Grid dimensions

[Mike Sealander]

How do you run a string of dimensions on a string of grid lines and have them show up in all floor plans? In other words, isn't there a way to either associate dimensions with grid lines, or have the same dimension appear in several diffferent plan views?

[Scott D Davis]

Copy, paste>same place in new view. or you could group the first set of dims, copy the group to the other views. changing one will change the other groups.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

If you have a number of views you can also paste aligned/select views by name. You can then choose as many views as you want from the list. Cool thing is that it will place the dims regardless of view scale.

[Mike Sealander]

Copy/paste will get me copies of the same dimensions in multiple views, but they are not the very same dimensions, in the way that a section mark in one plan is the very same annotation when it shows up in other plans; move it in one view, and it has moved in other views. I tried grouping, but I don't think you can group a set of dimensions without some building geometry along with it. One can't group the dimensions and the grid lines, because a copy of that group will produce a new set of view-independent grid lines that shows up whenever grid lines are visible.

[kshawks]

copy/paste is the only way I have every been able to accomplish this same request. Over the past several project lately I have just put rerun the string on the other views. Running the string of dimensions doesn't take that long either so its your preference.

[dhurtubise]

Like Scott says, group the dimension before copying, then if you need to modify one string it will modify everywhere.

[dbaldacchino]

I thought you couldn't group dimensions. Besides, what's the point? The dim. is associated with a gridline, so if the gridline moves, all associated dims. will update automatically, whether within the project or linked from another project, such as a structural rvt file.

[Steve_Stafford]

Dimension have always been intended to be view specific not appearing globally. The number of views that might benefit from dimensions being "model" pales in comparison to the number of views you'd end up needing to hide them in. As soon as you go to a partial plan or need to move the string up or down relative to the building to make room for additional information the concept unravels.

The copy/paste method makes short work of placing the dimensions. The objects the dimensions reference drive their values so they will all update accordingly. If grouped you'll find that you end up ungrouping some of them later. In practice, I find documentation is not nearly as constant from view to view as we might like.

[Mike Sealander]

Thank you, everyone, for your input. In the end, I'm satisfied with Steve's insight that "documentation is not nearly as constant from view to view as we might like", which is what I was trying to maintain from when I drew with ACAD and had grid dimensions part of a grid xref.

[dbaldacchino]

Mike, I had to get over that fact myself :) Architectural now dimensions the grid (through the linked structural file) in the architectural plan sheets.

As a clarification for grouping dimensions, I cannot group dimensions on their own. If they're dimensioning lines for instance, then I can group the dims and the lines and they become a detail group. If you draw grids or other model elements and you try to group the dims with them, then Revit will create a model group for the model elements and will create a separate detail group for the dimensions.