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Thread: Clean joining of walls floors roofs - Pen priority

  1. #1
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    Lightbulb Clean joining of walls floors roofs - Pen priority

    Hi All!

    Its my first post and I thought I'd share a discovery.

    Basically, I noticed that Pen Order affects the joining of the layers in walls and floors. I can't find anywhere that mentions this! Has anyone else noted this? if so, where can I find out more?


    I've not got many weeks of Revit experience and I have been concentrating on getting the 2D construction drawings looking as clear and simple as they do from our other software Vectorworks. I'm using Revit 2014 in the UK.

    From knowing nothing and after playing around with the Wall layer function priorities, the core location, the materials and finally the line weights chosen for the functions, I think we've cracked it.

    1. Core layers only join to core layers & non-core layers only join with non-core layers. For us, the wall's core is typically the structural layer.

    2. Wall layer function priorities with high numbers cut through lower numbers. I set the following:
    Structure [1] eg structural concrete
    Substrate [2] eg internal blockwork leaf, timber studwork
    Thermal/Air Layer [3] eg cavity insulation
    Finish 1 [4] eg external leaf of brickwork
    Finsih 2 [5] eg internal plaster, external brick slips, cladding

    3. The join of wall layers with the same materials only clean up if they have the same function priority and the same core-condition. Otherwise they are separated with a "common edge" line (sub-category of "Walls"). The visibility of lines at wall joins of the same material are controlled under: VG > Override Host Layers, Cut Line Styles > core layer clean-up = Default (No Edge) removes lines.

    4. The line between 2 joined wall layers with different pen numbers will draw the lineweight of the higher pen number (not necessarily the thicker lineweight) If the wall layer's pen thickness's are the same, the cutting line between the wall layers will be a "common edge". I set the following:
    Structure [1] Pen#5
    Substrate [2] Pen#4
    Thermal/Air Layer [3] Pen#1
    Finish 1 [4] Pen#3
    Finsih 2 [5] Pen#2

    5. Where a column is inserted into a wall and joined to the wall, it follows the same rules as 3 and 4 above. So to see the lineweight set for the column it has to be a different material and the Pen has to be a higher number than that which it is cutting into. However, for some reason - which we have not figured out yet - the relevant Pen is the Pen selected under Lineweight "Projection" rather than "Cut". Eg. within category "Structural Columns" or - as in our case - its sub-category "R.C. Column".

    6. To deal with the above rules without affecting the lineweights in the rest of the model, we have had to tweak the Model Lineweights to assign 5 Pens for exclusive use by the Host Layer line styles. Today we have tried the following Pen lineweights for scales 1:1 to 1:50 (for higher scales we use thinner lineweights) and it seams to be working well.
    1-0.13mm (most lines, projection, hatches)
    2-0.25mm (materials cut in section)
    3-0.35mm (not typically used)
    4-0.50mm (important lines, eg site boundary)
    5-0.70mm (not typically used)
    6-1.00mm (not typically used)
    7-1.41mm (not typically used)
    8-2.00mm (not typically used)
    9-0.18mm (not typically used)
    10-0.05mm (not typically used)
    11-0.13mm (Wall Priority 5)
    12-0.13mm (Wall Priority 4)
    13-0.25mm (Wall Priority 3)
    14-0.25mm (Wall Priority 2)
    15-0.25mm (Wall Priority 1)
    16-0.08mm (not typically used)

    7. When joining elements such as wall layers to floor layers, select the dominant element first and the element to be cut second.

    8. With the above rules set up, our drawings are looking much clearer and we will hopefully spend far less time with "Unjoin Geometry" and "Disallow Join", however when we do use Disallow join it often still joins in unwanted ways, we get round this by working inside "Temporary>Isolate Element" eg snapping a Disallow Join wall to a temporary line and then "Temporary>Reset".

    Our first Revit project has been a struggle, but we really want to get the most out of the software and do it right.
    Please let me know if you have any comments on the above, have I completely missed a far simpler way of dealing with wall joins? have I set myself up for troubles down the road?

    Thanks All!
    Last edited by jezscott443756; 2013-12-10 at 08:45 PM.

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Clean joining of walls floors roofs - Pen priority

    This is a great tip, thanks for sharing!

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