Custom Sheet / View Browser Organization

To create your own custom sheet / view organization, you can select the “sheet” category in the project browser and then click on the property tool. You can select any type other than the “all” and edit its folder and filter parameters. You can create groups (folder) of many of the parameters.

Here is a step by step guide to create a custom group. First we create a project parameter for “Folder Name”
Go to Settings > Project parameters > add one called “Folder Name” of Text type and select only the Drawing Sheets and Views categories to apply. Select “Views” in the project browser and click the properties button.

Hit duplicate in the type properties dialog box. (Duplicate is not available when the type “All” is selected. You have to select a different one) and name it “custom folders”
Hit the Folders button and select “family and type” from the drop down menu in the folders tab for “Group by” and select “folder name” from the drop down menu for “then by” (the project browser will be grouped by Family and type first and then by the folder name parameter we just created.

Click ok twice to dismiss all dialog box.
Now your project browser should have changed and should have lot of ‘?’ marks. This just means that these folders are not yet named / created.

To create a folder, right click and go to a particular view’s property. At the bottom the project parameter “Folder Name” that we had created shows up. Just type the name of the folder you want for eg. “Text views”.

Now Revit will create a group called Text views and show the particular view within it. You can select a bunch of views in the project browser to move them to this folder or create another folder.

Install custom Revit commands

Sometime back I created a custom utility to install revit command and uploaded at augi.com at http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=67696 This exe file installed custom command DLLs one at a time.

I uploaded a tweaked version of this utility at
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?p=824503
that might help CAD Managers. This utility installs a bunch of DLLs in a system. CAD Managers can run this utility through a windows script or batch file.

You have to be a member to access augi links. Membership is free. (Or you can email me if you want a copy of the ZIP file that contains the instructions and the code)

Sheet not visible in Project Browser

We have had some reports that the sheets dissappear from the Project Browser. When people tried to create the sheet again, Revit gave an error saying that the sheet already exists in the project.
The sheets may be hidden using one of the Revits Sheet organization techniques. This option is available so that you can organize sheets in a folder (subcategory) format in the project browser. Not unlike revit schedules, you can show only certain sheets in the project browser and hide some others. To find the missing sheet, you can select the “sheet” category in the project browser and select the type “browser-sheets-all” in the type selector. Now the project broser should show all the sheets.

Updating CAD links in Revit

Revit help files says that a linked CAD files will automatically update within revit when you close and open the project. However, sometimes a CAD file refuses to update itself. In such a case, you could go to File menu > Manage links and select the CAD link and hit "Reload". Most of the time this does it.
Else, you have click "Reload From" from the Manage links dialog box and then select the same file. This definitely does it. (both these options will still keep the layer settings, colors, etc. intact as long as the "Preserve Graphic overrides" option is checked.)
However, if you link a CAD file, and then do some graphic overrides in Revit (switch on/off layers, etc.), then go back to CAD and switch certain layers on or off, this change will not be updated in revit! (kind of the VISRETAIN sys var in AutoCAD)

CAD Hatch not printing in Revit 2008

There are some issues in Revit with CAD Hatches. If the hatches are not bound correctly in cad or if they dont have any boundaries, Revit does not like it. Sometimes Revit shows it correctly, but whey you print it, it does not print all the hatch objects. The current workaround is to print the revit view using the "Raster processing" option

Changing section tag tail

Revit has different types of “section tags” depending on the view we create – be it Building section or Wall section or Detail section.

The tail of the Detail View tag is along the section cut and not perpendicular to it.

One of our projects wanted a perpendicular tail. Here is how we created it. Fairly simple.

1. Go to menu Setting > View Tags > Section tags.
2. The default Detail View tag uses: “Section Tail - Filled Horizontal : 3/8" x 3/32” tail. One can just change it to “Section Tail - Filled : 3/32" x 3/8", if you want to edit the type itself (all the detail view tags in the project will use this tail). Else you can duplicate the type and create a new one.
   
   
3. If you created a duplicate type: Select one of the Detail view tag in the drawing area and go to its properties. Go to its type properties and select the new tail type you created.
   
   

Dependent views conversion changes

A dependent elevation or dependent section view cannot have its own view depth / cut plane. (This is true for the plan views also, however, because we don’t get a separate view tag for the plan views, there is less confusion there) Dependent views of elevation / sections have their own view tags, and the cut plane and view depth are visible, but cannot be edited! To change the view depth or cut plane of the dependent elevation / section, you have to change the view depth / cutplane of the parent view.
To convert a dependent view to an independent view, right click on the view in the Project browser, and select "Convert to Independent"