Revit does not size text properly?!

[brede.207016]

None of the text plots at the right scale, it is just slightly off. We have had to use 7/64" in Revit to get a 3/32" printed text. This is easy to overlook as it is very close. I have checked the generic template in addition to our office template, just to make sure. They are both doing the same thing. Test it for yourself, print a 3/32" test and a 7/64" and see how they scale out on paper. Is there an overall scaling tool or is this a glitch? We are using Revit 2009 with an architext font.

[sbrown]

architext is not a standard font. try it with arial and see if the problem exists. If so then its revit, if not, then its your font.

[brede.207016]

Thanks! Mystery solved... sort of. It was our architext. Now I guess we have to find a different font :(

Strangely enough, autocad is smarter than revit and it knew the actual sizes of the fonts when I exported a test... hmmm....

[aaronrumple]

Thanks! Mystery solved... sort of. It was our architext. Now I guess we have to find a different font :(


1/64" (or 1/128" at half size) is that big of a deal!?! One pixel on your screen?

I'm sitting here with a set of existing plans from another architect and none of the dimensions add up or can be tied back to structure (big reputable national firm) and we're all worried about 1/64" on a font!?! We should all be fired and the profession restarted from scratch....

Sorry for the rant, but I'm always amazed how our profession gets wrapped up in stuff that has so little to do with getting buildings built - and built well.

[3dway]

1/64" (or 1/128" at half size) is that big of a deal!?! One pixel on your screen?

I'm sitting here with a set of existing plans from another architect and none of the dimensions add up or can be tied back to structure (big reputable national firm) and we're all worried about 1/64" on a font!?! We should all be fired and the profession restarted from scratch....

Sorry for the rant, but I'm always amazed how our profession gets wrapped up in stuff that has so little to do with getting buildings built - and built well.

These things have more to do with marketing to clients than getting buildings built. Quality control and consistancy represented in your work speak volumes to someone who is potentially going to write you a cheque.

If I care that there's a 1/64" inch error in the represnetation of the font on my drawings, since we both agree that it's completely insignificant to the delivery of information to the builder, imagine that this says I care even more about whether the concrete column capital interferes with the supply air duct, or if the waterproof membrane is chemically compatible with the substrate material, or whatever.

They are important. You just have to consider to whom. A lot of architects do this because it's their passion and they care about the built result.... ALL architects do this to get paid.

[twiceroadsfool]

1/64" (or 1/128" at half size) is that big of a deal!?! One pixel on your screen?

I'm sitting here with a set of existing plans from another architect and none of the dimensions add up or can be tied back to structure (big reputable national firm) and we're all worried about 1/64" on a font!?! We should all be fired and the profession restarted from scratch....

Sorry for the rant, but I'm always amazed how our profession gets wrapped up in stuff that has so little to do with getting buildings built - and built well.


If it makes you feel any better, my old office used a font that was 13/128" in size. LOL... Why not use 3/32" is beyond me. It was a lot of fun editing all the standard annotations to be 13/128"...

FWIW i completely agree with you...

[aaronrumple]

These things have more to do with marketing to clients than getting buildings built. Quality control and consistancy represented in your work speak volumes to someone who is potentially going to write you a cheque.

I disagree. Clients care about accuracy of drawings. This is reflected in change orders, ASI's, RFI, and the bottom line of the project. That's how they read drawings. Clients really don't care how their CD's look - other than they are clear, concise and accurate.

In fact I know that ALL of our clients would have a fit if we fussed over text size of 1/64". They would see it as their architect not controlling costs. And we're not doing low end box design by any stretch.

Consistency - sure. All fonts of same type and size. Sure. That helps readability. Reduces errors. Fonts layout on marketing and presentation drawings? Sure, fuss away. 1/64" of an inch on CD's? A total waste.

I'm trying to layout an existing ceiling of a firm I know fusses over drawing "style". The drawings are just plain wrong. The plan I'm looking at CANNOT be laid out by a contractor. Where they ran dimensions only give you points where you then have to find an internal tangent of two circles. Remember how to do that from high school geometry? I bet the contractor doesn't. On top of that 50% (yes - 50%) of the dimensions are WRONG. They ran then to the wrong side of the soffit. 50% of them! And I'm looking at a set of drawings with the revisions and RFI's on them.

This is pretty typical of the drawings that I'm coming across these days. And most of these are drawings coming from significant national firms. It is however a pretty set of drawings. But no contactor built off of these. Now that IS a direct reflection of our profession and why we get paid so little.

We make buildings - not drawings.

[patricks]

Yeah I just checked our Architext font an a drawing sheet. The 3/32" text is actually about 11/128" tall. That's 1/128" or 0.0078125" smaller than 3/32" Less than 8 thousandTHS of an inch!

Now while I do sometimes switch certain annotations to 5/64" if it's getting too jumbled in a certain area, and you can pretty easily tell the size difference between that and 3/32", I really don't think anyone is going to quibble over 1/128".

[3dway]

Consistency - sure. All fonts of same type and size. Sure. That helps readability. Reduces errors.


Thats what I was getting at. If you making them all the same size, when you do, is the time to worry about how many 64ths it is. But it is worth worrying. Showing a client an example drawing with several slightly different sizes of text is not acceptable, and for the reason you agreed to is important

[sfaust]

yeah, but why would you have several different sizes? Even if it's off by 1/128", it's going to be off that much everywhere, so it will still be consistent...

[aaronrumple]

Thats what I was getting at. If you making them all the same size, when you do, is the time to worry about how many 64ths it is. But it is worth worrying. Showing a client an example drawing with several slightly different sizes of text is not acceptable, and for the reason you agreed to is important

Now you just jumped down the rabbit hole.

Revit uses True Type fonts. This means you now have to consider all the intricacies of font design. True Type fonts are based on points. A point is roughly 1/72". However the design of a font is based on not only the height of a cap like "A" but rather on a more complex relationship between the fonts height including ascenders and descenders. So a font includes things like “g” and serifs which make the font extend above the basic height of an “A”. Of course all this dates back to old typesetting days in order to make all the little blocks of lead line up nice and neat. It is still used on the computer.

So it ain’t the font. The font is designed correctly. It is the way architects try to apply hand lettering notions to a typeset based technology. They just don’t match up. You can see this very simply. Make two 3/4” fonts using good old standards of Arial and Time Roman. Type an “A” in each font and use the auto-align to place them next to each other in Revit. See? The don’t share a common baseline and they don’t line up. In this case the height is very very close, but if you get into the font metrics – they are a different height.

So unless you want to design your own fonts – it is just a waste of time fussing with centuries of typesetting history, technology and language. (And yes I designed my own hand lettered font (Adobe PS Font) way back in the days when you had to buy font cartridges for WordPerfect.)

[david.metcalf]

Let's not fuss. I am old enough to have started with hand lettering on sheets of paper and there was darn little consistency when two or more people had a hand in creating the documentation on one sheet.

We are all correct on these many points. Today with the use of computers we should emphasize items dear to the owners hearts. These are reducing cost of construction in time, means, methods and materials in addition to costs of ownership.

We have come a long way and are still on a journey.

[Jeff.Drews]

Ok, but has anybody noticed if you make a bold category for arial it actually reduces the size of the text pretty significantly? I was working on a project and want a certain piece of text to stand out and bolded it. I had to jump the 3/32" arial bold way up to look like the 3/32" non bold text. Now that is weird.