The following YouTube presentation explains how to use Navisworks for real-time clients presentation. The workflow requires you to export an 3d DWF from Revit and then import this into Navisworks.

Victor Martinez , BIM Manager from HOK NYC said “While working on a recent project, the need to show column grid lines differently between composite plans and finish plans was requested. In order to accomplish this, the following method was used.”

In this first image, the composite plan is showing the grid lines with the project default settings:

Select a grid line and view it’s properties.

From the Type properties window, there are a few options to adjust how column grid lines are being generated. You are able to change the center and end segments here as well as the symbols being used. For this example, change the center segment to none:

Your plan will now look like this:

After changing the center segment, select a grid line and use the blue grips to drag each end segment to the center which will turn the grid lines back into a continuous centerline in the composite plan view.

Do this for each grid line in the view:

After dragging each grid line in the one view, the grids will now display differently in this view as compared to the rest of the other views:

You can then select the grid lines in the view you changed them in and propagate extents to the remaining corresponding views:

Once you Propagate Extents, you will now have the ability to control gridlines differently in multiple views:

This tip comes from Victor Martinez of the HOK New York Office.

A callout has been placed in a view that appears to run parallel with the angle of a wing of a building, but you aren’t sure. A decision has been made to rotate the callout back to a default 0 degrees. Since there is no way of getting the angle or the rotation of the callout from its instance properties, how can it be rotated accurately back to a default 0 degrees?

By placing a scope box (blue dashed line in below image) in the view you can name the scope box and then assign the callout to the scope box so the callout assumes the angle/placement of the scope box (assuming the default value of a scope box is 0 degrees of course):

Callout Instance Properties:

The result is the callout assumes the scopebox angle:

The scopebox can then be deleted without affecting the callout. Now the callout can be rotated accurately if desired.

Dave Ivey asks:-

“We’re working with MEP models for the first time, and seem to be having problems viewing their content.  The image below shows locations for pipes which are system families (in MEP), and which do not show up any view (2D or 3D) when the model is linked in to RAC 2010.  All the obvious stuff has been checked (Worksets, View Range, Object Styles, Visibility Graphics, etc…).  We even tried linking to a specific view in the MEP model, and all we see anywhere is Annotation.  Hopefully I’m just missing something obvious?”

Lee Miller says:-

“Create a new 3D view, then go to instance properties for the view and set the discipline to Coordination”.

“Next go to Visibility/Graphics for the view; then under Revit Links, set the Display setting to “By Linked View”.

I thought I’d share this trick with you. This approach is particularly useful if you are trying to create a complex surface. The idea is to create a series of vertical lines, in the z axis in AutoCAD, spaced evenly with varying lengths. Link the resulting DWG into Revit and then using the new massing tools in Revit 2010, build a surface using points and splines attached to vertical z axis lines on the linked DWG.

• CAUTION: The GRID is put into the model as a 3D Datum.
• A change to a 3D Datum in one view will affect other views that it extends to.
• Grids remain 3D in a view until it has been PROPAGATED or until you manually select 2D for the grid.
• If you want to manipulate a grid in a VIEW, you should ensure that 2D is selected first
• Do this by clicking the ‘3D’ and it will change to ‘2D’:  

Points are a great feature in Revit 2010. The following video is another extract from my HOK Revit 2010 massing class which explains the principles of points and how hosted points can be used to control geometric forms.

Apart from the Ribbon interface, the major focus for the 2010 release of Revit Architecture are the new conceptual massing tools. The following video explains how to create a parametric freeform surface utilising the new conceptual massing tools and the new conceptual mass design environment. This is based on a short extract from a class which I ran for HOK staff. Hopefully, you will find it useful.

I came across this tip from one of the Autodesk Revit development QA guys, Zach Kron and I thought it was worth sharing, I've expanded a little on Zach's original post, however Zach owns the credit. :-)

This will work in both Revit 2009 and 2010. Below you will see a render of a form which utilises soft shadow, giving the image a slightly different look compared with the default out of the box  render settings. Whether you like this look is a matter of opinion, but it is certainly provides something a bit different.

You achieve this result by setting the Revit Mental Ray render engine to an early morning setting of say 2am and then adjusting the exposure control from 14 to between 2 to 2.5. You can always tweak it further using the Adjust exposure once you completed the render ( more on that later).

Setup your scene in the normal manner. Then open up the render dialogue window; make sure your Lighting scheme is set to "Exterior:Sun only". Next, edit your Sun settings to something like 2am in the morning.

Under image, click Adjust Exposure, this will open up the Exposure Control dialogue.  Set the Exposure Value your from 14 to around 2 to 2.5. The image above had an exposure setting of 2.2.

Also, make sure the Background Style equals Sky: No Clouds.

What this actually does, is turns off the sun (as its night time ), but keeps the sky image map and the low level ambient lighting. As noted by Zach, to achieve the best results, it's worth setting your render quality to "best" to get the best shadow depth you can. Setting your render to "best" will obviously result in long render times, so it's probably worth doing a few low resolution renders in the first instance to be assured that the settings will work for you.

Once you've rendered your image, you can also play with the exposure settings in realtime to again adjust the look and feel of the image. Using the settings above, this is what the image looks like with a White Point setting of 4000 and a saturation set to 1:-

Adjusting the White point to 4000 and saturation to 0.2 gave this look:-

The same image  has then had all the exposure control settings adjusted, giving these results:-

Exposure Value:2.2

Highlights:0.07

Mid Tones:0.3

Shadows:0.8

White Point:4440

Saturation:1.08

Exposure Value:2.2

Highlights:0.25

Mid Tones:0.3

Shadows:0.8

White Point:7080

Saturation:1.08

Exposure Value:2.2

Highlights:0.07

Mid Tones:0.3

Shadows:2.581

White Point:9548.4

Saturation:1.08

This a useful tip from Lee Miller, HOK Firmwide Revit CAD manager. The question is, "How do I merge two workset projects together?"

Here's what to to; the key to this process, is preparation.

Prepare the models

First make backups of all your work. 
Choose the smaller, least complex of the two models, and purge unused. 

Get the model as lean as possible. 
Determine what drafting elements will need to be preserved

The Binding process

In the model which you will bind your project into, create a new temporary workset.  This will be the workset that the bound elements will be dump into.

 
Create some new worksets, i.e. core etc.  These are worksets you will use to transition objects into.
Select the linked project and choose bind from the options bar.

Decide whether you need to include Attached Details, Levels,Grids....

A message will the appear warning you about binding a linked file. Just choose the remove link button.

It may take some time for Revit to complete this exercise! Depending on the size of your project.
Once the link has been bound, this bound link will be a group. You can then choose to ungroup and the start to transition objects to previously created New worksets. 
Finally, recreate views, import sheets, etc as required.

This question comes up on a fairly regular basis, how can I compare two Revit drawings to see what has changed between revisions? Also, how can I compare two different versions of the Revit model to see what has changed?

In this post we will look at three different tools that can help facilitate this.I am sure their are other tools available to enable us to do this, but I have tried to highlight the most common ones which many of us have installed on our laptops or workstations.

Model Compare

The Model Compare tool is part of the Extensions for Revit utilities which can be downloaded and installed from the Autodesk subscription site. Originally only available for Revit Structure users, Autodesk finally saw sense last year and released it for all of the disciplines. It's very easy to use; you start by opening the two models you want to compare, then choose model compare from the extensions pulldown menu.

The application will the start and will look for differences between the two models. Once the comparison has been completed, you will be presented with a dialogue box which lists the two models and highlights general information relating to the two projects.

You can then choose to review the difference in elements by selecting "elements" in the menu on the far left hand side of the dialogue box.

You can then use the "Comparison Type"  check boxes to change how the elements in the models are compared.

You have the ability to review elements as follows:-

mapped equally to one another "="
different to one another "<>"
no longer exist in the project  "<"

The report tool allows you to generate a report of the compared models. This can be saved as an MHT or html  file or you can export to Word or Excel as well as being able to print the report directly from the dialogue box.

Below you will find a typical report exported to Excel.

Drawing Compare - DWF

You  can also compare drawing output from Revit using Autodesk Design Review 2009. However, you  need to publish your drawings in DWF format from Revit, to start with. Then open one of the DWF's in Autodesk Design Review 2009 and choose compare from the tools pulldown menu.

You will be presented with the following dialogue box.

You can then choose the target DWF you want to compare, click the browse icon to locate the DWF, then choose "ok". Design Review will in essence compare the two different DWF outputs and highlighting what has changed by adding additional markup to the DWF.

This additional markup can be saved in the DWF, but you also have the ability to load this back into Revit if required. This is achieved by choosing import/link in Revit then selecting the DWF you added to the markup to. The markup will then appear as a markup layer in Revit.

Drawing Compare - PDF

OK, DWF is fine, but what if you published all you drawings from Revit using PDF? In Acrobat Professional we can do something similar to the Compare functionality found in Design Review. Start Acrobat Pro and choose a suitable PDF created from Revit, then from the advanced pulldown menu choose "Compare Documents".

Again this will open a dialogue box which will allow you to browse to the PDF you want to compare against.

There are different types of comparisons that you can use  and you also have the ability to create two different report types based on the comparisons found. 

A side by side report provides you with this output:-

A consolidated Report provides you with this type of report, which just balloons the various changes:-

There you have it, three different ways to compare differences between models and drawings. I guess that some of these may be obvious to the Revit user, nevertheless it fails to amaze me that many users and document reviewers are still not using digital tools to compare differences and changes, instead opting for the old school approach of printing the drawing out to paper and using a magic marker to highlight changes!

Here's an interesting modelling challenge set by Nilanjana of the London Office. She wanted to quickly produce a balcony, based on the sketch below, for a large high rise residential scheme.

You will see from the diagram above that the majority of the balcony is 450mm deep and is flat as indicated by the blue area. The balcony then falls away on three edges to only 150mm thick. You will also notice the balcony is not rectilinear as indicated, with three sides at different angles.There are a number of different ways to tackle this.... create a family, an in-place family? All have their merits, but at the concept stage of a project you don't always have time to produce what in essence is actually a rather complex family to create. So the easiest way to create the balcony is in four separate elements.

So start by sketching out a few reference planes to define the extent and shape of the balcony.

Next create a new floor slab type which is 450mm thick. Edit the type properties of the construction of the floor slab and set the structure "variable" radio button is ticked. This will ensure that that slab is flush on the underside after you have edited the slab.

Next model four separate slabs based on the reference plane sketches.

You can then slab edit the edges of the three slabs which need to slope away using the sub-element edit tools. Select one of the floor slabs you created and the sub-element edit tools will appear in the options bar.

Next select the edit points/edges tools, then select the outer edge of the slab you want to edit and alter the elevation from 0mm to -300mm; this will drop the whole edge of the slab and it will slope as required.

Now do this for all the other edges which need to fall away.

For extra finesse, use the join geometry to clean up all the floor slabs.

One could argue that this is not a purist approach to the BIM problem because you end up with four slabs rather than one, but at that concept stage where you want to convey an idea, this approach is ideal.

William Lopez Campo asks:-I have a project which I have created a total of 30 dependent views on one level, how can I create duplicate dependent views on all my other views to match the 30 I have already created, without having to manually create them?

To propagate a series of dependent views from one particular level to the levels above, you need to do the following.

Set up you dependent views as required on one level only, in your case this is 30 dependent views! Next select the primary view associated with these dependent views.

With this view selected, go the view pulldown menu and choose "apply dependent views".

This will open a dialogue box which will allow you to propagate the dependent views you initially created to any other plan view you require.

The additional dependent views will be created for you at each level, based  on the dependent views you initially created. You will obviously have to rename them and it should be noted that the dependent views will not maintain associativity in relationship with the crop regions across the multiple levels.

I discovered this one by mistake yesterday and thought it would be good to share. When working in the edit color scheme dialogue it is now possible to zoom in and out of the scheme definition window in Revit Architecture 2009; it is not possible in Revit Architecture 2008.

All you need to do is place your mouse pointer in the scheme definition window part of the edit color scheme dialogue, then hold down the control key on your keyboard and then use the middle mouse scroll wheel. On doing this you will find that you can scroll in and out, to view more or less of the values in the scheme definition.

Aungwara N, ATL says: We have a project that requires us to carve out areas that are larger than the pad openings and connect with each other below street level, like tunnels. Has anyone came up with a way to create a pad and able to control its height? The whole site will end up being about 0.5 mile long and the void will be filled with utilities and rail system.

David Light, Excitech says: ."This really breaks the Revit rules as my example is a very large floor slab which has been edited, but this does allow you to cut a void to show a tunnel.
At the moment this cannot be achieved using the toposurface tool. The only other options to consider are an inplace family or maybe a combination of an inplace family and a toposurface."
In summary, we are fighting to use Revit for planning and landscape design although I guess a half mile long tunnel constitutes a major Civil engineering project (we could use Autocad Civil 3D without much connection to Revit). In early design we would like these kind of tools in Revit Architecture. We need better Revit tools for site modelling to include a tunnel and roads features. Autodesk? As workarounds these suggestions are great, thanks!

Click in the Degree value to set the angle of the grid

To get a true section through a 3d DWG in Revit, you must approach it in one of three ways.

• Within your project create an inplace family, making sure that you select an appropriate family category which allows the geometry to be cuttable. Then import the 3d DWG into the inplace family. This is no preferable, as you are adding weight to your project.


• Create a new family component such as a generic model family, which allows your geometry to be cuttable. Import the 3d DWG into the family then load this into your project and place the family. This approach allows you to manage the data a little easier as you can easily delete the family component from your project when it’s no longer required.


• If you have a very large 3d DWG survey that you want to use within your project you may be better using the above approach of creating a family component and then placing the component into a new project. Then link this “survey” project into you master project file. This keeps the 3d DWG survey data separate from the building model and makes the update process and management of the data a lot easier.