Nominal Masonry Dimensions

[bwagner]

My first post. I am new to Revit and have been working on setting up our company standards for Revit for the past couple of months. To date I have found an answer to all my questions already posted on these forums. So thank you for your help, to all those that contribute to theses forums.

Here is my question. We currently show masonry walls at their nominal dimensions at scales ¼ and above and at their actual dimension for scales below ¼. For example if we had two parallel 8” CMU walls with their centerlines 3’-4” apart we would show the walls as 8” wide with a face to face dimension of 2’-8” between them on a ¼ scale floor plan. However on a callout of the same walls at 3/4 scale we would show the walls as 7 5/8” thick and the dimension between them as 2’-8 3/8”. Can our current standard be easily accommodated in Revit?

Thanks in advance for any help/advise.
Brett

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Welcome Brett,

My initial response is to question why you wouldn't show it as it actually is at al levels of detail? You can then dimension as required to whatever wall face is the critical/relevant one and you are assured consistency in your contract docs.
That said, you can add detail components or repeating details to your larger scale views that are whatever dimension you need them to be so the answer to your question is yes, but not automatically.

[patricks]

Why do that? Why show 2 different dimensions for the same thing? It seems like that could get very confusing in the field when they try to lay out the walls.

But for what you're asking, I see 2 options:

1. use a dimension style with rounding set to the nearest whole inch (5/8" will go up to to the next inch). However I forsee fairly serious problems over a long dimension string when the dimensions become several inches off. This could cause big problems where ADA clearances are critical.

2. Draw your detail views with detail components, placing CMU detail components based on the locations of the model walls, and then turn off the model.

We almost always show walls with their true dimensions. Interior stud walls are dimensioned to centerline of stud, while CMU walls are dimensioned to one side of the wall. Most of the time it works out fine and we don't have lots of fractional dimensions (if that's what you're worried about).

[Justin Marchiel]

i can understand bwagners want for the 2 dimensions. I used to do alot of masonry construction and when using imperial block, the mason like to build there walls with a 16" grid. eventually when you come to the end of the wall there will be a 5/8" left over, but they dont want to see an 8' wall as 7' 11-5/8". they just eat up the 5/8 along the lenght.

but when you get to a detail view it become a little more critical for proper placement of other building component (ie window). then the 5/8" is important.

i think this is more of an issue when doing imperial work. when working in metric the masons seems to be ok with the 10mm.

But i would agree that you could create a dim family that rounds up and only use it for the block dimension. i would not incourage creating a 8" wall. components should be build with there actual dimension.

Justin

[SkiSouth]

As patrick has suggested, your question is answered in your dimension styles, but do as they say, only dimension once, and use the wall thickness of 7 5/8" (actual block), but make a dimension style would have to round to the nearest Inch. However use your standard dimension style for most dimensions. and only change the few dimensions you wish to sacrifice to nominal dimensions to the rounded style. (As Patrick has correctly pointed out, rounding too much will cause its own problems).

And just to be sure you understand, when you dimension a plan VIEW, the dimension string does NOT automatically show up in another view, unless, the view has been duplicated with detail. So for example, you dimension your quarter inch floor plan. The detail view (3/4" plan view) would NOT show the dimension strings already placed. You now need to dimension the 3/4" view, and here you would dimension with a dimension style that used accuracy to 1/8".....


And welcome to the AUGI forums. Glad your aboard with Revit !!!

[bwagner]

Thank you all for the advise. I think we will go with a second dimension style for use with masonry walls only that has rounding turned on.

Brett