Pure Revit Details?

[ososteph]

Hi All,
We are a medium sized affordable housing firm that is now at 50% CD for our first Revit project. We are at the point right now where we are having to decide what to do with our details. The way we have handled details in CAD before was a little haphazard. Instead of having one comprehensive library, we just took applicable details from our older projects and modified as necessary. In other words, our details are disorganized and it would take a lot of cleanup to get them in order.
It seems we have a few options:
OPTION 1: Link in the details from CAD and make any changes in CAD. This seems like a short term solution - what will we do when CAD no longer exists anymore?
OPTION 2: Live Revit details. This is a good option for anything that is completely custom to the project, but it won't work for standard details that need to be shared throughout the office.
OPTION 3: Clean up our CAD details and import them into Revit, then full explode them. This seems like a lot of work to clean up, re-annotate, re-hatch, etc. everything.

How have other people approached 2D details in Revit that need to be shared? Are there more options then those listed above?
Thanks for your help!
Steph

[Scott Womack]

Hi All,
We are a medium sized affordable housing firm that is now at 50% CD for our first Revit project. We are at the point right now where we are having to decide what to do with our details. The way we have handled details in CAD before was a little haphazard. Instead of having one comprehensive library, we just took applicable details from our older projects and modified as necessary. In other words, our details are disorganized and it would take a lot of cleanup to get them in order.
It seems we have a few options:
OPTION 1: Link in the details from CAD and make any changes in CAD. This seems like a short term solution - what will we do when CAD no longer exists anymore?
OPTION 2: Live Revit details. This is a good option for anything that is completely custom to the project, but it won't work for standard details that need to be shared throughout the office.
OPTION 3: Clean up our CAD details and import them into Revit, then full explode them. This seems like a lot of work to clean up, re-annotate, re-hatch, etc. everything.

How have other people approached 2D details in Revit that need to be shared? Are there more options then those listed above?
Thanks for your help!
Steph

Pure Revit details will make the files more efficient. Please do NOT import the CAD details into Revit and explode them. This has several negative effects. You have much more to clean up, line styles, object styles, etc. Also, I have been told that you'll never get all of the AutoCAD definition back out of the Revit family, thus keeping it larger than it would need to be.

Option 4 - The better path is to link the detail into a drafting view, then by using the arrow instead of normally drawing, you can select the underlying line in the cad link, and create a revit drafting line that is exactly the same length as the cad detail, in the lineweight of your choice. Then, when completed, you can remove the link entirely.

This does not really take any longer than the explode method if you clean it up as you really should.

You can then Save drafting views to a library, and insert the views into another project.

[BigBadBIM]

Hi All,
OPTION 2: Live Revit details. This is a good option for anything that is completely custom to the project, but it won't work for standard details that need to be shared throughout the office.


In addition to coverting CAD details, If you are on subscription you can download the extensions for Revit and use the freeze drawing tool to save a live detail as a drafting view. That way you can start to build a Revit Library of details that seem custom now, but might become useful later. Or you can use a workflow similar to what you use now and go into a past project>freeze a detail that is suitable> save the drafting view out>import it into the new project.

[ososteph]

Thanks Scott,
For this method, how do you approach keynoting? Do you just use text with leaders? We'd like to utilize the Revit keynoting feature and create a standard keynote.txt file, but that doesn't seem like it works with 2D linework. I know when I have created a 3D element with no material, it gives me a "?" and I can then select from my keynote.txt file.
So it seems like we'd have to replace all the 2D linework with detail components then in order to use the keynoting feature. So if our ultimate goal is to use the keynoting, is it better to convert the CAD lines to symbolic lines first, and then add in detail components OR just add detail components right on top of the CAD links then erase the cad link?
thanks again
Steph

[ososteph]

In addition to coverting CAD details, If you are on subscription you can download the extensions for Revit and use the freeze drawing tool to save a live detail as a drafting view. That way you can start to build a Revit Library of details that seem custom now, but might become useful later. Or you can use a workflow similar to what you use now and go into a past project>freeze a detail that is suitable> save the drafting view out>import it into the new project.

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, but when I did a search on the autodesk website I didn't find anything under "freeze drawing". Could you point me in the right direction?
Thanks!

[patricks]

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, but when I did a search on the autodesk website I didn't find anything under "freeze drawing". Could you point me in the right direction?
Thanks!

I believe you can only get to it by logging into subscription center, under the Help menu in Revit.

I'm also for having all Revit details. We too have been just inserting Revit details from previous projects instead of maintaining a library. It kinda gets messy when you have things like families or filled regions with different names, and you end up with duplicates of things. We just haven't had the time to really put together a standard Revit detail library to use in all projects.

[greg.mcdowell]

If you're going to use Revit's Keynote tool you should avoid using Drafting Lines as much as possible since they aren't taggable.

Detail Components are the way to go.

For things like flashing and membranes you can make a line-based family instead of resorting to Drafting Lines.

It'll take a little time to produce all the Components you'll need but Revit has a large supply to start with and you only need to create them as you need them.

[BigBadBIM]

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, but when I did a search on the autodesk website I didn't find anything under "freeze drawing". Could you point me in the right direction?
Thanks!

This is a feature available to those on subscription (which I always make the assumption that people are, I guess I'm wrong alot of the time though.) Anyway, you can either access it from the Revit help menu or the Autodesk homepage in the lower right corner: Subscription Memeber Login

[Kamil]

Bringing this old thread to life, I have a few questions with regards to pure Revit details. I am currently developing a standard details library for our office. There are several hundred details with various scales. This makes model fill patterns look too dense or too large, depending on the scale of the drafting view. My question is would it be logical to create the same hatch patterns in multiple scales (i.e. Brick Cut 1:1, 1:3…) in order to make them appear graphically correct? Also, I am planning on creating a custom .pat file for our users so that they are forced to use the same patterns consistently across all disciplines. This will be impossible to enforce if the users have multiple scale patterns to choose from in our templates. Can anyone share their experience/solution with regards to hatch patterns and scaling issues? Thanks in advance…
Kamil

[Richard - CSG]

Model hatches will retain their orientation and scale while a drafting hatch remains orientated one way and retains the scale.

[Kamil]

Model hatches will retain their orientation and scale while a drafting hatch remains orientated one way and retains the scale.
Richard,
I realize what the difference between model and drafting pattern is, however, model patterns don't always look graphically correct in some scales. What do you do when this happens?

[nsinha73]

If you're going to use Revit's Keynote tool you should avoid using Drafting Lines as much as possible since they aren't taggable.
Detail Components are the way to go.

I Totally agree. When Our office implemented Revit. I made sure everything was converted to Revit. No Autocad was allowed near the projects.
Our Projects are pure Revit. Our Details are composed entirely of Detail Components. Gosh! Makes our work soooo dang easy.
We make our components as we go. So All we do is just "Tag All not Tagged" Every note identified in components pop up....then we just drag them to the side and make neat.
Walla!! Life is so easy with Revit....no more inconsistencies with notes and keynotes!

[nsinha73]

Bringing this old thread to life, I have a few questions with regards to pure Revit details. I am currently developing a standard details library for our office. There are several hundred details with various scales. This makes model fill patterns look too dense or too large, depending on the scale of the drafting view. My question is would it be logical to create the same hatch patterns in multiple scales (i.e. Brick Cut 1:1, 1:3…) in order to make them appear graphically correct? Also, I am planning on creating a custom .pat file for our users so that they are forced to use the same patterns consistently across all disciplines. This will be impossible to enforce if the users have multiple scale patterns to choose from in our templates. Can anyone share their experience/solution with regards to hatch patterns and scaling issues? Thanks in advance…
Kamil

Kamil,
Our Office has Separate file for Each Division.
02-Site.Rvt - One single File....Contains All Site Details as Drafting Views
03-Concrete - All Concrete and Asphalt Details.....
....and so on.

Every Standard Detail in our Library is a "Drafting View"
Then If we need it in a Project...All we do is "INSERT VIEWS FROM FILE"

Just make sure they are Clean of Autocad Lines and unecessory Fill Patterns and so on. And be ye Specific. Have a naming convention for everything....even you filled Regions.
Ours is by Division Numbers but just first 2 digits.

Hope this helps for a start.

[patricks]

The only problem trying to use families for flashing, metal, membranes, etc. is when you need to show something curved. Then things start to get pretty cumbersome.

I guess you could just have one straight segment as a family to be tagged, and the rest as drafting lines. Better make sure all users know about it, though.

[Richard - CSG]

Richard,
I realize what the difference between model and drafting pattern is, however, model patterns don't always look graphically correct in some scales. What do you do when this happens?


Graphically incorrect in what way? We have not run into any real hatch problems except at wall joins in plan view - never in a detail view.