Temporary Dimensions and Activate Dimensions

I've written about Temporary Dimensions and the Activate Dimension button in the past (2007-9), these are some posts that discuss them.

Space Bar Subtle Effect on Temporary Dimensions
Dept. of Reviteristics - Activate Dimensions
Activate Dimensions
Activate Dimensions - Redux

Temporary Dimensions don't appear when two or more elements are selected. When that happens you should see the Activate Dimensions button appear on the Options Bar.

Temporary dimensions also don't respond to families that host nested shared families. That's because these families are also regarded by Revit, under the hood, as a selection of two or more elements.

Temporary Dimension Size and Reference Plane Names

The name that appears on a selected Reference Plane is based on its name parameter. If you find their names a bit small to read we can take advantage of the Temporary Dimensions Text Appearance setting to increase it. This is what it looks like at 8 point text.

This is what it looks like at 14 point text.

Ah, more betterer...

Increase Size of Temporary Dimensions

From a post by Scott Latch, the new Technical Product Manager for Revit Architecture, at AUGI's Revit community forums.

Open Revit.ini file in Notepad.
The file is typically located in C:\Program Files\Revit Architecture 2008\Program.

Add the following line to Revit.ini in [Graphics] section:
TempDimFontSizeInPoints=N

Where N is a number larger than 8 (default hardcoded value). Good starting point is twice the default size (i.e. 16-17).

Save Revit.ini.
Restart Revit.

If the size of temporary dimensions is still small, repeat from step 1 with larger number.

Please note, the [Graphics] section may not exist. If this is the case add a line that contains [Graphics].

Space Bar Subtle Effect - Temporary Dimensions

As you know the Space Bar will rotate components when you have one or more selected. This proves quite handy, further if an element is held above an angled element the Space Bar action will pick up on the angle and align the rotating element with this angled reference.

A collateral effect of the use of the Space Bar is that the temporary dimensions relocate themselves according to different references as the element rotates.This can be used to good effect on cylindrical elements like pipe fittings or sprinklers as well as circular or similar annotation that doesn't really matter when they are "spun". For these particular situations pressing the Space Bar results in the flipping of temporary dimensions to other elements. A temporary dimension that was referencing a wall on the right will now reference a wall on the left.

Usually this result is stumbled on and easily forgotten so I thought I'd mention it again.

Activate Dimensions

As you work in Revit you get used to seeing temporary dimensions appearing every time you select an element. Then as your project progresses and more and more things fill your screen you eventually notice that those temporary dimensions aren't showing up as much. At first you might think that something has gone terribly wrong. The truth is that Revit has reached a point where it has decided that showing temporary dimensions would negatively affect performance.

So now what? Do you have to add your own permanent dimensions to manipulate your design? Well...you could, nothing wrong with that but you don't HAVE to... Enter the Options Bar, when this occurs take a quick look on the Options Bar and click the nice Activate Dimensions button.

Why doesn't Revit tell you it isn't going to display the temporary dimensions anymore? Well...we probably would get annoyed with that message popping up all the time too?