Work Plane from 3 points

[Chad Smith]

In AutoCAD you can define a working plane by selecting 3 points, very useful for drawing on a plane that is rotated in more than one axis.

Is there a way to do a similar process in Revit?

[hand471037]

1. Click the Workplane button
2. Say that you want to pick the face of the desired workplane
3. Point near the egde of the face that's rotated off-plumb
4. Hit Tab until you see that face highlight, and then click to select that face.

Now you'll have a workplane on the surface of that out of plane object. If you're having a hard time picking it, you can always seem to do it in a 3D view. It's not the same, true, but I've found it to be both fast (less clicks) and more accurate (Revit always puts the Z axis in the right direction).

[Chad Smith]

I don't think what your explaining is what I want.
I need to be able to create a plane that is off plumb to create new objects, not create a plane off an object that is already off plumb.

Have a look at the attached image.

[beegee]

To take Jeffries work around a small step further, just set up a reference plane where you want the workplane and then select it to create the workplane grid.

I realise this is not the same as selecting 3 points in space, but its not that far off.

[hand471037]

oh, yeah. I see. That is different. A '3-point' would be dead-on for that. I mean, you can get there with a ref. plane, but that's an extra step.

[Scott D Davis]

Here's a Ref Plane example:

[Chad Smith]

Sorry guys, I must be missing something.

How do I go about drawing in a reference plane in 3D space when you can't draw a plane in a 3D view? I can draw a plane on either of the 3 sides, but I then need to rotate it about the 3rd axis.

Also, I should add that the 3 points along each edge have to be a set distance.

Scott, I see that you can do it from your picture, but how? :confused:

I think I need another hot chocolate to help me think clearer.

[Scott D Davis]

Here the steps I used:

Created four walls, 30'-0" square with rectangle tool
created new elevation view, and used Rotate to rotate the elevation tag to 45 degrees, so that I was looking at the corner of the box, instead of the side.
Switched to the new elevation view
draw orthagonal ref planes and dimension as necessary to control 'slanted' ref plane distances.
Draw slanted ref plane from intersection to intersection of ortho ref planes and cube.
Right click on Ref plane, go to properties, and name it "sloped" or whatever you'd like
switched to 3D view, clicked Workplane icon in upper left corner of Options Bar
Turn on workplane Grid
In Set Workplane Dialog, pull down the Name pulldown to your named work plane and select.
Voila!
It seems like a lot of steps, but it's really fast. i added the ortho Ref planes this time because you said you need it set distances. I also adjusted the area the workplane grid covered for clarity. See attached screen capure: (Ref plane grids don't show up in Export!)

[jbernier373584]

I'm stuck with the same problem. What I need is to create a 3-point work plane by existing points in space without being affected by the adjacent planes that create those intersections. The goal is to create an overbuild between these two dormers: see attached. (I've tried to make a roof object do this, but it inevitably fails for a number of reasons so I've come to modeling my roofs with In-Place Masses which is slow, but functional). I'm trying to make a work plane that is represented by the red lines noted as "Slope-4". Slope-4 is a different angle than Slope-1... therefore there is no existing object, or regular angle that I can simply select for my work plane. All of the end points exist in 3D space as indicated by the arrows, but I cannot figure out how to accurately select any of these end points without getting the slope of the object. I can pick any two for a reference plane, but it sets that plane to one or the other of the objects sharing the end point.