Detailing ratios

[ron.sanpedro]

I am wondering what others are seeing as far as the ratio of "live" details to Drafting Views, and when doing "live" details, do you commonly leave the model visible, or is it only detail lines and components that actual see print?

We seem to be averaging only 1/3 live details, and as often as not the model isn't even visible, it really just functions as a trace underlay. Not a very "Revit" way of working in my book! ;) And it leads to all sorts of problems with needing "dumb" tags, which also seems fraught with potential problems and a not very BIM oriented approach.

Also, what are your office standards on placing and embellishing details? My thought is to just locate the details, and do a minimum (some Linework adjustments, Detail Components for large things like Simpson hardware or something) to tart them up in DD. But fussing with filled regions to get materials to look right should wait. In this way, you have an 80% done, and 100% correct, detail. However, the habit seems to be to embellish them so they look good very early, then be dismayed with changes.

Lastly, where you are using live details for SIM conditions, how are you dealing with grids? I prefer to show the grid as "#" when I have similar conditions, whereas Revit wants to give me the actual grid where I called out the detail. This makes using the detail in a SIM condition hard, because the grid info is exactly wrong. And a filled region doesn't seem to mask the grid, so I am forced to place a "dumb" grid.

Also, I have a wishlist item that I am curious about other's feeling on. In general I don't want to see thin material hatches in my plans. I want to see brick and stone and such hatched, but not plywood and gyp. So in those materials I have removed the section hatch. However, in details I need that, so I now need to add filled regions.
What I would really like to see is different hatches for medium and fine view, so my brick can have one hatch in the plans, and another in details, and gyp can have no hatch in plans but a hatch in details. I am curious to hear how others are dealing with this?

Thanks,
Gordon

[Justin Marchiel]

I think that the amout of live vs drafted details would depend on how much custom details you have or how many typical details you have. what i mean is that if your firm only details a window frame a certain way, then you might as well have a typical detail that you can import into each project. but if you have custom details that very from project to project, then a live detail makes sense.

I like to use the model for my details as much as possible, other wise i might as well be using acad to do the details. i find it eas to nest detail componants into my families so for my details at a fine live most of the work is already done.

Justin

[ron.sanpedro]

I think that the amout of live vs drafted details would depend on how much custom details you have or how many typical details you have. what i mean is that if your firm only details a window frame a certain way, then you might as well have a typical detail that you can import into each project. but if you have custom details that very from project to project, then a live detail makes sense.

I like to use the model for my details as much as possible, other wise i might as well be using acad to do the details. i find it eas to nest detail componants into my families so for my details at a fine live most of the work is already done.

Justin

My sense is that the old AutoCAD "typical details" are not becoming drafting views and thus complete details, so much as detail components that I can drop on a live detail. For example, with the window frame, I still want the wall to be live, so I can put a wall tag on in where appropriate. My sense is this might be true with some traditionally very generic details. For example, a roof drain. Historically we would have a drain detail with some generic roof structure, and we would just drop it on a sheet and call it good. Now I imagine actually calling out a live detail, and dropping a Detail Component (derived from the old acad generic detail) on the live roof.
I am not sure how to deal with notes. In the generic detail you would get the dimensions and notes included, then (hopefully) delete the ones that don't apply and revise the ones that need revision. In Revit the dim and text is separate, so I am not sure how to proceed. Are there notes in a separate Office Standards Revit file, and you cut and paste into your live detail? Or do we do all dims and text new each time, even if it is 90% the same on every project? Drafted views seem to lend themselves to a library approach, but as soon as you start using live details, the detail has three distinct parts, the model, the graphic embellishment, and the annotation. And only the annotation lends itself to the old library concept, but I am not sure what process makes the most sense.

Best,
Gordon

[dbaldacchino]

I think that for typical details such as head/jamb/sill or typical roof details, the 2D drafting view approach is more than suitable at this time. There's no need to keynote a wall. Keep the detail clean and note only what pertains to that detail. Otherwise you'll lose focus. Wall assembly information is typically located elsewhere....let that detail handle wall notes (we show wall type details in a legend and note it heavily there). I use live details for special conditions only, and prefer to leave modelling geometry turned on. I'd rather see a "completely wrong" detail (like when model elements move in relation to detail items) that I know needs attention than discover that a neat and perfect detail is completely wrong during construction.

[rjcrowther]

I tend to have a limited number of live details as well. I like the drafting view approach of using standard details wherever possible.

Overworking details too early on in the process - guilty (they do look good though).

Wishlist item. It makes sense to me but from my perspective and at my current level of use it is not as high a priority as some other things mentioned in these forums - I look at this as a bit annoying where as some other things are elevated to downright frustrating.

By the way, excellent posts Gordon (this and others) - topical, clear, well though out, well explained.

Rob

[noah]

regarding the wishlist item - what's wrong with using coarse scale fills for walls in coarse scale (plans) and then let your brick, etc. have fills that show up in medium and fine? Am I missing something?

[ford347]

I try to use the model any time I can. Detailing is so quick in Revit, it's not to big of a deal to me. I was trying to save out standard details for a while, and some of them work fine, but I found it easy to just cut a details, do it up quick and you have a great representation of what's really there. Men in the field really appreciate that as well. When you point them to an area, they like to see what's there, not something kind of like what you want them to do....although that's necessary sometimes as well and I do it myself.

I believe in standard details for general sheets or legend views for wall assemblies, window heads, sills etc., typ. framing details for non-bearing partitions, things of that nature. They work well there because they are very similar, repetative items.

As far as the detail level concerning wall hatches, I think that's a great idea. There are sometimes where the drawing just gets to cluttered on the finish cuts due to the scale or whatever, controlling this would be nice. As a suggestion though, instead of using a filled region to cover up your hatch in the areas you don't want it, make a detail line component similar to the gyp. bd. or plywood detail component that contains a wipe out filled region instead of drawing it out in your details. I say that because it sounded like that is how you were doing it from your description. I personally don't mind using these line based components, they're easy to use in my opinion. BUt if it could be controlled via detail level, that would be a time saver! Good suggestion.

Josh

[ron.sanpedro]

regarding the wishlist item - what's wrong with using coarse scale fills for walls in coarse scale (plans) and then let your brick, etc. have fills that show up in medium and fine? Am I missing something?

Yes, it is the fact that I want a specific fill for the brick component of a wall in medium detail, and no fill for the gyp component. In course view you get nothing but the finish lines and a single fill. This is fine for SD presentations, but for CDs our projects need to show some detail in the walls. An example is a project that has a combination of CMU with a brick facing, and steel framing with a brick facing, and in some places the brick aligns between the different types of construction, and in some places it does not. You need to show the wall as a system, not just a mass, but a hatch in a 5/8" material at 1/8"=1' ends up looking like a printing problem. And yet, you might need two hatches in your brick to show the extent of two different kinds of brick. The current system of Medium and Fine being the same, and no granularity between actual materials is problematic.

Best,
Gordon

[ford347]

Sounds like you put a lot of thought into all the diff. scenerios Gordon, great points and I'd sure love to see that functionality added eventually. I'd like to see the same thing in plan view as well, show finishes, not show finishes etc., instead of using some workaround technique, which is pretty much related to what you are talking about. You are not yielding the results you would like to see in a particular view, so you are forced to use a workaround of some kind to get it to show right.

Josh

[ron.sanpedro]

Sounds like you put a lot of thought into all the diff. scenerios Gordon, great points and I'd sure love to see that functionality added eventually. I'd like to see the same thing in plan view as well, show finishes, not show finishes etc., instead of using some workaround technique, which is pretty much related to what you are talking about. You are not yielding the results you would like to see in a particular view, so you are forced to use a workaround of some kind to get it to show right.

Josh

For elevations I really want to see three different "displays" of every material. So I can define a "Paint1" that shows up as a particular color in a rendering, but also shows up as a solid RGB color in an interior elevation set to "Presentation" and as a hatch pattern in an interior elevation set to "Documents", or something like that.

Gordon

[adeihimi]

Feel free to download 2D detail components and 3D Simpson Revit families from their own website:

http://www.strongtie.com/drawings/revit.asp