underlay help

[fstafek]

Hello,
I'm trying to learn Revit on our current residential project and I somehow don't understand underlay behavior. We've got walls with several layers (concrete, insulation, plaster, sometimes additional non bearing wall after insulation).

How do you align faces of different layers of concrete on different floors? In basement I'd like to align outer face of 350mm concrete wall without plaster or anything with specific face of 200mm concrete bearing core of compound wall of typical floor. But underlay just shows me outline of the compound wall, so the only way is to use reference planes, but this way one finds the drawing filled with reference planes, and anyway lot of cases / alignments are overseen this way.

Is there some setting or some for me hidden way for underlay behaviour?
Or what kind of workflow do you use for inner wall layers alignments across floors?

Autocad export / reimport? This just doesn't work well with lot of changes in project...

Thanks for any tip,
Frantisek Stafek

[zanzibarbob7]

Lets say you are working on Level One and you want to align a wall on that level to Basement Level. First make sure that when in Level One you have Basement Level selected for the underlay. Now, can use the align tool from either level. I think your problem is finding the correct layer surface to align to, therefore hover over the wall you want to align, making sure you have your view on Fine so you can see all surfaces, then hit TAB, as many time a required, to cycle through each surface until it highlights, then select.

Do the same thing for the target wall surface on the other level. Easy as pie.

[fstafek]

align, making sure you have your view on Fine so you can see all surfaces, then hit TAB, as many time a required, to cycle through each surface until it highlights, then select.
Do the same thing for the target wall surface on the other level. Easy as pie.

Thanks a lot for reply. But I'm unable to do it
1) even after setting to FINE (on both floors) the underlayed floor shows (grey) the walls to which I want to align only as outline - that is exterior and interior face (no inner lines are displayed...)

2) after tabbing on the underlayed wall only outer faces or centerline of core or wall is offered, no inner faces. It behaves this way regardless on the "prefer" setting on the options bar (wall/core faces, centerlines)

Of course the wall I want to align shows / and offers for alignment everything, but not the underlayed wall.

Is this some setting for 1) that you are able to see inner faces in underlay? Or some setting for align I've missed? I'm using last available build of 2008.

Thanks once more...

Frantisek Stafek

[rjcrowther]

I thought the reply from Thomas should have worked. I have tried his suggestion and it worked fine on my machine.

I guess that confirms the method as being suitable.

The only things I can suggest you look at are core boundary setups and wall sweeps.

I used to get some odd results for my walls until I decided on a set method of setting core boundaries and wall layer protocols.

Also wall sweeps can do some stupid things to you at times.

Sorry I cannot offer anything else.

Rob

[fstafek]

I thought the reply from Thomas should have worked. I have tried his suggestion and it worked fine on my machine.
I guess that confirms the method as being suitable.

Do you see the inner layers in overlay?

The only things I can suggest you look at are core boundary setups and wall sweeps. I used to get some odd results for my walls until I decided on a set method of setting core boundaries and wall layer protocols.
Also wall sweeps can do some stupid things to you at times.
Rob

No sweep, no reveal, in core is only Structure[1] 400mm (concrete)
Fresh file from factory template.

Thanks a lot. Frantisek Stafek

Attached screenshot of selected wall : left 1st floor, right 2nd floor with 1st as underlay - only outline is seen

[Dimitri Harvalias]

It won't solve your current underaly problem but you can also cut a section through the walls and line things up as you want in the section view.

[fstafek]

It won't solve your current underaly problem but you can also cut a section through the walls and line things up as you want in the section view.

But I would like to just ask once more does ANYBODY SEE the layers of wall in underlay? that is: seeing only outline is feature or bug?

Second question is whether one is able to snap to the inner faces of wall, I'm unable, but here we already know, that I've got something wrong here

Regards Frantisek Stafek

[zanzibarbob7]

On the underlay it will only show the outline in gray, initially, but as you drag over it the layers of your wall will highlight. Pick the Align Tool and work as previously described. It works, just be patient. Do a little test with a few complex walls.

[ron.sanpedro]

On the underlay it will only show the outline in gray, initially, but as you drag over it the layers of your wall will highlight. Pick the Align Tool and work as previously described. It works, just be patient. Do a little test with a few complex walls.

Thomas,
I tried what you describe, and the align tool gives me nothing but the outer face and centerline. No amount of fussy mouse movement highlights anything else in the underlay. I have both the underlay and the work view at Fine detail, and still the underlay is simplified both graphically and for selection. I wonder, which version of Revit are you using? Perhaps this is one of those things like TIFF export that was removed for some reason in 2008?

And I do think this should be considered a bug. We really should be able to underlay things with MUCH more control than we do now.

On the other hand, a thought for the original poster. How complex is your plan, and how many times does this condition occur? One option is to place a reference plane where appropriate, then align walls on different levels as needed. Another option is a compound wall, but pre 2008 we have had nothing but misery from compound walls, and have not yet checked to see if 2008 fixed these as it did groups. I doubt it as I would expect such a think to be trumpeted by Autodesk marketing, but perhaps they thought GoogleEarth was the more important issue to bugle about!

Best,
Gordon

[eddy.lermytte]

I can't duplicate the issue down here but what about setting your View Properties to Wire frame.
Do you see the layers in that mode ?