D.Williams
2006-11-12, 08:43 PM
Let me first say, sketch sheets and I don't get along. We are amicable towards one another, but we'll never go out together to grab a Harp down at the pub. And maybe this is because we're constantly working against one another. I'm doing everything I can to make a sleek and efficient model. Sketch sheets do everything they can to bog me down by duplicating views, cropping the new view down, print...oops forgot something before the duplication so now I have to go back and draw something twice and so on.
Well I think I've stumbled upon a way to make this problem go away entirely. If you care to use this method as I'm proposing, you need to work in the manner our office works.
1) Use of sketch sheets is temporary within the file- You create them as needed and as soon as you print them to PDF (or otherwise for records), the view is deleted. If you keep the sketches as a permanent view in your file this method will not work.
2) The extents of the sketch sheet's view must be at the same scale as the original view. Not the same scope of the view, but the same scale. This is because you are not duplicating the view for sketch sheet purposes. You are only using the original. That's right, the original. If you need to change the scale of the view to fit on the sketch sheet, this method will not work.
3) Optional. If you're like us, we place the revision clouds on the actual sheets, not within the views themselves. This is done for two reasons: (a) you only have to worry about turning on revision clouds and tags within one view, not the multiple views on that sheet, and (b) consistency - schedules and note lists need to be clouded on the sheet anyways. This is not necessary but as you will see, it has its benefits.
The method is as follows per the attached images and description below:
As I just discovered, you can drag an additional title block template from the family browser onto your current full size sheet view. All the parameters associated with the standard sheet will be maintained in the sketch overlay sheet. It will not create a new sheet within the project browser. For us this does not matter since we just rename the full size sheet number with "SK" in front.
With the out-of-the-box title blocks you'll immediately see that everything on the sheet shows through everywhere on the overlay sketch sheet including through all the titles, border areas, etc.. Not cool. The beauty of the title block family is that you can add filled regions to them. Unfortunately you can not sort the visibility of filled regions within the family like you can within a project (meaning send to back, send backward, etc). So one or two filled regions in most cases will not suffice. The reason this is important to note is the filled region will hide any lines it covers no matter what order you've drawn the elements in the family. You'll simply need to draw multiple filled regions bounded by your multiple title block lines. See image 3 for hopefully some clarity on what I mean.
By using invisible lines as reference planes to lock your filled region edges to - NOT REFERENCE LINES - you can make the filled regions show up in your project file with those handy dandy blue arrows. If you have logos that are image files, you have to make the filled region go around its perimeter as it will be masked otherwise. You'll need to assign instance parameters to the offset distances from the title block boundary. This is the only way to get the arrows. If you use reference lines and try to shift the offset in the project, it will shift the entire title block with it. But invisible lines work as they should. The only direction you can not modify within the project is shifting the outside masking at the top of the sheet. For some reason the text of the labels and logos will shift with any movement of this edge. You can change it within the family no problem, but once it comes into the project you only can use that one offset. In the three other directions everything works as it's supposed to.
For the view name you'll need to either make a shared parameter or manually input it in its position with the text tool. Since there's no way that I know of to assign an instance parameter to a text field within the family, I don't see another way of doing it. If you choose to create a shared parameter, be aware of the following. If you have more than one sketch sheet prepared to print on the same full size sheet, they will all have the same title. Since you can't batch plot these views, this does not seem like a big deal to me to change the name as you print each one.
To print, you'll need to use the "visible portion of current window option." Hopefully in the future the print per pick window will make its way into Revit. Until then the manual moving the window to where the print preview will print it correctly is the only way to print it.
As designed, the filled regions will mask everything on the sheet that is placed before the overlay sheet is placed. This includes lines, view titles, and text that are drawn on the actual sheet. This can be overcome for some types of objects. Text can be copied and paste aligned afterwards. View titles can overcome by temporarily deleting the view off the sheet and then re-placing it afterwards.
I think that's pretty much it. Long description of the inner workings, I know. But in reality once the family is built I think this is more efficient. I'm curious to hear what concerns people would have.
Well I think I've stumbled upon a way to make this problem go away entirely. If you care to use this method as I'm proposing, you need to work in the manner our office works.
1) Use of sketch sheets is temporary within the file- You create them as needed and as soon as you print them to PDF (or otherwise for records), the view is deleted. If you keep the sketches as a permanent view in your file this method will not work.
2) The extents of the sketch sheet's view must be at the same scale as the original view. Not the same scope of the view, but the same scale. This is because you are not duplicating the view for sketch sheet purposes. You are only using the original. That's right, the original. If you need to change the scale of the view to fit on the sketch sheet, this method will not work.
3) Optional. If you're like us, we place the revision clouds on the actual sheets, not within the views themselves. This is done for two reasons: (a) you only have to worry about turning on revision clouds and tags within one view, not the multiple views on that sheet, and (b) consistency - schedules and note lists need to be clouded on the sheet anyways. This is not necessary but as you will see, it has its benefits.
The method is as follows per the attached images and description below:
As I just discovered, you can drag an additional title block template from the family browser onto your current full size sheet view. All the parameters associated with the standard sheet will be maintained in the sketch overlay sheet. It will not create a new sheet within the project browser. For us this does not matter since we just rename the full size sheet number with "SK" in front.
With the out-of-the-box title blocks you'll immediately see that everything on the sheet shows through everywhere on the overlay sketch sheet including through all the titles, border areas, etc.. Not cool. The beauty of the title block family is that you can add filled regions to them. Unfortunately you can not sort the visibility of filled regions within the family like you can within a project (meaning send to back, send backward, etc). So one or two filled regions in most cases will not suffice. The reason this is important to note is the filled region will hide any lines it covers no matter what order you've drawn the elements in the family. You'll simply need to draw multiple filled regions bounded by your multiple title block lines. See image 3 for hopefully some clarity on what I mean.
By using invisible lines as reference planes to lock your filled region edges to - NOT REFERENCE LINES - you can make the filled regions show up in your project file with those handy dandy blue arrows. If you have logos that are image files, you have to make the filled region go around its perimeter as it will be masked otherwise. You'll need to assign instance parameters to the offset distances from the title block boundary. This is the only way to get the arrows. If you use reference lines and try to shift the offset in the project, it will shift the entire title block with it. But invisible lines work as they should. The only direction you can not modify within the project is shifting the outside masking at the top of the sheet. For some reason the text of the labels and logos will shift with any movement of this edge. You can change it within the family no problem, but once it comes into the project you only can use that one offset. In the three other directions everything works as it's supposed to.
For the view name you'll need to either make a shared parameter or manually input it in its position with the text tool. Since there's no way that I know of to assign an instance parameter to a text field within the family, I don't see another way of doing it. If you choose to create a shared parameter, be aware of the following. If you have more than one sketch sheet prepared to print on the same full size sheet, they will all have the same title. Since you can't batch plot these views, this does not seem like a big deal to me to change the name as you print each one.
To print, you'll need to use the "visible portion of current window option." Hopefully in the future the print per pick window will make its way into Revit. Until then the manual moving the window to where the print preview will print it correctly is the only way to print it.
As designed, the filled regions will mask everything on the sheet that is placed before the overlay sheet is placed. This includes lines, view titles, and text that are drawn on the actual sheet. This can be overcome for some types of objects. Text can be copied and paste aligned afterwards. View titles can overcome by temporarily deleting the view off the sheet and then re-placing it afterwards.
I think that's pretty much it. Long description of the inner workings, I know. But in reality once the family is built I think this is more efficient. I'm curious to hear what concerns people would have.