Visibility of materials in floor assembly

[zz.miles]

I need to turn off the lightweight concrete in my floor plan . It's part of the assembly and it's function is listed as finish 1. Any ideas?

[ford347]

I'm assuming that you don't want the surface pattern showing in floor plan? In which case you would turn off the floor surface pattern in visibility graphics. You could also select the element individually now in RAC 2008, right click, override visibility graphics per element and turn the surface patterns off.


Hope this helps
Josh

[zz.miles]

Actually i need the material turned off because my floor level is at the top of sheathing. which means my lightweight concrete is 1 1-/2 above that. So any 2d linework (which is what i have for the interior of the units) is "buried" in concrete.

[ford347]

Maybe post an example, that may help. When you say 2d linework, what exactly do you mean. Any 2d linework would mean detail lines, which show up over anything, since it is only 2d and veiw specific, so your slab wouldn't be covering that up anyway. Now if you mean it's covering up some other model elements, then I understand. You may consider creating seperate floors for this and using either the hide element in view or a filter to not show one or the other depending on what view you are in. I would probably opt for the filter method if you want to be efficeint throughout the course of a large project, because you could set up some view templates for various plan types and control the visibility of these floors using those. If it's not that critical, like I said, you could just select the top floor, meaning your lightweight concrete, and either hide it in any view or override its graphics per view to show transparent. So I think you have more options by creating seperate floors.

Josh

[zz.miles]

What i started doing was to create a level in my unit plan called 2d linework which i place 3' above the floor line. That works really well but i wanted to see if there was an easier option. creating additional floors may be too much maintenance - it's a 422 unit project split over 3 buildings with a combination of 3 and 5 story portions.

[ford347]

I understand about the size, and if you've found a workaround, and you are happy with it, then by all means use it. But if you are placing a lightweight conc. layer on your structural floor, does this get poured before any int. partitions?, or are they built over top? I ask because I've seen that go both ways. If the interior partitions are built after the fact, then the second floor layer can be defined by these interior partitions and the floors mange themselves by way of the walls, but if the walls are placed on top of the concrete, then I see your point. Are you using model lines for all of your linework?? and what are you using your linework for?

Josh

[zz.miles]

I am using model lines. And yes, the lightweight is poured after the walls are built. I'm using model lines for line work and i need to see a representation of the unit interior in the building plan and didnt want to have too much information in revit by linking in my unit plan with interior walls.
which brings up another point: I have my unit plans modeled because it's easier to change that way. I export them to acad, erase exterior walls, then import the interior 2d info into revit. The units (model groups) have full exterior walls but a 2d interior. I did this because i thought 3d int walls would be too slow. I dont have anything else modeled in the unit. eg. dishwasher, toilet etc. they are detail groups. Now in revit 2008 there is a better way to save out groups and link them back in. I'm wondering if i should use that method. will having the 3d interior walls slow me down too much?

[ford347]

Not at all. I think it is a good idea to stay cautious of what you actually do model, but walls and actual building elements do not fall into this category. Model your walls, roofs, bloors, etc. These are things that make Revit ....Revit. I would even do your equipment etc. with model groups or even links. I don't know much about that as I dont' do this type of work for now, but there have been considerable improvments in this area. It sounds like you have put yourself through quite a bit of extra work going about it this way. So in my opinion, by all means model your walls. This way you can define that second slab by those walls and if you incur any changes to those walls, those floors will stay right there with them. Easy to manage and shouldn't effect your file to the point where you couldn't work in it. Of course if you place things in your model then it will become bigger, but placing necessary things within the model is a must and it should perform fine. Maybe someone with some larger project experience should chime in here to make you aware of any other things you need to be concerened wth when working on larger files. I know there are plenty of threads covering this issue and Autodesk has even put out numberous publications with revit concerning the issue, but I've never heard anyone suggest that you don't model walls or larger building elements.

Josh

[zz.miles]

it would be a lot easier if i could link all of my units in. If there is no issue with speed then the only other concern i have is with building sections. I dont like to see interior unit walls in building sections. I wonder if there is a way to define interior walls as different and control the visibility. I guess i could use the phase tool?

[ford347]

That's what filters are designed for. You could create a new project parameter called unit walls and have that be a yes/no parameter. then add that parameter to the walls category. Then make sure that checkbox is checked on all of your interior unit walls and the checkbox is un-checked on all of your exterior shell walls. Then in your section view, you can apply a filter and have that filter be defined by your new project parameter for unit walls, then filter accordingly. This way when the filter is applied, the unit walls will be turned off in your view. The other option, which is more management, but you could hide those elements individually in each view via hide element in view, which is new to RAC 2008. It would work, you would just need to be sure this is done in every view you need it done in.

Josh

[zz.miles]

Filters sound like the way to do it. I have never used them before. I'll give that a try. Thanks Josh!

[ford347]

No problem. Good Luck!


Josh