REVIT TIPS & TRICKS PERFORMANCE

1-Disable transparency in windows Vista. Right-click the desktop >Personalize > Windows Colour and Appearance. Uncheck EnableTransparency > OK.

2-Minimum recommended RAM for 32-bit REVIT is 4GB and 8GB for 64-bit version. 3-Run REVIT on 64-bit processor. 4-Use windows classic theme.

Purging All Family Types From A Family

Have you ever noticed that however hard you try you can't delete all family types from a family when you are in the family editor? Revit always leaves one remaining type!

1. Start by loading the family that you want to purge into a new project.

2. Next go to the family tree in the project browser and delete all the types, but not the family itself.

3. Then right click on the family in the project browser and select edit, this will open the family from the project into the family editor.

4. You will need to make sure that the family is not already open as Revit will just switch you to that window.

5. Next, if you go to your family types you will see that there should be no types listed for this family.

6. Finally, save the family to a new location.

Drafting view for Project title

If you regularly use worksets on your projects, consider a Drafting view as an Open and Close view. When saving to central with this view maximized the benefits include:-

1. The team sees this page and its update info every time they save to Central

2. The processing requirements of this page are small compared to a plan or 3D view, which means loading a file is quicker and is very noticeable on large projects. 3. This view is Neutral view, so all users leave and start the project in this view.

4. Saving to central is as easy as maximizing the view and selecting Save to Central from the file menu.

5. It can also act as a project summary and can include: Company name and logo File update history File management information ie always save in this view when saving to central Date project was setup, started and by who Revit version the project was started

Site Plans in Revit Structure

By default the Revit Structure templates provided out of the box do not include a site plan view, unlike Revit Architecture. So how do you go about creating a site plan in structure?

1. Firstly, start by duplicating level 1 and renaming that SITE.

2. Next open the SITE view, right mouse click in view and go to view properties from the contextual menu. Then scroll down until you find View range and edit the View range changing it to read.

Primary Range Top: Associated (Level 1) offset 100000.0 Cut plane: Associated (Level 1) offset 100000.0 Bottom Level Below offset 0.0 View Depth

Level: Level Below offset 0.0

3. Finally, go to visibility graphics for the SITE view and make sure that toposurface is turn on (made visible). You will also have to enable the check box which says show categories from all disciplines to view the toposurface category within the visibility graphics / overrides dialogue box.

Changing The Temporary Font Size

There may be occasion when you want to increase the font size for temporary dimensions. This is especially true if you are running Revit on Windows Vista as the default font does have a tendency to look very same on the screen.

1. To do this open Revit.ini file in Notepad. The file is typically located in C:\Program Files\Revit Architecture 2009\Program

For Revit MEP:

C:\Program Files\Revit MEP 2009\Program

For Revit Structure:

C:\Program Files\Revit Structure 2009\Program

2. Add the following line to Revit.ini in [Graphics] section: TempDimFontSizeInPoints=N

3.Where N is a number larger than 8 (default hardcoded value). Good starting point is twice the default size (i.e. 16-17).

4. Save Revit.ini.

5. Restart Revit. If the size of temporary dimensions is still small, repeat from step 1 with larger number.

6. Please note, the [Graphics] section may not exist. If this is the case add a line that contains [Graphics].

Blank Leaders
One item that Revit doesnt include by default is a blank leader, ie. One without text. You can easily place text and create leaders off the text, but a leader on its own doesnt seem possible. The following explains how to get around this.

1. To achieve this create a new family from the generic annotation template.

2. Delete the default text in the template and then save the new family, something like blank leader.rfa 3. Next load this family into your project. Place the annotation symbol in a view, but nothing will appear apart from the move icon, once you have placed the family, do a window selection to pick up the annotation symbol.

4. Once youve selected the symbol, you will be able to add leaders from the options bar.

Schedule by Comment
The Filtering facility within schedules is a very powerful feature that allows you to set rules to control what is displayed within your schedule. This is easily achieved by adding in the comments column within a schedule; adding a note or comment to the items you dont want to display and then use the filter option within the schedule to filter by comment.

1. To achieve this create a schedule in the normal manner, however, add a comments field to your schedule.

2. Next go to your schedule and add the word NO to the comments columns to the elements you dont want to show in your schedule.

3. Next go to the schedule properties and choose the filter tab.

4. Then create a filter which filters by comment and set it to does not equal the word NO in the schedule. This will remove all the items with the comment added, from the schedule.

5. Finally, right mouse click on the comments column in your schedule and choose Hide Column(s) to hide the column from the schedule.