Perspective View

[boofredlay]

Does Revit have a true perspective view in 3D mode?
I work quite a bit in SketchUp and always have the Perspective turned on. I seem to see things better that way rather than working in an axonometric or planometric view.

Thanks.

[ashuler]

In a plan view, go to the design bar and select "view".
Then select the camera option.
You may then place a camera in the plan view, and determine its direction, focus, etc...
Once the camera is set, you will then have a perspective view to use.

[patricks]

Unfortunately when in a 3D perspective view, tool availability becomes EXTREMELY limited. Pretty much the only thing you can do from a perspective view is select objects and change their instance or type properties. I don't believe you can use any of the modify tools, you can't place any objects while in perspective, heck you can't even open a recent project from the File menu while in a perspective view. It's pretty frustrating at times.

[Max Lloyd]

unfortunately its not as you would like. As suggested, you can set up a perspective view using the camera command. You can then even use this view to spin around, dolly etc around the view. However, whilst in a 3d perspective view, many commands are in-operational, so you could never use it as you can in SketchUp.

Don't let this get to you though, its just different.

The weird thing though, is that within the view properties of either a regular 3d view, or even a perspective view, there is a check box labeled 'perspective'. It makes you think you can just check or un-check to toggle between perspective or non-perspective. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, so what its there for, I have no idea!

[boofredlay]

Thanks all.

[muttlieb]

Don't let this get to you though, its just different.
Sorry Max, but it's not 'just different', and it does get to me! ;) As you and others have pointed out, the 3D camera perspective views are virtually unusable as working views of the model. Even if the 3D perspective view were to remain just a visualization tool, there ought to at least be a quick way to switch between the normal 3D paraline view and a 3D perspective view, ala SketchUp, without placing a camera view in the model.

[Max Lloyd]

Fair point. I'm not saying its perfect and for what its worth, I do like the way SketchUP deals with this. However, I've never found that its a problem to me, it just requires a different way of dealing with a problem.

The way i get around this is to have a camera view set up permanently within my project, which due to the way its been setup, enables me to spin around the objects, very similar to SketchUP. I normally set up one of these per floor and use the section box to cut them. Obviously there are the issues of not being able to modify much as you are in a perspective view, but then I just switch to a regular 3d view. No big deal.

If we are on the subject of copying SketchUP, how about the pages tool please. that's my favourite and would add a genuine enhancement to Revit.

See the attached file for what I mean about the perspective views. under the 3d views are perspective 0 floor, perspective 1, & 2 and perspective all floors.

[muttlieb]

Max, those perpective views you've set up actually work really well! Thanks for the tip. But I still want a simple toggle button for perspective view ;) I agree that the page tool would ge a great addtion to Revit. And let's add SketchUp's 'sketchy' graphics please.