Life Safety Plans Revisited

[sbrown]

I'm trying to put together a best practices document for Life Safety Plans. I'm running into problems with the best way to show exit signage. The symbol won't show in a floor plan only in a ceiling plan. Should we just overlay Ceiling plans on our life safety plans? Or edit all symbols to add an invisible line to show the symbol on the floor plan. The problem with this is that you have to turn off the entire generic annotation category on non-life safety plans to not show it on those plans. But then you lose refrigerators, and other equipment.

[nancy.mcclure]

Try maniuplating your view ranges. If the exit signs are placed out of the primary range, the symbolic lines will not show up in the plan view. So, lower top of range/cut in standard plan, raise top of range/cut in the LS plan.

[ckc.mike]

Have you try underlay the Reflected Ceiling Plan to the Floor Plan, and turnoff the Ceiling? that might work.

[dhurtubise]

I would modify the families by adding that line and also use a sub-category to control the visibility.

[Munkholm]

I would modify the families by adding that line and also use a sub-category to control the visibility.

or add the invisible line, and place the families on a seperate workset, which is "off by default"....

[dhurtubise]

or add the invisible line, and place the families on a seperate workset, which is "off by default"....

Worksets are not for visibility purposes (even though they could) so definitely a sub-category :-)

[twiceroadsfool]

I wouldnt do that, with the workset off by default. Unless youre not sharing models with a consultant. If your electrical engineer is using your model to derive "Design Intent" be aware that when they link in your model, and workset that is set to Not be Visibile by default will NOT show up for them, anywhere in your model.

we use that feature only for materials referenced in house that never leave the office. (Linking in an old DWG when doing existing models, etc).

Clunky as it may be, we use LOD to handle most of our regulatory plans. Our travel distance calculators are all Line Based Specialty Equipment Families with Shared parameters, but theres no geometry in the family. Just Generic annotations and Linework. They only show at Coarse. All of our Con Docs keep most catagories at Medium, besides the regulatory plan. It also works out because the Regulatory Plan Filters change the Cut Pattern of the walls to denote ratings, so its better everything be at Coarse in this view.

Ive never looked to see if the Invisible Line (reachign down) displaying only at Coarse would invalidate the view range intent everywhere else, but its worth a shot i suppose.

[sbrown]

You can't put symbols on sub categories. The lines can but I need filled regions and they only go to the main category , ie generic annotations.

[dhurtubise]

What about using another category Scott?

[david.kingham]

Hey Scott, what I've done is add the invisible line and set the symbol to only be visible in coarse, our RCP's and code plans are the only views set to coarse, everything else is set to medium so it works out well

[sbrown]

I'm currently using the underlay method but may change to coarse. If only the Annotations TAb allowed for specifying the detail level of individual categories, like model categories do.

[twiceroadsfool]

It doesnt have to... You can tell the Generic Annotations IN the family to only show when the family catagory is at coarse... Unless im misunderstanding?

[sbrown]

I want my plan in Fine, but just certain objects in coarse.

[twiceroadsfool]

So set up a VT or go in VG and set just that catagory to Coarse... Or you want other objects IN the catagory to be at Coarse?

That would stink.

We "really" need "Filters" Graphic Overrides to be JUST LIKE the VG overrides. Imagine if Filters could change LOD? That would do exactly what youre after. Filter for Emergency Objects, have them display a certain way.

[ben.136902]

I'm trying to put together a best practices document for Life Safety Plans. I'm running into problems with the best way to show exit signage. The symbol won't show in a floor plan only in a ceiling plan. Should we just overlay Ceiling plans on our life safety plans? Or edit all symbols to add an invisible line to show the symbol on the floor plan. The problem with this is that you have to turn off the entire generic annotation category on non-life safety plans to not show it on those plans. But then you lose refrigerators, and other equipment.

Scott did you find a solution to this yet? Also why do you wish to use a plan rather than a ceiling? That will be more difficult to place the objects as well, i have been working with life safety plans since revit systems first was in beta and have tried many different approaches but i use a ceiling plan with the invisible like and do not have to turn off generic annotations in any other plans. If i just turn off electrical devices they will disappear in the other plans which typically you do not want to display anyway.

[jfmonod]

Hi,
I have a similar problem where I am trying to display Emergency lights in the LS plan. My problem is that the lights are in a linked MEP file. I have the ceiling grid showing in the LS plan because I turned the underlay on and set it to RCP, but I have no lighting fixtures of any sort showing up. Lighting Fixtures are turned on in Visibility Graphics (also in the Linked File tab), view range is ok because the ceiling itself is showing (I messed around with it endlessly with no change). I know that the MEP model is still there since the plumbing fixtures are showing, but no ceiling hosted objects are showing up. The ceiling itself is in the architecture model.

If anybody can shed some light on this it would be a big help. Thanks.

JF

[sbrown]

Since we don't use Medium for anything I've ended up using the invisible line and the symbol set to show when the view is set to medium. Workings with linked models is such a pain. for some reason our engineers end up with the fixtures on the floor instead of the ceiling...

[SUB]

assume:
Ceiling is at 8'-0" w/ light fixture

Step 1. In the View Properties of a floor plan, set the discipline of a floor plan view to Coordination or to Electrical (if you want everything except Eletrical to be half-toned).

Step 2. Adjust View Range, set Top to 8'-1"

Step 3. Add View filter to isolate emergency light fixtures.