Instance Parameter Gridlines / Grid heads?

[Andrew Creighton]

Why can I not change the way a grid appears in different views?
Parameters for grids cannot be altered for specific views i.e.: no instance parameters.
A Grid head that appears fine for a 1:100 view appears terrible for a 1:500 or a 1:1000 or conversely for a detail view of 1:5 or 1:10
But you cannot change these parameters for a specific view: parameters are universal.
Correct them for your 1:500 view and it becomes a mess for all your other views.

Help Please:

Is there a quick workaround? In my opinion Autodesk should make Gridlines customizable to have instance parameters to be view specific.

Am I the only one who has seen this express need?

In eager anticipation.

[phyllisr]

Why can I not change the way a grid appears in different views?
Depending on how much effort you want to expend, you could consider a filter applied to grids that will change the weight. You will not be able to change the weight of the bubble independently from the actual gridline (you must change them together) but it may be better than nothing. Attached is a really small example you can deconstruct.

Before going too far in this direction, you might want to check the line weight settings and test a series of prints and plots to verify these are what you expect. If you have all the settings correctly assigned, you may be able to avoid any extra work.

Let me know if you need additional assistance.

[dlpdi5b]

Phyllis, I couldn't quite understand what you are doing with filters in the example you posted? Could you offer a few words of explanation?

[Andrew Creighton]

I'm sorry I may have been misunderstood in my post.

What I mean by the way the gridheads display is in fact its very parameters:

Grid head circle size and/or the texts size. Not necessarily line thickness

Yes, I know you can change these...but you change them anywhere and they will change everywhere...

change one grid in isolation (unique parameter) say on a Section...and they will change that ONE on all other views (plans, sections, elevations, details, no matter what scale) where you see this item.

What I want is an instance parameter to the Grid Head.
I want the grids to appear relevant to the scale of the view. I want to be able to govern this VIEW SPECIFIC....

Say my:
Site Plans (1:500, 1:1000) with gridheads that do not appear as huge overlapping ballons (this occurs when using the default), but sensible to the scale of the drawing.

General Arrangement: Floor Plans, Sections, Elevations (1:50, 1:100) similarly with gridheads that appears logical to the scale, here using the default is okay.

Detail Sections ( 1:5, 1:10) Again at this scale you want them to appear sensible to the scale of the detail.

Example of current scenario:
Have you ever seen a gridhead appear SENSIBLE on any 1:500 or 1:1000 view. NO

So you go and change the size to appear sensible to a say 1:500 or 1:1000 view...and suddenly ALL your other 1:20 1:50 1:100 views (plans, sections, elevations, callouts, details) are all screwed up.

You are not able to manage the paramters of a Grid the way in which you can manage the paramters of any other TAG, such as Room or Area Tags. These are all view specific instance parameters.

Surely, it can't be difficult to make a Gridhead with instance paramters.

Again, I am astounded that I appear to be the only one who has an issue with this.

[Steve_Stafford]

The fundamental issue is that Revit's mandate is that all annotation maintain it's intended printed size. If the grid text is assigned 1/8" height and the circle is 3/8" diameter then no matter what scale is used they will maintain that size. This is why they are "so big" in 1:500 views. The reality is they are not bigger, they are exactly the same...the building has gotten much smaller in comparison. I hear this complaint every now and then in recent years while in the early days there was usually a "hallelujah" when we realized we no longer had to deal with keeping them the correct size when printed.

Text, symbols and dimensions all behave in exactly the same manner...except that they only show up in one view, the one you place them in. Grids, levels and reference planes transcend the view specific nature of other annotation to eliminate the need to draft them repeatedly and therefore coordinate them endlessly.

A solution to show different size grid annotation in large scale views involves using Design Options.


Create a Design Option called Grid Management and two options: Normal Size and Reduced Size.
Create a Reduced Size Grid type that uses a grid bubble family with smaller text and circle.
Rename the normal Grid type: Normal Size.
Add all the Normal Size grids to the project and then add them to both Design Options.
Edit the Reduced Size view's Design Option and change the grid types to the matching Reduced Size grid type.
In the larger scale views set their Design Option (via Visibility/Graphics dialog) to display the Reduced Size Design Option.


Now you have smaller grid bubbles and they "look" better...just keep in mind that they are smaller and now harder to read when printed full size, or half size for that matter.

Caution Dimensioning to these grids in a design option and to the rest of the model can have unpleasant issues. Such as the dimension getting deleted or at least disappearing when the relationship between the Option"ed" grids are no longer relevant. This can happen if you toggle the assigned option to another and back.

[Andrew Creighton]

Thank you very much Steve for your response.
I'm glad to see that there is a workaround - the usual response to date has been: it can't be done.

I'll give this option a shot.

Thanks

[cliff collins]

I agree with the 1st part of Steve's reply---1/8" text stays constant no matter what the scale of the drawing is. Going from the Autocad "1/96 XP" mess to Revit was a glorious moment 10 years ago......

However, using a Design Option to control Grid Bubble/text size, while ingenious
in theory, is a horrible solution in practice, especially when going past Schematic Design
into DD/CD phases. ( No offense Steve)

Revit Design Options should be used carefully for their intended purpose:
Studying different design options early in the iterative Concept or SD phase.

Get the design decisions approved early, then move on and get rid of Design Options in your DD/CD
stages. Speaking from past bad experiences where DO's lingered too long..........

cheers...............

[Steve_Stafford]

...However, using a Design Option to control Grid Bubble/text size, while ingenious in theory, is a horrible solution in practice, especially when going past Schematic Design into DD/CD phases. ( No offense Steve)...Pulling knife from chest...staggers forward...falls to the floor...gasp... :sad:

Miraculously recovery! He stands, and throws it back at Cliff! :shock:

In this instance I don't see it as terrible or dangerous. The number of grids compared with everything else in a model shouldn't harm it. As long as those "special" grids are not really used for anything other than "pretty" in a few large scale fews I'd expect to get away with it in most cases.

I've heard this request often enough in the last couple years to respect the desire and it's better to provide some options than drive away another person shaking their head because Revit "can't" do yet another thing. There is a way to do everything that Revit can't do...but sometimes the way is so "awful" that you are physically repulsed! :smile:

[twiceroadsfool]

I agree with the 1st part of Steve's reply---1/8" text stays constant no matter what the scale of the drawing is. Going from the Autocad "1/96 XP" mess to Revit was a glorious moment 10 years ago......

However, using a Design Option to control Grid Bubble/text size, while ingenious
in theory, is a horrible solution in practice, especially when going past Schematic Design
into DD/CD phases. ( No offense Steve)

Revit Design Options should be used carefully for their intended purpose:
Studying different design options early in the iterative Concept or SD phase.

Get the design decisions approved early, then move on and get rid of Design Options in your DD/CD
stages. Speaking from past bad experiences where DO's lingered too long..........

cheers...............

A few things to expand on that:

1. I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree on the point about being glad we got rid of all the text sizes from the old days of old AutoCAD. Even our ACA and Civil3D users have moved entirely to Annotative Text (even in the linetypes of systems for civil) and theyve never looked back. Its fantastic.

2. Having said that, Grids ARE an interesting problem. I love the annotative nature of them, but we set them up to read at scales that we normally work in... 1/16" and larger. You DO often need to show things with site context AND with grid lines. (How youre showing all of the grids is beyond me, i typically show one corners grid intersections "for location" and thats that, alleviating the need.... but i digress, ive seen the need on projects bfore).

And when there IS a need, the Design Option method is much better than the others. Ive seen Design Options, A linged file with a differetn type of grid, Detail/Model lines and fake grid heads, etc. With the DO method, as long as only one or two (understanding) people do it, it wont get out of control.

Segwaying passed that, ive heard the comments made about Design Options being only for early concepts many times... Sometimes even from people at the helm. I find them extremely useful at all phases of the projects, and sometimes, they linger around a very long time. Ive finished projects with design options in them, for alternates/options that may have had to have been reverted to mid construction.

Design Options are a fickle beast, and i see people tripped up the most with Rooms, and room boundaries. But with a very good understanding of how they work and what to use them for, theres no reason you cant carry them for a very long time in any phase.

Back on topic, *IF* the choice is Design Options for smaller Grid Types(theyre the same grids, as long as none get added or changed) which makes it less problematic), or fake grids, or some other kludgy thing, im going with Design Options. "Revit cant do it" isnt a sufficient answer a lot of the time.

[Andrew Creighton]

Thanks for all the valuable input here.

Steve, thanks alot this seems to be a credible workaround to what is essentially a small problem, but one I would like to see resolved in a more permanent fashion in future Revit builds.

Thanks

[cliff collins]

Steve,

I appreciate the thought process here--which is a very creative one.
However, I still would not recommend the DO method for large,complex projects involving 25 plus Arch. and Interiors staff, Structural Engineers and Mechanical Engineering Consultants who need to Copy/Monitor our grids--think of the potential negative affect which could become a huge problem--all because someone wants to change the way Revit's grids/bubbles/annotations were designed.

How well do Design Options work in Linked models? Why introduce more complexity to an
already complex situation? How well do all the team members, (in-house and outside consultants) involved understand Design Options and how they work across multiple linked files? I would not want to rely on this method in a fast-paced multi-disciplined workflow which we see on all of our projects.

Perhaps another method would be to place the "reduced size" grid annotation family in a separate workset-- (not Shared levels and Grids) called Small Size Grids, or something--and only use it in those few views where the smaller size grids are required?

Again, the Design Option method is a good workaround conceptually, however, based on the issues mentioned above I would still avoid it.

Good discussion.

cheers.......

[twiceroadsfool]

I shudder to think about introducing more "AutoCAD" stuff in to Revit, but i cant help but wonder about "Annotative Scale" and this issue...

Since everyone here KNOWS im not a "mad cadder" but i am a "model nazi" thats all im going to say, lol...

[twiceroadsfool]

Cliff and Steve-

Theyre both good suggestions, but theyre both going to come with downsides. Theres no way around that, when youre trying to work around Revit. FWIW, i dont disagree with the way Revit is set up. I think having a VIEW instance parameter for sizes would be a nightmare.

(Important to capitalize the word View, because even an instance parameter wouldnt help you here... It would change the INSTANCE of the grid, not the view. So it would have to be a type of parameter we dont currently have... Ergo an Annotation Scale parameter).

DO's: Sure, complexity amongst project teams, etc. But it shouldnt be an issue. Real sized grids are set to Primary, which is what shows up in Linked Models unless specificed otherwise. No one would be the wiser besides the individual who needs the smaller grids for the site plan. It shouldnt be a wide spread problem.

Workset visibility off by default: Youre going to run in to more issues than with the DO's, frankly. You cant name them the same things, which means another host of kludgy workarounds. Worksets not visible by default can NEVER be seen in a linked model currently, but again, i consider that not an issue because they shouldnt need to see the smaller grids. But now youre opened to people working in the wrong workset, not keeping things coordinated amongst the two different "sets of grids," etc.

The nice thing about the DO's is since you have to deliberately "activate them," it sort of reminds you to update both of them.

Sans an Annotative scale (For annotative elements only... Symbols, view tags, tags, etc) i cant think of any good solution. Thankfully, ive never actually had a need either. If a standard grid head doesnt fit, its usually because you cant read the grids anyway. At which point i only show one or two for bldg placement, which is a formality since its done by civil..

But the workset solution... Nice in theory, but unless youve got a way around the naming duplicates thing, its a dealbreaker.

So the options are:

Linked file- different grid types.
Design Options
Workset with names fudged...

[Alex Page]

Im with Aaron: weve never needed to show all the grid lines at a big scale - only the "extent of the building" gridlines for setouts/ information etc

[Steve_Stafford]

The reason I suggested Design Options is that the grids can be the same number. Worksets, as Aaron mentioned won't allow it because the workset doesn't distinguish between this and that...they are all part of the same pile. It is possible to do what the original poster asked for...its up to them to decide if it is acceptable. As it is for you and everyone else. It's a work around...thus not ideal and there will undoubtedly be problems that arise from doing it too as usually happens with workarounds.

The safest route is to just accept the intended printed size or turn off the grids as a whole and just provide some reference planes to set out key references.

Bottom line...you don't have to use it... :beer: