Duct Insulation and Lining

[JoelLondenberg]

I've just revisited the problem of documenting duct lining and insulation with Revit MEP.

It's been discussed at length in other posts about how badly this functionality has been implemented, including the display and calculation and application. Attached you can find a sample project file that shows what I think is the best possible parametric option for displaying HVAC plan drawings.

Short description:
On a sheet overlay 3 views

1. Floor Plan view showing ductwork as per usual with the exception that the sub-categories for insulation and lining are turned off
2. Floor Plan view showing only ductwork and fittings - Wireframe - Insulation and Lining set to hiddenline style - Duct and Fittings and Insulation and Lining set to lineweight 1
3. Reflected Ceiling view with everything off except ceilings

This is a lame, complicated workaround - but at least it's parametric so you only have to make view changes and not draw detail lines or use the linework tool on individual components.

Does anyone have any suggestions for improving this - 'cause I still don't really like it.

[JoelLondenberg]

...
On a sheet overlay 3 views

1. Floor Plan view showing ductwork as per usual with the exception that the sub-categories for insulation and lining are turned off
2. Floor Plan view showing only ductwork and fittings - Wireframe - Insulation and Lining set to hiddenline style - Duct and Fittings and Insulation and Lining set to lineweight 1
3. Reflected Ceiling view with everything off except ceilings

...

Lemme revise this a bit...

1. Floor Plan view showing ductwork as per usual with the exception that the sub-categories for insulation and lining are turned off
2. Floor Plan view showing only ductwork and fittings - Wireframe - Insulation and Lining and ducts/fittings set to hiddenline style and lineweight 1
3. Reflected Ceiling view with everything off except ceilings

Now layer them all on the sheet. The order only seems to matter for viewing and not for printing.

Sometimes the dashes and spaces in the hidden line style pattern on the Insulation/Lining view will not be aligned with the over/under dashes and spaces hidden line style in the standard view. This will look like a solid continuous line instead of dashed lines for some of your over/unders. To fix this you can turn off MEP hidden lines in the mechanical settings - but this is project wide setting so be careful that it doesn't affect you somewhere else.

[vincentcadoret]

Hi Joel,

My solution is not perfect (yet) but I think works very well. Look at the picture, that's a single view.

Basically:

1) Create a filter that makes ducts with insulation thicker than 0 transparent.
2) Turn of center line for ducts in V/G.
3) Setup correct line type for duct insulation and lining.
4) I'm in a plan view so: set view underlay to the same level you are on and set the underlay orientation to reflected ceiling plan (this sometimes seems to glitch but usually it's the floor that's hiding the underlay, so turn off floors in the view).

The only manual process in here is creating the linework but the result is not catastrophic if you forget one.

I'll be at AU if you want to talk in person.

Hopefully, MEP 2012 will fix this

-Vincent C.

[cdgoin]

I have used the transparent trick.. and it VIEWS correctly, but when I go to print the liner goes missing again... ! UGH.. THere is so much I like about Revit and SOOOooo much I hate about it..

Any ideas? I have looked at print settings, etc..