So you’ve submitted your planning drawings and received your permission from the local council. The drawings were modelled in Revit with a low level of detail, so next you want to start adding the detail of construction to your walls. The below images shows a floor plan at planning level of detail so only blank wall detail represented by purple for proposed construction. Using the Detail Level option at the bottom of the screen will change this to a detail view.

You can change the build-up of the wall to show your construction layers. Select the wall > Edit Type > Structure and then change the layers accordingly.

To edit the linetype of property lines in Revit. Navigate to Manage Tab > Settings Toolset > Object Styles and finally, it is found under the Site category. Here you can change the thickness of the line and also the colour. This change is reflected project-wide as opposed to it being view specific. This is also a good location to edit further Revit object styles.

For the Concept Stage of an Architectural project, drawing presentation is a key feature. One of the most powerful tools for controlling graphics within Revit is the Graphic Display Options or “GD” keyboard shortcut.

1. Choose your preferred Style.
2. Ensure Smooth lines is turned on.
3. Shadows – yes and set Ambient Shadows on also.
4. Sketchy Lines if you like this look turn up extension points to full.
5. Move the lighting sliders to achieve a nice looking image.

The best part is, you can save this out as a view template and reuse on Elevations, Plans or in your company-wide template.

The Survey Base Point is a constant location or point of origin that can be a point on your site or the national grid system if you prefer. If it is a location on your site, it should be an existing point or landmark that will not be moved as a result of the proposed construction. Consider this as a real-world point of location that constantly exists.

The Project Base Point should be a meaningful point in your building or proposal. This can be for example an intersection of gridlines or a chosen for example “Bottom left Corner” of a proposed building. The location of the Project Base Point is relative to the Survey Base Point. If you move the Project Base Point “Unclipped” then the coordinates will update. If you move it while clipped, it will move the location & buildings in your project. You can consider this a transient point in the project, as it can change if the project requires it. Building designs change constantly, therefore your Project Base Point may also too.

If available, check your BIM Execution Plan or Employers Information Requirements as these should specify the relevant points to set.

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A brief introduction to start a new Revit project, place some walls and attach them to levels.

Dynamo generally operates using 3 x types of data – Numbers, Strings & Booleans.

1. Numbers = Integers (Whole Numbers) or if Dynamo requests a Double it wants a decimal “1.2” is 2 number’s, hence Double. (Double is a Computer Science term).
2. Strings = these are sequences of text, they can also be used to update Revit parameters for example.
3. Booleans = This is simply either “True” or “False”. For example is 5 less than < 10, this would return a “True” output.

If you hover over an Input port, as shown below, it will state what Data type it can take in. The below example node accepts a Double or the Default value is 0.

Once you have created your project within BIM 360 Design, adding teams will automatically generate the folders within Project Files for the named team.

ABC Architects or 123 Engineers are separate companies, however, you can set them up as teams for the purpose of folder creation within BIM360 design. Teams can also include individual people or roles, with varying access rights to their folders.

I have come across some confusion regarding the Consumed folder with BIM360 Design. The Consumed folder within BIM360 Design is a temporary holding area for linking in 3rd party models. For example, an Architect will have a Consumed folder and the Structural Engineer will have their own separate Consumed folder. If the Architect is linking in the Engineers model through BIM360 design, they should first copy the latest Engineers model into the Architects Consumed folder. Within Revit, using the Insert Tab > Link Revit > External Reference/BIM360 > Architects > Consumed, and the model should be linked in from there.

The purpose of this workflow is to avoid linking into the live shared model of other consultants, as this will cause any changes in their model to go unidentified or automatically accepted. This allows you to manage the version of another consultant’s model that you are using for reference.

A simple but effective tool within Revit is the Section Box in a 3D View.

1. Open a 3D View.
2. Select “Section Box” in Properties tab.
3. Pull blue arrows to the preferred view, you can also rotate the section box to suit the orientation of your building.
4. To hide the section box but to keep the cut view, select the section box & type “EH” for element hide. Alternatively, you could apply a view filter with set to hide the section box.

The power of Revit to create coordinated drawings with 3d models doesn’t stop there! As architects, technologists, designers, engineers we have all had to notate drawings, revise the notations and sometimes miss a note to update. With multi-category tags, this is all solved. Take a wall finish for a planning drawing as an example.

This workflow will pull in the information entered with Type Properties of the wall under Description (see above).

Open an elevation or preferred view that you wish to tag. Select the Multi-Category Tag as above.

Select Load Tags to choose “Type Description”

Once your tag is loaded, hover the tag over your wall and you will see the “Description” appear.

Drag the note as you want it to appear in clear space or so that it is readable. This same process can be applied to any view type, including 3D views (must be a locked orientation). As you can see in the example below the same tag works on window “Type Description”

And the best thing, if the note updates in your type properties, then so will every other note. Enter the information once and it is reused throughout your project, including schedules which I will cover in another post.