New Toys!!!

Revit 2011 product previews are out. There's no official release date yet (the April 8th release has been postponed), but you may start drooling now. See the links below for some more in-depth descriptions of what's coming. (Electrical finally gets conduit and cable trays)

Revit Architecture 2011, Revit MEP 2011, Revit Structure 2011


New Feature Lists: Architecture, Structure, MEP

Get Phased

Phases in Revit aren't hard, but they can be a bit confusing. At first glance, they seem easy - Existing and New Construction. The key is understanding that each phase is a moment in time. With just two phases, it's not that big of a deal, but if you were to add more phases, this concept becomes more important. If an element is existing, you set it as Phase Created = Existing, if it's new, you set it as Phase Created = New Construction (Element Properties-Phasing-Phase created). If you're going to demolish something existing, set it as Phase Created = Existing, Phase Demolished = New Construction.

All this is simple enough, but elements won't display differently in views until you set up phase filters and graphic overrides. The Phase Filters require setting up display styles for New, Existing, Demolished, and Temporary. This is where things could get a little confusing. The "Existing" in Phase Filters isn't necessarily the same as the Existing in Project Phases. This is where thinking of the Project Phases as moments in time can be helpful. Therefore, Phase Filter "Existing" is anything that was created before the phase that each particular view is set to (View Properties-Phases). Setting the view to a phase is the equivalent of taking a snapshot of that moment in time. If your view is set to Phase Existing, unless you've created another phase (moment in time) before Existing, the Phase Filter "Existing" will be empty, because there is nothing that could have existed prior to Existing. (Confused yet?) Any element that was created in the current View Phase (Existing) and not demolished in the current View Phase would be read as Phase Filter "New" in this view. Phase Filter "Demolished" applies to elements created prior to the current view phase and demolished in the current view phase. Phase Filter "Temporary" applies to elements created and demolished in the same (and current) view phase.

Ultimately, successfully using phases requires some advance plannning and care. Spending 10 minutes at the onset of a job to plan out the phases and understand what each phase and phase filter should show will result in better experience.

For a more in depth look at phases (and a way better explanation than I could give) look here. (MEP check this out as well.) Interesting thoughts on showing future work here.

Big Grid Issues

Revit is great because you don't have to repeatedly draft things like grid lines. Put 'em in once and you're good to go. That is, until you have to show a keyplan with grids or you have a project so large you have to show it at something like 1/32" scale or 1"=50'-0". Now the grid bubbles appear to be 20' diameter. Because the grid text and bubble maintains the same size regardless of scale, it doesn't work well when you combine large and small scales.

Thankfully, there's a workaround. This one is courtesy of the Revit OpEd blog (see Knowledge Base links on your right and link below).

A solution to show different size grid annotation in large scale views involves using Design Options.

1. Create a Design Option called Grid Management and two options: Normal Size and Reduced Size.
2. Create a Reduced Size Grid type that uses a grid bubble family with smaller text and circle. Rename the normal Grid type: Normal Size.
3. Add all the Normal Size grids to the project and then add them to both Design Options.
4. Edit the Reduced Size view's Design Option and change the grid types to the matching Reduced Size grid type. In the larger scale views set their Design Option (via Visibility/Graphics dialog) to display the Reduced Size Design Option.

Now you have smaller grid bubbles and they "look" better...just keep in mind that they are smaller and now harder to read when printed full size, or half size for that matter.

Caution: Dimensioning to these grids in a design option and to the rest of the model can have unpleasant issues. Such as the dimension getting deleted or at least disappearing when the relationship between the Option"ed" grids are no longer relevant. This can happen if you toggle the assigned option to another and back.

http://revitoped.blogspot.com/2010/02/dept-of-workarounds-smaller-grids-in.html