Interior elevation arrangement

[cbalestreri]

This may seem a little auto-can't-ish, but is there a way to arrange my interior elevations so they group together under on title? In the past, even when I drew by hand, I would draw the room as if it where unfolded. That group would be asigned a number, and each view would get a letter. That way I could refer to drawing 5, view A on sheet A5.1. Another advantage was I could make sure things that aligned from one view to the next did. I know I could use a reference plane and align this to it, but having it all unfolded in front of you just seemed like an easier way to work. I can't seem to duplicate this method in Revit. Each view has to have its own title on the sheet, and I have to open each view in a seperate window to work on it. Any thoughts?

[arb]

assuming you have 4 interior elevations for a given room, then why can't you create 4 interior elevations, place them onto a sheet next to one another to create the effect you're after, assign a letter value to each (A-D), and just work from the sheet by activating and deactivating views? horizontal reference planes might help if you have vertical alignments across the adjacent elevations.

you can easily modify the view title families to make it read pretty much however you want.

not sure that answers your question, but hopefully it helps some.

good luck.

- Alex

[MikeJarosz]

I think you are using the Robert Adam style of interior elevations!

[Mike Sealander]

You could, quite easily, stretch the view title from one view so that it lies underneath four views. But I think you are looking for even more intelligence in the software than that. You want four views to get grouped in to a set of elevations that can then be manipulated as one entity. I'm sure it could be done. As a practical matter, which manager at ADSK is going to pay someone to write the code to create this feature?
The truth of the matter is, creating views to be placed on sheets is a relic of hand-drawing and CAD drafting. What we really want is for people to build the BIM model, not the extracted orthogonal views.

[Revitaoist]

The short answer is no, change the way you do things. If your boss has a problem with that, then he/she will be phased out of the architecture industry with everyone else clinging to 2D non-parametric software. Sorry, but the year is 2011, you really should be using software that knows what a door is.

The problem arises from the software not being able to recognize the 'A, B, C, & D' for several different views on the same sheet, e.g., "which 'A' view are you talking about?", the computer asks. This becomes apparent when you create a room schedule with parameters for finishes on every wall of a room. The solution to your problem is to do it as "x" room north, "x" room east, etc. You can visually do it the old way by turning off the view titles and manually inserting a dummy view title and non-parametric annotation tags, but try to coordinate that with a schedule and it becomes a 'workaround nightmare'. Do it the way the program wants to do it and you will be running circles around the old cad drafters in no time.

As for your layout style, views will automatically align to each others' centers when you place them on a sheet, and you can - right click, 'activate view' on a sheet to work in your "Robert Adam" style.

[cbalestreri]

I guess I should have attached a picture to look at instead. I don't think that this method of drawing interior elevations is too skirt clad, knee high sock, antique, scotish architect-ish. (clever reference- Mr. Kostoff would be proud of you). I also don't think my boss is a luddite if he asks if there is a way he can have these documents at least appear to be a little like what he considers to be the industry standard (old guys pay my salary).

I simply thought that some other people here may have had similar issues, and may have come up with a clever way to solve it. Workarounds to me seem like a way of ignoring the problem. I know I can modify the family for the view title. I suppose creating a simple title for each view and placing plain text under the group of view as a room name on the sheet is the way to go. I agree building the BIM model is what we are after, but eventually we have to show somebody how to build it. It's not very glamorous, but I have to generate construction documents eventually, and this program is so much better than the electric pencil was. My bosses have been very cool about the learning curve of adopting this program, so I like to have a good reason why I'm chaning office standards. thanks for your thoughts.

[cliff collins]

"placing plain text under the group of view as a room name on the sheet is the way to go."

Until you have 200 sheets of drawings which all change, and you have to chase all the "text" around.
I'll throw this in:

Your boss will change his mind and adapt to BIM when he sees the timesheet hours you spent editing text only because you were trying to make Revit do something it is not designed to do, just so the "drawings look like they used to back in the day"

Revit will continually challenge your firm to adapt to a new paradigm--so forcing it to behave like ___________
(fill in the brand name of old-school 2D drafting program, or hand drawing technique) is in the end a waste of time and money.

Take it from 25 yrs of experience--began hand-drafting back in the late 70s, switched to 2D AutoCad, then Architectural Desktop/ACA, Microstation, then Revit since 2000 til the present. BIM is the new paradigm--it's WAY bigger than the switch from hand-drawing to Cadd was. Keep going--and 5 yrs from now you will look back and laugh at these old discussions.

cheers

[cbalestreri]

I agree Cliff. I started drafting with a t-square on a door in 87, avoided cadd as long as I could, had to eventually learn it, and now there is revit. I pushed for the last 5 years to start using this program, and now they finally have realized it isn't going away. Since I was the largest proponent, I'm the one learning it. Like I said previously, I can't keep coming back and telling them that can't be done without a reason. Both bosses are +68 years old, so I had to do a little magic show to get them on board. Once they saw the scheduling features alone they were sold. I have only been using Revit full time for about 4 months, so, I'm just trying to explore all options. Thanks for the advice though, you're right.

[Revitaoist]

I suppose creating a simple title for each view and placing plain text under the group of view as a room name on the sheet is the way to go.

That will achieve what you are after, but now what does your callout look like on the floor plan? If you want it to look like the old standard, you now need to make a dummy callout with A,B,C, & D's all around, right? Using the parametric Revit standard makes it impossible to misreference a view, or the schedule. Now coordinate all this with a room finish schedule and you'll be chasing around dummy labels AND parameters. At that point it becomes more work than doing it 2D in CAD.

[cbalestreri]

I can achieve the llok on the floor plan they are looking for, that part was simple. I think the solution is change the view title that was the office standard. Something smaller to fit under each view will work better. Works in progress never stop.