then use it in Revit. He's shared how on WikiHow. Take a look! Thanks James! (note: I believe this was part of his Autodesk University lecture last year)