Exporting to AutoCAD - Layer Question

[yzhou]

I have to export Revit file into Autocad and the layer management is so complicated and tedious that I do not even want to think about it! Any one who is experience with it?

[Steve_Stafford]

Other than the fact that there are many objects in Revit and each is assigned to a specific layer and the list is long it isn't really complicated at all.

Take a wall for example. There are two representations for a wall, cut and projection (heavy and lighter). You can just assign the WALLS category to A-Wall-1 for Cut and A-Wall-2 for Projection.

This will result in all plan views of your walls to export walls that are cut to layer A-Wall-1. Similarly all walls that are not cut (low walls or those that are on levels below) will appear on layer A-Wall-2.

You only need to bother to assign the main category to a layer if you don't have any special requirments for the sub-categories of families. If un-assigned Revit will use the primary category as the basis for the layer to use. The layer names using brackets {A-Wall-1} for example are indicating no layer is assigned and Revit will use A-Wall-1 unless you say otherwise.

The only other thing to change is the color for each layer. Revit will create layers and use the color you assign for them.

You only need to deal with objects in the list that you have in your project and expect to to see in an exported file. Make sure your view only has what you want to export visible and that's all you get.

If you have a lot of imported acad files you'll find categories for the layers that are part of these files. Just ignore them unless you are attempting to export these as well. But I'd recommend you just reference these acad files into your export dwg file instead.

Last, it makes good sense to set up an export file for different view types. If you use the same one for plans and elevations your walls will end up on a layer typically used for plans. Instead set up a separate file that assigns walls to A-Elev-1 for example if you focus only on lineweight in elevation files.

HTH