RAC 2010 - Best practices for Interiors - Finish Plans

[designviz]

Does anyone have recommendations/examples for Finish Plan documentation in Revit Architecture? Although we are considering perhaps going to the schedule approach of assigning wall finishes to North, South, East, West walls of a room, it is not how we have traditionally done this here. Therefore, before we just totally abandon the old way for something more Revit friendly, we want to know if any others have found a way to accommodate this method? Please refer to the attached PDF for reference, and in particular the walls designated as receiving B1 (base) and W2 (wall) finishes.

[twiceroadsfool]

Model Floors and walls that are "Finish walls" and "Finish Floors" and tag the materials. Thats what we do, anyway.

The schedule thing is arcane, and its not too revit friendly. A room schedule cant read data from walls or materials, so it will just be a text field, if anything.

Id model the finishes, and tag them.

[designviz]

Clarification... so are your "Finish Walls" and "Finish Floors" separate from your regular walls and floors and thus essentially single sided and applied on top of their counterparts, or are they simply more detailed versions of the others? If the former, doesn't Revit complain about multiple walls on top of each other, and how do you deal with door and other such openings? Can you provide a small example?

[twiceroadsfool]

I dont put them on top, i put the adjacent. They have inconsequential thicknesses, where the material wouldnt really have a "thickness" such as wallpaper or paint. I put them up against the regular walls, so i may have a wall called FIN-(3/8")-TILE 601 which is a wall with only one material, that is 3/8" thick. Ill run it around the inside boundary of the rooms that have Tile 601.

Join geometry with the walls theyre up against, and the openings/doors/windows from that wall will cut the finish wall as well. No Revit complaints, since theyre not on top of one another.

A Filter of Type Name Contains FIN handles drawing sloppiness (so they dont show up everywhere). tag by material, or tag by wall type. It also leaves the architectural walls alone, since they need GYP on them for their UL/STC/Construction partition type/whatever.

Its just one method, there are plenty to go around. :)

[nancy.mcclure]

Some projects are just too vast (and often repetitive) to model in all finishes, so scheduling info is often a good way to go. Looking at your CAD example, designviz, you could create a custom room tag that has multiple labels that 'read' the (shared parameter) room finish schedule info from the room element. Where you have the need to point out specific finishes, use a single label room tag with a leader. Your wall finish tags that 'track' around multiple spaces would require drafting lines to supplement the room tag.

The biggest con I see to scheduling vs finish modeling is that you won't get quantities.

[designviz]

Aaron, OK. I did not realize walls placed with adjacent abutting lines don't cause Revit the same concerns as those literally on top of each other. This is good to know. I presume then the same is true for floors.

[designviz]

Nancy, it is that whole tracking around aspect that I was most intereted in knowing if anyway had developed some slick little utility for. It would be nice if tags, like text could have leaders on either or both sides, this would at least be sufficient in many cases, and then just add a few detailing/drafting lines when needed.

[twiceroadsfool]

That would be great, as long as they implemented it at the Factory such that Material tags with multiple leaders could ONLY touch items of the same Material. Actually, that would be nice for tags across the board. But it would have to not allow you to do it when the items were different, or the entire tagging intelligent information premise is out the window.

Yes, same for floors. I put Concrete slabs at the TOSlab Level, and the Finish Floors offset above the level as they will be built. I also remove them with filters from our construction floor plans, and only show them on Finish plans.

Yeah, you can do it all with room tags, if its a down and dirty get-it-done quick job and you just need the information with no other views of it. But the moment you want to elevate a wall, youre going to have to Paint the material on, or hack it with Filled regions and lines, at which point i think its faster to model them in.

[mhenderson]

Interesting tip TwiceRoads. How do you deal with a wall that has multiple finishes. For instance, Wood Wainscot to a certain height, marker board panel to a certain height, paint above that? Do you use stacked walls? or do you 'split region' your finish walls? or something else?

[twiceroadsfool]

Interesting tip TwiceRoads. How do you deal with a wall that has multiple finishes. For instance, Wood Wainscot to a certain height, marker board panel to a certain height, paint above that? Do you use stacked walls? or do you 'split region' your finish walls? or something else?

I dont split region anything. I use a stacked wall, or multiple walls with edited profiles. Or walls with embedded sweeps. :)

[SCShell]

Hey there,
I will throw in my 2 cents....
I too model wall, ceiling and floor finishes, as described. I especially like the fact that I can immediately produce an interior elevation of a complicated wall. I believe that a picture is better than a schedule.

I also like that I can do quantity calcs for any material if requested (and compensated).
I also like that details look correct since the walls attach to the concrete slab and then the floor finishes terminate at the wall.

If a project has quantity take off needs, then I even model the base as a 4" high wall.

I have learned to model everything. It just makes it easier for me to produce the drawings.

Best of luck and remember, there is no "one" correct answer.

I attended Scott Brown's AU class on Interior Design & Revit where he confirmed this as "his" approach as well. He works on projects vastly more complicated and larger than anything I work on as a small local firm.


Steve