Making an elevation look correct

[pcl]

I am drawing a house in Revit and it has a number of features that are not displayed correctly because I cannot figure out how to grey out objects based on how far back they are from my Elevation lines. Elevation lines being the blue line you see when you click on the actual elevation tag. Does anyone know how to change the color of an object based on it's depth relative to the elevation line. I know how to turn the far clip on and off and how to adjust it, that is one thing I am sure of. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Philip

[jond]

To my knowledge this has not been implemented yet. I really wish there was some way for this to happen....

[gordon.price]

Originally Posted by pcl

I am drawing a house in Revit and it has a number of features that are not displayed correctly because I cannot figure out how to grey out objects based on how far back they are from my Elevation lines. Elevation lines being the blue line you see when you click on the actual elevation tag. Does anyone know how to change the color of an object based on it's depth relative to the elevation line. I know how to turn the far clip on and off and how to adjust it, that is one thing I am sure of. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Philip

PCL,
I would be tempted to chaulk this one up to a moving definition of "correct". While in hand drawing and even AutoCAD you might very well render your linework this way, in Revit you might have to change your definition of "correct". To my mind, the reason for screening the lines to show depth is in part because casting shadows is such a pain. But with Revit you can put a nice light shadow on a working drawing elevation is no time, and I think that can show depth even better than screened lines.
If your building is rectilinear in elevation, you might be able to cobble together multiple views, but the edges of the forward elevation would have to be perfectly straight lines.

Best,
Gordon

[pcl]

Thank you for both, for your time and replies. It really does help to have them.

Philip

[kshawks]

You might look at changing your linework, using heavier lines closer to you and thinner lines further away. The linework tool works fine in this case. In some projects i have created additional line weights to help emphasize depth.

[dgraue]

Just because elevations are created for us "automatically" let's not loose sight of the fact that these drawings, when plotted and put into a set, should still be graphically appealing. Sure the shadows are very nice and help to define the depth of the facade, but the elevations that are produced in Revit are far from acceptable to me (and many of our clients). The linework tool is a good addition but very tedious and should really only be needed in special instances...and not used for 80% of each elevation. To me, factory really needs to focus on providing more control in the elevation views and allow building elements to read appropriately as planes of the facade step back. Somehow, the basic rules that apply to drafted elevations need to be incorporated into this program. Elevations drawn in CAD still read far better than in Revit and we shouldn't have to compromise the look of these elevations for the sake of convenience. Architecture has a long standing tradition of beautifully drawn elevations and I don't think we should look back 15 years from now and wonder why elevations don't look nearly as good as they used to.

DG

[gordon.price]

Originally Posted by dgraue

Just because elevations are created for us "automatically" let's not loose sight of the fact that these drawings, when plotted and put into a set, should still be graphically appealing. Sure the shadows are very nice and help to define the depth of the facade, but the elevations that are produced in Revit are far from acceptable to me (and many of our clients). The linework tool is a good addition but very tedious and should really only be needed in special instances...and not used for 80% of each elevation. To me, factory really needs to focus on providing more control in the elevation views and allow building elements to read appropriately as planes of the facade step back. Somehow, the basic rules that apply to drafted elevations need to be incorporated into this program. Elevations drawn in CAD still read far better than in Revit and we shouldn't have to compromise the look of these elevations for the sake of convenience. Architecture has a long standing tradition of beautifully drawn elevations and I don't think we should look back 15 years from now and wonder why elevations don't look nearly as good as they used to.

DG

The thing is, some offices, like mine, never have drawn that way, so if Revit just starts doing it that way then a whole new group will be unhappy. But if you start getting into multiple settings, you start down the AutoCAD Sysvar road to hell. It is a delicate balance. That said, I think a little more user control is good, but with enough restraint to avoid the AutoCAD "everything to everyone" problem.

Gordon

[MRV]

I think what he's talking about is the "readablity" of the drawing... Something that the old "board" drafters knew by heart. Now that the "cad" drafters are taking over, readability of drawings is starting to suffer. Readability means many things, but basically boils down to having drawings that you can look at and quickly see the intent of the drawing. One aspect that comes to mind is having dimensions that don't have linework crossing them. Another is linework that varies in thickness depending on how important it is (out of the box Revit is really bad at this). And again, line thickness can convey the depth to a drawing, i.e. elevations, and Revit has no control over this, this is what we are asking for.

Michael Vaughn
BWG Architecture

[gordon.price]

Originally Posted by MRV

I think what he's talking about is the "readablity" of the drawing... Something that the old "board" drafters knew by heart. Now that the "cad" drafters are taking over, readability of drawings is starting to suffer. Readability means many things, but basically boils down to having drawings that you can look at and quickly see the intent of the drawing. One aspect that comes to mind is having dimensions that don't have linework crossing them. Another is linework that varies in thickness depending on how important it is (out of the box Revit is really bad at this). And again, line thickness can convey the depth to a drawing, i.e. elevations, and Revit has no control over this, this is what we are asking for.

Michael Vaughn
BWG Architecture

I agree to a point. Especially with an elevation, the point of the drawing is to show design intent. There are few dimensions, a few notes about material, and often a lot of material hatches. And I think a single lineweight, good readable material designations, and good readable shadows can actually result in an image that totally fails the old "readability" test, while actually providing more useful information. My office is rather psychotic at times about image quality issues, and I am often leading the charge yelling "That doesn't look good enough!", but I do think the definition of "readability" in a color PDF & 600 dpi laser plotter world is very different from "readablity" in a technical pen on vellum and duplicated with a diazo machine world.
That said, I would like to see things like options to either screen or thin lines in the distance, based not on an arbitrary distance but on an actual "seperate building face" definition, as well as a profile that actually profiles. And render material settings for SD, CD and Presentation, with the ability to just turn on shadows and the render type, and get a view that is appropriate in information, color, lineweights, etc.
Some day

Gordon

[cganiere]

It seems like it would be very easy to add a "fade into the background" parameter for elevations. We already have a scope box. The box could have a setting for percent of line weight from front to back. A setting of 0% would have no difference in line weight from front to back. A setting of 40% would have the lines in front print at 100% and the lines at the back at 40% with a gradation for the lines inbetween.

What do you think? Would it be more processor intensive than shadiows?

Christopher