How to turn off material visibility ?

[guiiom]

Hi there,

Here's my problem : I have created a stone-cladding generic model for a project with 3 different thicknesses, each one on a different material layer.
I now need to change those thicknesses, which would literally take 3 clicks and 3 keyboard entries if I could isolate each material, but I just cannot do that.
The best I could do was make 2 materials transparent so as to select the remaining one more easily, but this is clearly the dumb way to do it ...
If anyone had an idea, I would be immensely grateful !

Cheers

[damon.sidel]

Um... I'd like to help, but I really don't understand what you are after. Your generic model... is it a family (In-Place or .rfa) or something else? I'm going to take a stab in the dark making some wild assumptions about what your talking about.

Assumption 1: it is an In-Place family.
Assumption 2: you have modeled three (3) extrusions and assigned different materials to each.
Assumption 3: you would like each extrusion to be a different thickness.
Assumption 4: you would like to be able to show one extrusion at a time to show different options.

Given those four assumptions, here's what I would do.

1. Edit the family.
2. Create three instance parameters of type "Yes/No" called something like Option A, B, and C.
3. Select one of the extrusions, click the little parameter link button beside the Visibility checkbox in the Properties window and assign Option A parameter.
4. While the extrusion is still selected, temporarily hide it with the sunglasses icon at the bottom of the work window.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the remaining two extrusions.
6. Reset the temporary hide/isolate with the sunglasses icon.
7. Finish editing the family.

Now when you select the In-Place family, you should have three checkboxes in the Properties window called Option A, B, and C (or whatever you called them). You can uncheck any two of them to show just the one extrusion in your family. From there, you could make Design Options that include this family instance and show just one option.

This could easily be done with a .rfa family rather than an In-Place family, too. There is a lot packed into the steps I just outlined and I made a lot of assumptions, so feel free to ask follow-up questions. Could you explain what this "generic model" is supposed to represent? Stone-clad walls, perhaps? A quick screen shot and a little more information and my answer might be COMPLETELY different.

[guiiom]

Wow thanks a lot that just worked like a charm (impressive row of assumptions too)

The only hiccup was that once I re-entered the "edit family" mode, those invisible categories would reappear with a greyish outline, but I just had to turn the "preview visibility" button on.

To answer your questions, it is indeed a wall cladding, in-place generic model, and it was set to 30/45/60mm thick, but had to be changed to 30/35/40 (see attached jpeg).

Therefore it seemed a bit silly to pick them one by one (which I still had to do in the end but at least that will be the last time I have to) in order to change the thicknesses.

So again thanks a lot, I've learned something very useful here, although it still seems so strange that Revit didn't implement an option to filter by material (or to add a parameter directly to a material so that you'd be able to filter it somehow).

Cheers !

[damon.sidel]

Glad it worked!
I'd be curious to see the rest of the building based on the intriguing image you post.

As an aside, I can see doing this in a couple different ways. The In-Place Component approach is fine (I would categorize this as Wall, with a subcategory of "Cladding" or something). I could see doing this as a curtain wall, too, where each stone was a different curtain panel type. Or perhaps as an .rfa family. However, it looks so compositional (rather than repetitive or pattern-based), that perhaps the In-Place approach is best. Don't know. This is the kind of question that I dwell on for ages whenever it comes up...

[guiiom]

Ahh I see exactly what you mean about the prior to design pondering ; I considered doing it as a curtain wall as it might have been quicker, but there are some acute and obtuse angles which tend to look crummy with mullion profiles. I think it would have been a headache to make the custom sills and lintels work also.

About the design, I don't know what my workplace policy is regarding disclosure, but I'd bet putting images on the internet is frowned upon :)
I can send you a couple pictures in private though, that's the least I can do.

And again, thanks a million for the swift and spot-on advice !