Joe.Tonge
2010-03-23, 05:13 PM
I'm not sure I really need to describe the issues I'm having with creating legends, because I'm sure you all feel my pain quite acutely. But for the sake of due dilligence and the hope that some of these items might be corrected in future releases, I will post my legend wishlist:
1. Text: This applies across the board in Revit, that the text editor capabilities are severly lacking. There are no options for advanced paragraph formatting, like indentation, bulleted/numbered lists, or columns. Text can't be aligned with other text or objects- it has to be nudged until it looks about right, which inevitably will change when objects get shifted around or added.
2. Tables: AutoCAD just started to get this right, which makes me wonder why the folks developing Revit were kept out of the loop. It would be fantastic if tables existed within Revit (apart from the rigid structure of schedules, which rely on parameters). AutoCAD allows symbols and text to be placed in table cells, which keeps your legend looking clean, organized, and easy to manage. Without this feature, you're stuck with discrete instances of text as labels (see above) that are cumbersome and hard to manage.
3. Ductwork Symbology: Ductwork can't be placed in schedules at all, only duct fittings and accessories. Our standard CAD legend shows round and rectangular ductwork, lined ductwork (dashed lines on the interior of the duct), and insulated ductwork (hatched). Incidentally, Revit doesn't differentiate round and rectangular ductwork graphically via centerline display and it doesn't show insulation or liner any differently than standard ductwork, so I guess the inadequacy of the legend reflects the inadequacy of the rest of the program. Also, we typically show ductwork risers by system type on our CAD legend, so contractors can easily distinguish supply risers from exhaust and return risers. This isn't possible for so many reasons in Revit, which makes a dumb 2-D representation the only solution.
4. Symbol Display: There is no access to family properties once an element is placed in a schedule, so sizes and displays can't be changed at all. For instance, a supply diffuser that has flow arrows controlled by visibility parameters within the project can only be displayed with all flow arrows turned on in the schedule. The only way for them not to show is to delete them from the family altogether. If I wanted to create a generic-looking set of supply/return/exhaust grilles that were all equal size, I'd have to create new types just for the legend if I didn't have them in the project (not a huge deal, but an extra step nonetheless). Another REALLY irritating reality I've found is that legend components can't be rotated or mirrored - they are placed in a seemingly arbitrary orientation (spacebar doesn't work) and the rotate and miror functions do nothing to manipulate them.
5. Make It BIM: The points above are all based on a manual process for generating a legend, which intuitively seems very anti-BIM. Schedules in Revit are designed to populate simply by placing elements into a project, which makes me wonder why a legend can't automatically be generated as well. Allow each element to contain a parameter called "legend label" or something to that effect that can be populated and edited, but comes into a legend whenever a certain family is used in a project. This would undoubtedly create a long legend full of items you don't necessarily need to explicitly identify, so provide a means to hide individual elements within the legend. Allow reorganization and visibility customization, but bring the elements in automatically so that whatever is displayed on the drawing gets put into the legend.
1. Text: This applies across the board in Revit, that the text editor capabilities are severly lacking. There are no options for advanced paragraph formatting, like indentation, bulleted/numbered lists, or columns. Text can't be aligned with other text or objects- it has to be nudged until it looks about right, which inevitably will change when objects get shifted around or added.
2. Tables: AutoCAD just started to get this right, which makes me wonder why the folks developing Revit were kept out of the loop. It would be fantastic if tables existed within Revit (apart from the rigid structure of schedules, which rely on parameters). AutoCAD allows symbols and text to be placed in table cells, which keeps your legend looking clean, organized, and easy to manage. Without this feature, you're stuck with discrete instances of text as labels (see above) that are cumbersome and hard to manage.
3. Ductwork Symbology: Ductwork can't be placed in schedules at all, only duct fittings and accessories. Our standard CAD legend shows round and rectangular ductwork, lined ductwork (dashed lines on the interior of the duct), and insulated ductwork (hatched). Incidentally, Revit doesn't differentiate round and rectangular ductwork graphically via centerline display and it doesn't show insulation or liner any differently than standard ductwork, so I guess the inadequacy of the legend reflects the inadequacy of the rest of the program. Also, we typically show ductwork risers by system type on our CAD legend, so contractors can easily distinguish supply risers from exhaust and return risers. This isn't possible for so many reasons in Revit, which makes a dumb 2-D representation the only solution.
4. Symbol Display: There is no access to family properties once an element is placed in a schedule, so sizes and displays can't be changed at all. For instance, a supply diffuser that has flow arrows controlled by visibility parameters within the project can only be displayed with all flow arrows turned on in the schedule. The only way for them not to show is to delete them from the family altogether. If I wanted to create a generic-looking set of supply/return/exhaust grilles that were all equal size, I'd have to create new types just for the legend if I didn't have them in the project (not a huge deal, but an extra step nonetheless). Another REALLY irritating reality I've found is that legend components can't be rotated or mirrored - they are placed in a seemingly arbitrary orientation (spacebar doesn't work) and the rotate and miror functions do nothing to manipulate them.
5. Make It BIM: The points above are all based on a manual process for generating a legend, which intuitively seems very anti-BIM. Schedules in Revit are designed to populate simply by placing elements into a project, which makes me wonder why a legend can't automatically be generated as well. Allow each element to contain a parameter called "legend label" or something to that effect that can be populated and edited, but comes into a legend whenever a certain family is used in a project. This would undoubtedly create a long legend full of items you don't necessarily need to explicitly identify, so provide a means to hide individual elements within the legend. Allow reorganization and visibility customization, but bring the elements in automatically so that whatever is displayed on the drawing gets put into the legend.