One-Click Dimensioning

When selecting the “dimension” tool, Revit offers few options on ways you can dimension the walls.

– Wall Center
– Wall faces
– Center of Core
– Faces of core

This will force Revit to pick the selected option as the first choice for dimensioning, while you can still hit “tab” to go through other layers of the wall to dimension.

Dimension tool in Revit is set as default to dimension “Individual References”, meaning user needs to click the two points or more to get the dimension in between.

But there is also a second option that allows users to dimension the “Entire wall” with any doors, windows, intersecting walls, or even grids along the way by only one click on that wall.

Select the “option” tab and check to include the dimension reference:

Now let’s take a look at different dimensions each of these options will get you when dimensioning the “Entire Wall”.

(Examples below are with “Face of Core” preference selected, and one simple click on the vertical wall)

Openings, Centers:

Openings, Widths:

Intersecting Walls:

Intersecting Grids:

And, of course, any combination of these, for example:

Openings: Centers & Intersection Grids:

If you uncheck all the options and don’t select any openings, or grids or intersecting walls, all you’ll get it the overall width of the wall:

Disclaimer: Check with your Project Manager and follow office standards prior to using this feature!

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Large Name, Small Space!

I am sure you have come across a small room with a large name that doesn’t fit perfectly:

Most people resolve this by hitting the space bar bunch of time to get it work:

This works fine, except for it will mess you up in some other part of the project, like schedules:

So, Here is a better way:

When you need a break in the name, use “Ctrl+Enter” (the name will include “…” indicating there are more to the name on the next line)

It will also look much better in the schedule:

Not To Scale Views

Sometimes you need to show N.T.S. (Not to scale) for your Revit views.

This is how you can override your scale in Revit:

Click on the scale in the lower left of the screen, select “Custom…” on top, check “Display Name” and type in N.T.S.

That’s All!

Preparing Revit Model for Consultants

There are few ways to send out your model to your consultant, but what would be the best way?

Should I send the Central file or my local file to our consultants? The answer is No to both. Your model needs to be Detached from Central before it is good for your consultants to use.

These are the steps I recommend:

1. Have the whole team “Synchronize” their local files to Central and close the file.

2. Open the Central File. Check “Detach from Central” & “Audit”, uncheck “Create New Local”.

 

3. Once you click Open, a dialog box will pop up. Select Detach & preserve worksets.

 

4. (Optional Step). In Project Browser, select all sheets, right click and “delete” sheets in the project. This helps to minimize the file size.

5. “Purge” unused objects in the model. Go to Manage tab > Purge Unused (under Settings panel).

 

6. (Optional Step) Remove unused Links. Go to Manage tab > Manage Links (under Manage Project panel). Click through the tabs to Unload and remove all AutoCAD Links and any Non-Architectural Revit Links from the file.

7. Save the file. Save As > Project > Options > Check “Make this a Central File” and “Compact File”.

 

8. Save the file with the same filename as your original Central File.
It is a good practice to keep track of the date you send out your model. create a folder with today’s date and save your Revit file in there.

9. Under Collaborate click on Relinquish All Mine.

10. There is a check box in the Sync window you need to check manually to release all Worksets.

11. Close Revit and delete the backup file

12. You are ready to send the *.rvt file to your consultants!

Please Note:

It is important to send the Revit model out (and ask for consultants’ Revit models regularly and after any major change in the project.

If you have other Architectural Revit files (unit files, etc) linked, you need to follow the steps for those files as well…

Source: http://learning-revit.com/proper-way-to-save-the-revit-model-for-consultants-use/