Perspective on sheet border

[mgallin]

I would like to have a hidden line perspectice view show up on every title block in my drawing set. Saving the view as a image and placing it into the title block family works. However, the image only prints adequately when I print in color which I would prefer not having to do.

Does anyone know of a clever way to have a view show up on every sheet in the same location at the same scale? Alternatively, is there a way to export a hidden line and place it into a title block family so that it will print well with black and white settings?

[hand471037]

If you open the 3D hidden line view, and if it's a perspective, then you can export it as a DWG/DXF. it will become a 'flat' 2D line drawing of your perspective. Import and/or link this into a annotation family, and then put it on your titleblock. Wala! then you can, when the model changes, simply update that single family, and have your little perspective view update everywhere.

We use this a lot on leasing plans to have a 'tiny' floorplan in the bottom corner when showing an enlarged suite plan. Then we can highlight the suite on the tiny plan using a filled reigon, so the client can see where the suite is within the floorplan, but then have the larger to scale suite plan on the same 8 1/2 x 11 sheet. looks pretty slick.

If it's not a perspective, but an 'axon', then it will try to export as a 3D model. So either make it a very 'shallow' perspective by locating the camera far away, or you can export to PDF, open that in Illistrator, Save it as a DXF, and then you're right back to the above solution. :)

Hope this helps!

[mgallin]

Thank you for the input. When I export the perspective view as a dwg and try to link it back to Revit it crashes the program. When I open the exported perspective in Autocad it comes in as a 3d model. How do you export the perspective as 2D directly into a .dwg file?

I also tried your other idea about exporting the view to a .pdf and then using illustrator to save the .pdf to a .dxf. This worked but some of the vectors are at slightly off angles when brought into illustrator. Is there a trick to keeping the integrity of the linework?

[Allen Lacy]

To do the first option that Jeffrey gave you, you first need to place the 3D view on a sheet. Then you can export a "flat" 2D line drawing as a DWG/DXF. If you try it from the view, it will export a 3D model.

[hand471037]

Woops sorry there. Forgot it had to be on a sheet, otherwise it goes 3D. :)

And as for the issues with the lines going strange, I don't know why that's happening. We've had pretty good luck in exporting PDF's from Revit and bringing them into Illistrator. Which version of Illistrator are you using?

[mgallin]

Allen: Thank you - it worked like a charm when I exported the view from a sheet.

In future versions, it would be nice if when a view is placed on a sheet you could check a box that tells it to show up on every sheet or specify a range of sheets. That way as the model changes the keyplans or titleblock graphics whould update automatically.

[mgallin]

We are using Illustrator 9.0. Maybe it has to do with the size of the sheet that the PDF is set up as? When I have some time I will try sending the perspective to a larger sheet and then importing it into Illustrator. It should not matter but....