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.

Keynote Schedules Not Updating

I wrote a post in April last year when we were observing some projects that would not update their keynote schedules during printing.

When they issued 2018.3 that issue was reportedly resolved. Moving forward into 2019 and 2020 versions it seems true. However we've seen a few projects that seem to continue to exhibit the problem. Specifically a keynote schedule does not show all of the keynotes that are actually visible in views on the sheet.

With these troubled project files we can force a regeneration IF each sheet view is open during printing. Like before turning the annotation crop boundary off/on or on/off will cause a regeneration too. However printing is when it matters the most. More testing is required before I can be certain there is an ongoing issue in the more recent releases but these projects do exhibit the problem in more recent versions too.

The current solution is to open all the sheets that must print first and then print to PDF. Alternately open a sheet view and print and repeat for all required sheets. If all the views are open then the revision schedule regenerates (you can watch it happen). The sheet view does not have to have Revit's focus, just has to be open in the background at least. Any sheet views that are not open won't refresh.

Reveal Elements - Hidden Viewport

The other day I was looking at a sheet a user reported it was impossible to select a floor plan view on. It seemed as though Revit did not see the view port on the sheet. People frequently pin views to make it a bit harder for other people to move them on a sheet accidentally. That will still allow a view port to be seen by Revit, it will still highlight as the cursor travels over it.

Then I thought of right-click Hide In View > Element. I used Reveal Elements and I could select the viewport. Using that tool does not hide what is visible in the view, it just disables the ability to select the view port.

Good? Bad? It isn't expected, well I didn't expect it.

Moving a Viewport Error - Disjoin

The Move tool offers us an option called Disjoin. When it is used Revit deletes the original and creates a new element at the new location. That isn't obvious to us but if you examine the GUID (ID's of Selection) you'll find it has a new GUID after the Move is complete.

The option is sticky, we have to remember to disable it when we use the Move tool again. When we are working on sheets and adjusting views we now have an opportunity to run into a confusing error message.

If you run into this or people you support do, just remember to Disable da Disjoin.

Per a comment: My previous post on re Disjoin.

Open Sheet - Equal Rights for Panel Schedules

This new right-click choice exists, within the Project Browser, for views that are on sheets. Views that are real that is. Schedules are special views, they can be placed on more than one sheet (like Legends). Electrical Panel Schedules share this distinction but unlike other schedules they are not nearly as likely to require being placed on more than one sheet. Their schedule-ness makes this right click option invalid for them too.

I realize it probably isn't easy or perhaps even possible to segregate this schedule-ness from Panel Schedules but I would have found it very handy to be able to use the Open Sheet concept for them several times today. In this instance it would have been faster than navigating through a very long list of sheets. I suppose it is also possible that some firms do need to be able to put Panel Schedules on more than one sheet, in which case...bummer for me and my wish...

Revit 2016 - Open Sheet

If you read this blog much you know I like subtle stuff and this is right-click subtle. We can already sort the Views portion of the Project Browser so that only views that are Not on Sheets are listed. To see those that are on sheets we just scroll down to the Sheets portion of the Project Browser instead.

Revit 2016 brings us a new feature which allows us to right-click on any view and choose Open Sheet for any view that IS on a sheet.

Naturally if the view you right-click over isn't on a sheet then the choice is disabled.

Revit 2015 Double Click Deactivate View

The new companion to double-click to activate a view on a sheet is pretty simple. Just double-click outside the extent of the viewport to deactivate it. Double-click to Activate View works on schedules too, it opens the schedule editing window. Hopefully it's pretty obvious that double-click to Deactivate View won't work, in reverse, on the schedule once you are editing.

By the way, it (double-click to Deactivate View) can't be turned off. There is an option to disable the Activate View behavior. If you happen to change it to Do Nothing. If you use right-click to Activate View you'll find that Double-click to Deactivate View works regardless.

Deactivate View just don't care.

2014 Revit OpEd

Viewport Title Line

The line that appears along with a Viewport, when you place a view on a sheet, is a property of each viewport type. You get to decide whether you want it to show up or not. It is also the reason you must select the viewport to alter the length of the line, not the view's title annotation, a common mistake or assumption.

Revit will make the line as long as the length (horizontal distance) of the viewport when you place it on a sheet. If you're not careful to clean up a view before adding it to sheet you'll end up with a title line that's far longer than you really wanted.

In some cases people only want the line to be as long as the length of the text in the title. There is no correlation between the title value and the length of the line. It's a close enough situation. You can take a different approach. The font assigned to each view title annotation family can use the Underline option.

Turn off the Viewport title line and alter the viewport's view title family. Reload and you'll get something like this automatically, every time.

Keep in mind the above only deals with the line, not the length of the label itself which affects how soon the text will wrap. You might be able to get away with making the label really long to avoid wrapping at all. More often we need to nest a few labels of different widths to all for short, long and longest title situations where the text should or should not wrap. We then create parameters and types to define which label should be visible. Each type is then associated with a specific Viewport type in the project.

Remember, new to Revit 2015, we can include our own Shared Parameters in Viewport title families. This means we can easily include other kinds of information in a viewport title now. This was a bit more cumbersome in the past.

Testing a plageriser's feed...

2014 Revit OpEd

Guide Grids and Positioning Views on Sheet

This video is only about a year old now (originally posted in November 2012). I get asked about lining up views on sheets almost as soon as people begin putting views on sheets. Here it is again.

Stacking Views on Sheets

Why the hate I wonder? It seems like anytime I read about or suggest stacking views on a sheet to get a specific result people respond with "Oh that's yucky!" or "Ew, an awful workaround". Maybe they are too young to remember pin bar mylar drafting techniques where a series of mylar sheets would be stacked to produce a final. Lot's of things are built by adding layers of information, tee-shirts and silk screening for example.

Views are "cheap", easy to make and alter. When one view looks down and another looks up I can combine them on a sheet to get a bit of both worlds and tell a better story. Having to see more views in the project browser might be annoying but I find using drafting detail lines to show a feature above more annoying. Even using the Linework tool for that purpose is view specific and more labor to replicate when necessary.

If we think about it a bit, it's not all that different than using external references and showing them under our own work. In this case we are able to "xref" our own views by putting them on a sheet. We just need to have a special viewport type that doesn't show a view title. This way we don't have to worry about competing graphics and information on the sheet. Combined with the new bossy view templates it get be pretty efficient too.

Don't be too hasty to rule out stacking views.

Views on Sheets

When you have to add views to sheets just the task itself can take a long time. You will find that trying to put a view on a sheet will take less time if there is nothing visible in the view. Try it. Close all the worksets and place a view on a sheet. Now do the same thing with all the worksets Open. Even a modest size project should see a difference. It isn't that surprising. Why don't more people think of it then?

If you are using guide grids to position views consistently you'll need to be able to see at least some grids or reference planes but not much else. Next time you find yourself waiting for views to generate as you place them on sheets remember to close worksets or at least reduce how much Revit needs to show while it is doing it.

Sheet Button is Disabled

Trying to make a new sheet but the button is disabled? Using Design Options? When you are editing an option the Sheet button is disabled. Same for the right click option over the Sheet category in the project browser. Can't make a sheet while editing a Design Option, sorry!!

As you were...

Delete Sheets In Browser or Schedules

Rooms and areas can be deleted in model views like floor plans and ceiling plans. Revit warns us that they have been deleted from the model but they are still listed in schedules. To really delete them we have to open a schedule view and delete them there. That is intended to make it easier to place them elsewhere in the model without having to recreate them from scratch if their current location needs to be changed.

We can also create rooms and areas in a schedule view before there are any walls or boundaries available to define where they should go. Revit just reports "not placed" until we put them somewhere. We can do the same thing with sheets, they are called placeholder sheets.

The contrast or inconsistency compared with rooms and areas is that you can delete the sheet from the Project Browser and it is removed from the sheet list (schedule). It wouldn't be too unexpected to think that deleting the sheet should leave it in the database as a placeholder, kind of like rooms and areas?

Whadya think?

Dept. of Unfair - Move Tool is Insensitive

When they added the Guide Grid feature to Revit they made it possible to snap to Grid intersections (and Reference Planes) through a viewport. This means we can move a viewport into the same location from one sheet to the next based on an agreed grid intersection such, "A1 will be what we use as a reference location to put our floor plan views on the sheet the same way."

They added this after many years of hearing users complain about views not lining up on sheets. Me personally, I got over it early. Seemed to me that far fewer sheets were affected by this concern than the number of sheets that weren't. I don't mind having the feature but it just never bothered me. I could get things close enough that nobody would notice, especially working with real paper in hand. Granted it is easier to tell in the digital world "flipping" pdf pages or comparing a CAD file overlay. For me though, it didn't really amount to a hill of beans in the job trailer. As a contractor in the past I was more worried about information actually being on the sheet at all to be worried about whether they stacked from sheet to sheet exactly.

Oops I digress...

In order to make this possible they needed to make Revit more sensitive to the contents of the viewport when using the Move Tool. Unfortunately Revit seems to think we live in an orthogonal world because the only Grids or Reference Planes the tool "sees" are orthogonal ones. No arcs, no grids at an angle, sorry Charlie. Now it isn't hard to place a couple orthogonal Reference Planes somewhere or to choose a different Grid intersection perhaps but it would be nice if Revit was more malleable, enough to let us pick any intersection of Grids or Reference Planes.

From Autodesk's WikiHelp:

Item 7. Snap to the crop regions or datums in the viewports and move them into alignment with the guide grid lines to specify a precise location on the sheet. (bold emphasis mine)

This means we can forget about the datum stuff (Grids/Reference Planes) and use the Crop Region. Of course the Crop Region has to be visible to snap to it and unless you are using a Scope Box to manage the Crop Region (to keep them consistent for many views) it isn't really the most reliable reference point to use either. Here's a visual aid, a short video discussing it too.

Quick Tip - Move a View to a New Sheet

I've added this bit in front of the original post (09/03/2011) after getting a couple comments: This post assumes that "you" are already familiar with the concept of dragging a view onto a sheet from the project browser. Not everyone is aware that it is possible to reassign a view to a sheet by dragging within the Project Browser itself.

If you realize that you've put a view on the wrong sheet you can just select it and "delete" it. The view is removed from the sheet, no it isn't actually deleted (on the off chance you haven't done it before now). Probably already knew that much. Did you know that you can drag and drop it on another sheet instead? When you expand a sheet listing so you can see the views that are on it, listed under the sheet name, you can select a view and drag it to a new sheet. When you let go of the mouse button (ends the drag mode) Revit will open that sheet and let you place it.

Yet another way to manipulate stuff. In practice it becomes harder to use when you have a real project with lots of sheets. Often you can't get both sheets within your view of the browser and it's a little awkward to scroll up the Browser. Revit will do it, just have move your cursor toward the top or bottom of the frame to convince it you want to.

Added this too (09/03/2011): I also like to use the Right Click option > Add View because the list it offers is only eligible views. You have to scroll the list to find your view but at least you know you won't run the risk of dragging a view to a sheet that's already on a sheet.

Christmas Gift from Jason Grant - Sheet Creator

As I mentioned in an earlier post Jason has posted an application he wrote for Revit 2010. It allows the user to create sheets sequentially avoiding the opening and closing of dialogs that the existing process in Revit requires. His post has a video the demonstrates the tool in action as well. He also provides a step-by-step process to get it installed.

A still faster way to make sheets if the actually naming isn't very important yet is this TIP.

Revit Xmas Eve

Jason Grant is teasing us with a post promising a free tool to create sheets more easily and quickerer. It won't be available until Christmas eve so you'll have to be patient till then! They say patience is a virtue!

Align Views on Sheets

This request is as old as the hills. User are jazzed that plan views at the same scale will snap into alignment and same for elevations and levels. They are less than jazzed when they find that one detail view and another offer no way to align them other than close-is-close-enough.

They are confused when a North and South elevation won't line up with one another. You can explain that they are from different viewpoints and that the grids are opposite but they still want to be able to use the align tool to pick something and then something to align to the first pick.

The Inside the Factory blog has opened this can of worms by posting a series of thoughts and questions. If this issue is a pet peeve of yours you might want to offer your thoughts??

Seems to me that trying to anticipate how we want to align various views would be easier to solve by allowing an align tool to let us pick elements through the viewport ourselves. No need to try to decide what things can allow alignment. Sometimes people want the ends of levels to align, other times they want a certain feature in the view...there are too many permutations to fashion a clever set of rules for what can or can't be aligned. Just provide a tool to let us pick two things, the thing that we like and the thing that is wrong, to fix it.

Aligning Views between Sheets

This is a common question that the answer, for some, causes angst. Stated in the words of one user, "whaddya mean I can't align the view on one sheet with the view on another sheet exactly??!!??"

With other software people are accustomed to orienting their work with a notion of a Cartesian coordinate system (X,Y,Z) even for a sheet. With Revit the sheet is a bit nebulous. This is just a view that a title block family is placed in automatically when you create it AND can also host other views, a special version of a regular view. There isn't a coordinate system in this view, there is, but it isn't obvious to us. The title block family provides this reference for us but if it were to be deleted you'd be lost with no way to determine where you really were looking relative to another sheet.

Technically Revit just uses the outer boundary lines of a title block family to define the scope of the view to print. I'm referring to the rectangle boundary lines you find in the title block templates provided by the installation. It really doesn't matter where you put the views on the "sheet", well....not to Revit.

What is the objection? People want a floor plan on one sheet to sit directly above the floor plan on the next or subsequent sheets so that it doesn't "walk" back and forth or shift its location as you flip from page to page. Revit's "attitude" on this has been..."close enough is good enough". This is the characterization that drives some people crazy. I too was a bit perturbed years ago. I guess I've mellowed some since.

Here's my take on it. In a set of many sheets the portion of the set that will benefit from such precision is probably a relatively small number. Plans of the same scale certainly ought to be positioned on sheets so you see the project from the same "viewpoint" for each. As soon as you start showing partial, enlarged or other plans the relevance of the alignment between sheets is lost or at least less relevant.

That might seem an excuse to not bother to provide the ability to align them? I suppose at some point it might have been a factor in the decision to devote time to it from a software developer's perspective. In the scheme of things they probably thought that a roof tool would bring more value or importance than aligning views between sheets, so it dropped somewhat in the "To Do List". I imagine somewhere, in some office, they are wrestling with this sort of "can we do this or can we do that" argument every day.

What are your options then?

A view placed on a sheet is very much like a piece of paper on your desk. You can slide the paper around your desk (assuming it isn't cluttered) but there really is no point of reference between the paper and the desk. On the real desk eventually the paper will fall to the ground if you push too far. In Revit there is no real edge except for those lines in the title block family, outside of those Revit stops trying to print your work.

Two sheet views are a lot like two separate desks with their own paper and no real relationship between the two at all.

If you want these views to "stack" on these sheets you need to provide some point of reference and that reference can be the title block family itself. Some users will draw a detail line from a fixed point on their title block (in the sheet view) to a location on the sheet where they'd like their plan view to "sit". This line is then copied to clipboard and then Paste Aligned/Current view in the next sheet view. This gives you the same point for reference. Unfortunately the model visible in the plan's view port will not snap "through the view port" to this line so you are back to "close enough is good enough". If you zoom in you can get it so close that it won't be noticeable unless you export to dwg and then externally reference those files together, which does happen now and then.

Another technique is to provide a set of lines in the title block family itself that can be turned of by using a yes/no parameter associated with the Visible parameter for the line(s). Imagine the detail grid of the NCS/UDS (National Cad Standard / Uniform Document System). You can also store a "cross hair" somewhere or in several locations for this purpose. Think a little outside the proverbial box and you can get much more satisfying though not precise results.

Remember that "close enough is good enough" happens all the time...our tolerance for it just changes depending what the activity is.

Reprise - Making Sheets...faster.

I posted THIS back in March 2006 and I've been asked or read about this several times in the last few days. So I thought I'd mention it again.

I still say Autodesk ought to provide a way to create a "cartoon" set more efficiently! I guess that's where some enterprising developers have an opportunity, such as Revit TV. Put a little pressure on Matt at Avatech too!