Show Materials in Existing Walls

This was a question that was asked of me the other day...how do you show the materials in a wall when it's an existing wall?  By default, the existing walls show just the outside lines of the wall when being viewed as an existing element, even if the wall type has any materials at all.

In order to make this happen, you need to modify the Phase Graphic Overrides.  Basically, you change the settings for the Existing Status to turn the Cut Pattern back on, and then set the Material to be No Material.  Since the Existing Material is setup to not show a pattern at all, just turning on the visibility of the Cut Pattern will not display the patterns.  Once you have the changes made, you will then see the materials inside the wall.

This is not a View specific change, this is a change that will effect the entire project.  So every cut of the walls (plan, section, etc.) will show materials when the walls are being displayed as existing.  If you don't want to show the materials in a certain View (for whatever reason), you can override the Cut Pattern visibility per Element.  I say per Element because if you do it by Category, it will turn off the patterns in all walls, not just the existing walls.  And unfortunately, you can not use a Filter by Phase.

Adding and Removing Curtain Grid Lines

Curtain Grids are one of those elements that folks have a love-hate relationship with.  Working with Curtain Grids can be difficult at times, especially for the novice user.  I've created a little video about what happens when you start to have smaller segments and the ability to actually see if a segment is visible or not.

When you use the Add/Remove Segment tool, grid segments that are visible should be solid and what is not currently visible should be dashed.  The problem comes in when you have a short segment...it typically shows up solid even if it's not visible.  What you can do is change the scale to be larger (1/4" instead of 1/8" for instance) for editing purposes, do what you need to do for adding and removing curtain grid segments, then change it back to the original scale.  Or, just create a temporary elevation to edit your curtain grid segments.

Adjusting Level or Grid Line Lengths

I've seen many people try to adjust their level or grid line lengths at the annotative ends when they are zoomed out and end up changing the text value or putting in an elbow instead.  If you need to be zoomed out so you can see all of your annotative ends, here's a little trick to help you avoid the mistaken elbow or text edit.  With a grid line or level line selected, uncheck the box next to or above/below the annotation...this will turn it off and only give you the option to adjust the end.  Drag the end where you need it, then re-check the box to turn the annotation back on.

Holiday Season

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone who visits my little page a wonderful Holiday Season and a safe New Year! Look forward to talking more about the new products in the new year!

Sending Revit Files to Consultants

I had an interesting call the other day with an Electrical designer that received an Architectural file from the firm they were working with.  The arch file was over 275MB and they had trouble linking the file into their MEP file.  They tried opening the file to see if they could even open it...but they got the system memory errors and couldn't open the file.  They finally were able to open the file on someone's pc without memory warnings, but when they attempted to save it though, no go.  So I had them do a Purge Unused and then try to save it...which worked.  When we checked the new file size, it went down to ~45MB!!  This file of course could then be linked into the MEP file without trouble.

So what's the point of this you may ask?  When you are sending files out to your consultants, do them a favor (not to mention yourself) and do a little cleanup!  Even if you don't want to purge your working file, detach a copy (if it's a central file) and purge that copy.  It will save time copying the file to the FTP site or whatever you are using to share your files and potentially save your consultants some headaches!  Or, the call from them saying they can't use your file!