Making an elevation look correct

[pcl]

I am drawing a house in Revit and it has a number of features that are not displayed correctly because I cannot figure out how to grey out objects based on how far back they are from my Elevation lines. Elevation lines being the blue line you see when you click on the actual elevation tag. Does anyone know how to change the color of an object based on it's depth relative to the elevation line. I know how to turn the far clip on and off and how to adjust it, that is one thing I am sure of. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Philip

[jond]

To my knowledge this has not been implemented yet. I really wish there was some way for this to happen....

[ron.sanpedro]

I am drawing a house in Revit and it has a number of features that are not displayed correctly because I cannot figure out how to grey out objects based on how far back they are from my Elevation lines. Elevation lines being the blue line you see when you click on the actual elevation tag. Does anyone know how to change the color of an object based on it's depth relative to the elevation line. I know how to turn the far clip on and off and how to adjust it, that is one thing I am sure of. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Philip

PCL,
I would be tempted to chaulk this one up to a moving definition of "correct". While in hand drawing and even AutoCAD you might very well render your linework this way, in Revit you might have to change your definition of "correct". To my mind, the reason for screening the lines to show depth is in part because casting shadows is such a pain. But with Revit you can put a nice light shadow on a working drawing elevation is no time, and I think that can show depth even better than screened lines.
If your building is rectilinear in elevation, you might be able to cobble together multiple views, but the edges of the forward elevation would have to be perfectly straight lines.

Best,
Gordon

[pcl]

Thank you for both, for your time and replies. It really does help to have them.

Philip

[kshawks]

You might look at changing your linework, using heavier lines closer to you and thinner lines further away. The linework tool works fine in this case. In some projects i have created additional line weights to help emphasize depth.

[dgraue]

Just because elevations are created for us "automatically" let's not loose sight of the fact that these drawings, when plotted and put into a set, should still be graphically appealing. Sure the shadows are very nice and help to define the depth of the facade, but the elevations that are produced in Revit are far from acceptable to me (and many of our clients). The linework tool is a good addition but very tedious and should really only be needed in special instances...and not used for 80% of each elevation. To me, factory really needs to focus on providing more control in the elevation views and allow building elements to read appropriately as planes of the facade step back. Somehow, the basic rules that apply to drafted elevations need to be incorporated into this program. Elevations drawn in CAD still read far better than in Revit and we shouldn't have to compromise the look of these elevations for the sake of convenience. Architecture has a long standing tradition of beautifully drawn elevations and I don't think we should look back 15 years from now and wonder why elevations don't look nearly as good as they used to.

DG

[ron.sanpedro]

Just because elevations are created for us "automatically" let's not loose sight of the fact that these drawings, when plotted and put into a set, should still be graphically appealing. Sure the shadows are very nice and help to define the depth of the facade, but the elevations that are produced in Revit are far from acceptable to me (and many of our clients). The linework tool is a good addition but very tedious and should really only be needed in special instances...and not used for 80% of each elevation. To me, factory really needs to focus on providing more control in the elevation views and allow building elements to read appropriately as planes of the facade step back. Somehow, the basic rules that apply to drafted elevations need to be incorporated into this program. Elevations drawn in CAD still read far better than in Revit and we shouldn't have to compromise the look of these elevations for the sake of convenience. Architecture has a long standing tradition of beautifully drawn elevations and I don't think we should look back 15 years from now and wonder why elevations don't look nearly as good as they used to.

DG
The thing is, some offices, like mine, never have drawn that way, so if Revit just starts doing it that way then a whole new group will be unhappy. But if you start getting into multiple settings, you start down the AutoCAD Sysvar road to hell. It is a delicate balance. That said, I think a little more user control is good, but with enough restraint to avoid the AutoCAD "everything to everyone" problem.

Gordon

[MRV]

I think what he's talking about is the "readablity" of the drawing... Something that the old "board" drafters knew by heart. Now that the "cad" drafters are taking over, readability of drawings is starting to suffer. Readability means many things, but basically boils down to having drawings that you can look at and quickly see the intent of the drawing. One aspect that comes to mind is having dimensions that don't have linework crossing them. Another is linework that varies in thickness depending on how important it is (out of the box Revit is really bad at this). And again, line thickness can convey the depth to a drawing, i.e. elevations, and Revit has no control over this, this is what we are asking for.

Michael Vaughn
BWG Architecture

[ron.sanpedro]

I think what he's talking about is the "readablity" of the drawing... Something that the old "board" drafters knew by heart. Now that the "cad" drafters are taking over, readability of drawings is starting to suffer. Readability means many things, but basically boils down to having drawings that you can look at and quickly see the intent of the drawing. One aspect that comes to mind is having dimensions that don't have linework crossing them. Another is linework that varies in thickness depending on how important it is (out of the box Revit is really bad at this). And again, line thickness can convey the depth to a drawing, i.e. elevations, and Revit has no control over this, this is what we are asking for.

Michael Vaughn
BWG Architecture

I agree to a point. Especially with an elevation, the point of the drawing is to show design intent. There are few dimensions, a few notes about material, and often a lot of material hatches. And I think a single lineweight, good readable material designations, and good readable shadows can actually result in an image that totally fails the old "readability" test, while actually providing more useful information. My office is rather psychotic at times about image quality issues, and I am often leading the charge yelling "That doesn't look good enough!", but I do think the definition of "readability" in a color PDF & 600 dpi laser plotter world is very different from "readablity" in a technical pen on vellum and duplicated with a diazo machine world.
That said, I would like to see things like options to either screen or thin lines in the distance, based not on an arbitrary distance but on an actual "seperate building face" definition, as well as a profile that actually profiles. And render material settings for SD, CD and Presentation, with the ability to just turn on shadows and the render type, and get a view that is appropriate in information, color, lineweights, etc.
Some day ;)

Gordon

[cganiere]

It seems like it would be very easy to add a "fade into the background" parameter for elevations. We already have a scope box. The box could have a setting for percent of line weight from front to back. A setting of 0% would have no difference in line weight from front to back. A setting of 40% would have the lines in front print at 100% and the lines at the back at 40% with a gradation for the lines inbetween.

What do you think? Would it be more processor intensive than shadiows?

Christopher

[pcl]

No it would not be processor intensive at all. usually that type of fuction in a program only takes up a few processor cycles because you can write a simple if this then do this and if not do this thing. Shadows require an analysis of the geometry and then an application of light rays. It can get infinatly complex if you wanted to track each photon so no one does that but it still requires a huge amount of cpu cycles.
The one point I want to address is the idea that if you have a program that is everything to everybody it will get too complicated and no one will be able to use. Then a comparison to AutoCad was made. A program is written to make the users life easier. If it does not acccomplish this it is not useful. In this case Revit needs to be able to deliver the 2D graphics on the drawing that I or any other user requires from it. It is not the user's fault that the programmers cannot get the job done or the company that is developing it refuses to take the nessecary steps to fix their product. An example is that even a terrible B.I.M. program ADT could do an elevation with regards to depth. The response regarding readability of the drawings is right on. I have to appease the owner of the firm who wants changes in linewieghts to be the key tool for showing the depth changes in the drawings. To him shaodws and colors are unacceptable. Lastly just because there are some alternatives to a problem does not mean we should let a product off the hook for not doing what we wanted it to in the first place.

[Scott D Davis]

It seems like it would be very easy to add a "fade into the background" parameter for elevations. We already have a scope box. The box could have a setting for percent of line weight from front to back. A setting of 0% would have no difference in line weight from front to back. A setting of 40% would have the lines in front print at 100% and the lines at the back at 40% with a gradation for the lines inbetween.

What do you think? Would it be more processor intensive than shadiows?

Christopher
I gave the developers basically that same example back in Revit 8....we'll see what happens! Put in your request!

[Chad Smith]

Check out this thread (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=2501). Make sure you send a request to Autodesk, and if you like the ideas in that thread then direct Autodesk to it.

[david.kingham]

This may help you for the time being....Be sure mass is turned on in your elevation and you have to print with Raster instead of Vector

[pcl]

thankx David. That is a really useful technique which seems to be the most comprehensive to me for my problem.

[SkiSouth]

Takes some work, but you can "automate" the pen weights. Most edges are already controlled in elevation with view properties, and sweeps can be controlled easily. Adding line types (object styles) to a wall family such as a window gives more flexibility too. A very old tutorial can be found here (http://http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=12338)- It gives a very simple example. Automated elevation pen weights would be nice, but there are other things I'd rather havethe factory work on like rendering enhancements but - to each his own.

[sbrown]

David, how are you hiding the edges of the mass? Linework or something else?

[david.kingham]

Oops forget to add that, you have to use linework with invisible lines after you place it

[davidcobi]

very clever

[Steve_Stafford]

Time flies...posted a similar example (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?p=154663) a year ago July. Seems like just last month...

[phyllisr]

Put in your request!

Just a suggested addition when putting in your requests... Setting a lineweight by view depth is the "correct" drafting technique (bring back linen and dip pens?) and is the most important request to log. Just consider requesting two options - one as originally suggested (divided scope boxes perhaps?) and one with some sort of object style independent of the scope box.

This was something I faced in ADT and resolved in an incredibly complicated way with multiple Elevation/Section Styles, Subdivisions, Components, Design Rules and Display Configurations. To get the counters (typically an inch beyond the cabinet face) to "pop" in a darker lineweight required the user to position the subdivision lines precisely between the counter edge and the cabinet. Same issue with windows that we wanted to be lighter by the elevation depth but still darker than the surrounding wall. Could not do this under any circumstances unless one part of the window extended past the wall edge. Getting all those subdivisions in exactly the right place is nearly impossible, particularly with with a complicated elevation with lots of planes. I was able to make it work in ADT by individual style/object or subdivision depending on the circumstances.

Having both options would be ideal. And obviously without the nightmare effort it took to figure it all out in ADT and the resulting non-elegant solution.

[david.kingham]

Apparently great minds think alike lol

I choose to use mass rather than wall because you don't have to orient a 3d view to have it be transparent and the visibility is much easier to control


Time flies...posted a similar example (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?p=154663) a year ago July. Seems like just last month...

[rparr]

Once the model I’ve been working with was upgraded to Revit 2009, I’ve found decent success in foreground/background elevation issues with parameters & filters. I haven’t seen any posts that describe step by step instructions, so I thought I’d share? Feel free to comment if you see this method causing problems in my file down the line…

In order to delineate between the façade oblique to the view vs those shown at an angle, I applied an instance parameter to façade elements in the shell file (Curtain Panels, Mullions, Walls, Doors, Windows, etc). This parameter designated whether that specific element were facing North, Northeast, East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West, or Northwest. Then I applied filters to each building elevation (in the shell file) that selected all the elements other than the “main” façade and half-toned them (for example, in the North elevation, I applied a filter to select any objects with Northeast, East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West, and Northwest façade parameter values). [As a side note, I tested using the reverse idea (selecting all elements that did not equal the façade I needed) but ran into issues with the filter selecting too many elements. I also removed any Façade parameter information for corner pieces since they need to be shown full-tone in multiple views.]
Within the main file (the file that hosts our sheets), I linked the Sheet Elevation view to the filtered view in the Shell file, and voila: foreground/background! In RA2008, I wasn’t able to associate elevations & sections with specific elevations & sections in linked files, but it’s possible in RAC2009. It’s also not possible (that I know of) to apply filters within the main file that would select elements within a linked file, so that’s why I created all the filters within the shell file itself.

Obviously there will always be tweaks needed to get perfect linework… but I thought this was a good start to using Revit to automate as much information as possible (rather than overriding the graphics of each element individually in each view) I've attached a PDF example with some notes. We haven't done any detail linework on them yet, so it's a little rough.

One question I have from this process is: Why do parameters applied to walls not also apply to stacked walls? In theory, applying this Façade parameter to walls would also apply stacked walls & allow them to be filtered… but my stacked walls don’t include the façade parameter. I've had to override them individually. Thoughts?