Lineweights

[Dave Lewis]

ok I have almost wrapped up my DD package and I just meet with the architect.
The biggest problem that he had over and over again was with lineweights.
The title sheet and the floor plans look great but....
The site plan and the elevations the lines are way too thin. It does not pop!
On the sections the lineweights are way to thick
My floor plans and elevations are at 1/8"
The sections are at 1/4"

The stud and finish are bleeding together on the sections
How can I make the section lineweights thiner.

His title block and title sheet normally have a big fat 1/4" thick line on it.
But with rivit the thickest detail line that I can do is like a .025
How can I get thicker drafting lines.

How can I get the site plan and elevations to have thicker linework.
I need the outline of the sections to be thick.

He also wants the outline of the building to be a hidden line on the site plan.
How can I do that? If I turn on the walls then its a double line?

[dbaldacchino]

I suggest you turn to the help file. Most of these questions are basic and they're explained well in there. It would take too long to type all the answers here. These forums are mainly helpful for questions that are not answered in the standard Revit help. Give it a shot and come back if something doesn't make sense.

[Dave Lewis]

ok I figured out the linework button
But I am wondering is the only way to change lines one line at a time?
How can I change all of my say stud lines to a thiner line.
Clicking one line at a time does not seem like a very BIM process.

[dbaldacchino]

Noooo! :) Don't use the linework tool. First of all, go to Settings and check your line weights there....in Revit you have 16 line weights for Annotations and 16 line weights for model elements and each one can be mapped to a different thickness according to scale. Now, once you set this (you might leave the default settings first), then go to your Object Styles and there you can set line weights for each object. You'll have settings for Projection lines and Cut lines. This is a global setting and will affect all views. You seldom override these lineweights in each view. Once more, read through the help file about any of the items I just described.

[clog boy]

I agree. Look into settings/line weights and settings/object styles. I'm responsible for designing a default template that meets office standards, and we intend to assign colors to line weights (using object styles).

A great reference can be found here (http://www.cadinfo.net/icad/linewt.htm).

[HawkeyNut]

Right out of the box the line weights don't make much sense to me. I have completely reworked them for our office's needs. The only problem is that line weights are hard-coded in the default settings when you open a family object; they do not 'import' the ones from your template or project file. This results in an annoying discrepancy between your new office standards and Revit's default pen weights.
See the attached thumbnail as an example...

[aaronrumple]

Right out of the box the line weights don't make much sense to me. I have completely reworked them for our office's needs. The only problem is that line weights are hard-coded in the default settings when you open a family object; they do not 'import' the ones from your template or project file. This results in an annoying discrepancy between your new office standards and Revit's default pen weights.
See the attached thumbnail as an example...
However you can use "Transfer Project Standards" to load your settings of lineweights and object styles from a project into a family. (Always keep that default Project 1 open in the background in Revit and you'll be able to do this very quickly.)

However, you don't typically need to worry about how things look in a family as long as the object styles and materials are named correctly. The existing project will always override the family settings. The only exception would be if the object style didn't exist - the family would generate the style upon load. But this is easily changed after the fact in the project.

[HawkeyNut]

...you don't typically need to worry about how things look in a family as long as the object styles and materials are named correctly.
Thanks for the pointers, Aaron. It's one of those things I have been meaning to do but just don't get around to. Of course, every time I edit a family object it bugs me. You'd think I'd bite the bullet and just fix the problem, right?

[pcore]

. I have completely reworked them for our office's needs.


Would you mind explaining a little more how you did this and what you have learned? We have been implementing Revit for the past 5 months and need to work on our lineweights. I'd appreciate any input.

Patrick

[HawkeyNut]

Would you mind explaining a little more how you did this and what you have learned?
First of all, I wanted more range in the thinner line weights. Revit's out-of-the-box settings are too heavy in my opinion. Unfortunately Revit cannot go thinner than 0.003", so that's where I started. Years ago in AutoCAD we determined that increments of 0.003" were readily distinguishable on a printed sheet, so line weights started being 0.003", 0.006", 0.009", etc. Since Revit has 16 weights to play with, I added the in-between values in 0.0015" increments, allowing for a little more flexibility. Once up into the higher pens, I go back to the 0.003" increments. I use a scale as my base reference (say 1/4"=1'-0" for example) and adjust other scales accordingly. The pen weights in 1/16"=1'-0" stay with 0.003" much longer until you get higher in the pen numbers, thus keeping things lighter in that scale.

Take a look at the attached screenshot to see what I am talking about. Let me know if you have any questions/comments...

[hirschnc]

I'm a newbie and I'm having the same problems. Is there anyone out there who would care to post a list of suggested lineweights for Model, Perspective and Annotation lineweights that work nicely? I would be most appreciative of not having to experiment a great deal with this.

Thanks greatly,
Bill

[Kevin Janik]

First of all, I wanted more range in the thinner line weights. Revit's out-of-the-box settings are too heavy in my opinion. Unfortunately Revit cannot go thinner than 0.003", so that's where I started. Years ago in AutoCAD we determined that increments of 0.003" were readily distinguishable on a printed sheet, so line weights started being 0.003", 0.006", 0.009", etc. Since Revit has 16 weights to play with, I added the in-between values in 0.0015" increments, allowing for a little more flexibility. Once up into the higher pens, I go back to the 0.003" increments. I use a scale as my base reference (say 1/4"=1'-0" for example) and adjust other scales accordingly. The pen weights in 1/16"=1'-0" stay with 0.003" much longer until you get higher in the pen numbers, thus keeping things lighter in that scale.

Take a look at the attached screenshot to see what I am talking about. Let me know if you have any questions/comments...

Am I the only one, but I believe changing the pen widths in the "Pen Widths" dialog seems a perhaps not a great thing? At first when I started using Revit, I thought this to be great but then realized as you change versions, this might end up making transition of templates etc. a huge upgrade task and tracking nightmare. I have tried to use Revit out of the box as configured from the factory with regards to this and some other setting areas and make changes as needed to view properties as noted above and then create a view template to propograte those changes to views. When you look, there are more pen widths than most anyone usually uses with alot of variation.

What do people think should be customized in Revit settings and what should be left as is from the factory or is everything up to everyone's preference?

Kevin

[hirschnc]

Kevin:

My problems seem to be specifically the outline of some components, dimension string lines and the lines between the head and tail of section marks. Would i be better off resetting these in the family itself? If so, can you point me to the proper place for information on how to do this?

Thanks,

Bill

[HawkeyNut]

What do people think should be customized in Revit settings and what should be left as is from the factory...
That's the beauty of having them as changeable settings; they can be changed or left alone. Each user decides.

My problems seem to be specifically the outline of some components...
Change these in Settings->Object Styles->Model Objects

...dimension string lines...
Change these in Settings->Annotations->Dimensions->Linear

...and the lines between the head and tail of section marks.
Change these in Settings->Object Styles->Annotation Objects

[Kevin Janik]

Kevin:

My problems seem to be specifically the outline of some components, dimension string lines and the lines between the head and tail of section marks. Would i be better off resetting these in the family itself? If so, can you point me to the proper place for information on how to do this?

Thanks,

Bill

Go to Object Properties under the Setting pulldown and Annotation Objects Tab Section Line In the first attachment below I used 12 for the line width. See attachment #1 below. For dimensions go to Annotations > Dimensions > Linear under the Setting pulldown. The second item down in the dialog is Line Weight and I set it to 10 in the second attached file. Doing it here will override all the view settings, except those that have already been overridden.

Does this help?

Kevin

[hirschnc]

Thanks to all. I think I've got it figured out now.

Bill

[pcore]

I agree, the screenshots were very helpful. Thanks.

[dbaldacchino]

However you can use "Transfer Project Standards" to load your settings of lineweights and object styles from a project into a family. (Always keep that default Project 1 open in the background in Revit and you'll be able to do this very quickly.)
.
Aaron, I have been doing this but noticed a peculiar thing. Once I load the family into the project environment, if I want to make a change and click the edit button, once the family is loaded into the family editor, it'll revert back to the family template default line weights. It seems that Revit somehow has those hard coded in and the rfa within the project does not remember what was set in the family itself. If I open an externally saved rfa, line weight changes are saved in it.

[bowlingbrad]

Aaron, I have been doing this but noticed a peculiar thing. Once I load the family into the project environment, if I want to make a change and click the edit button, once the family is loaded into the family editor, it'll revert back to the family template default line weights. It seems that Revit somehow has those hard coded in and the rfa within the project does not remember what was set in the family itself. If I open an externally saved rfa, line weight changes are saved in it.


This is one that the factory should know about...

If you haven't already, please send in a support request. I am going to also.

[wbs69117950]

Is it possible to have Exterior Walls w/ a Heavier Line weight at the cut, than Interior Walls?

[Scott D Davis]

Is it possible to have Exterior Walls w/ a Heavier Line weight at the cut, than Interior Walls?
Sure, by using Filters and some creative naming of your wall types.

Rename your interior wall types to include INT or some designation you prefer, and the same with the exterior types. Then make Filters for Interior and Exterior. Then apply those filters to the views you want to see the interior lines thinner in Visibility, and apply Filter Overrides in the Visibility dialog box to the Cut category.

[pcore]

Is there a way to change the surface patterns on walls, etc, and hatches?

[rdaniel]

Sure, by using Filters and some creative naming of your wall types.

Rename your interior wall types to include INT or some designation you prefer, and the same with the exterior types. Then make Filters for Interior and Exterior. Then apply those filters to the views you want to see the interior lines thinner in Visibility, and apply Filter Overrides in the Visibility dialog box to the Cut category.


I think this would be an easier filter and you wouldn't have to rename anything.

[dbaldacchino]

Scott's post was more than 2 1/2 years old ;) Filter by function only became available in the 2010 version.

[rdaniel]

Very good. Thanks for the clarification, David.