Beam visibility in floor plans

[exxxgonzxxxs]

I am working on a floor plan where I would like to have the beams in the ceiling above shown as dashed lines. These beams will obviously be shown in the RCP but I need to show their location in plan. I haven't found a way to do this other than using detail lines to draw them in manually, but that will take a long time and won't change when the beam location changes. Is their a better way to do this, like creating a completely separate view with these dashed beams that I can underlay in each plan?

[patricks]

If they are structural beams, you can set the beams' analytical visibility to any particular level. Then you can override the elements to show with dashed lines, and make them transparent if you want other things below the beams to still show.

[exxxgonzxxxs]

How do I set its analytical visibility?

[patricks]

Well I know that wide-flange steel beams have an instance property under Analytical Model called Vertical Projection. You can set that to Auto-detect, Top of beam, or any particular level datum in the project. Any framing family that came with 2008 or newer should have that, including dimension lumber framing families. I'm not sure about older upgraded families, though.

[dhurtubise]

Like Patrick said, set the Vertical Projection to the appropriate level. You will also need to lower the View Range by say 1/16th. Then if your Level of Detail is set to Medium or above you will see them.
The easiest way would be to edit the family and add symbolic lines