Stair Section Detail Level in Revit

Here is yet another problem with Revit Stairs that really needs to be fixed by Autodesk:  

The view 'Detail Level' display in section is not consistent between walls, floors and stairs (not to mention ramps!):

View Detail Level

When a view is set to Medium or Fine detail level, sections of most categories display the correct materials:

When the View detail level is set to 'Coarse', the cut hatching display of some elements is overridden by the Type properties 'Coarse Scale Fill Pattern'

This capability is available only for certain categories - meaning that the display of stairs is pretty hopeless at Coarse scale

 

Workarounds

What to do about this?  There are several possible ways to resolve this lack in Revit, but none is very good!

Visibility Graphics

You can over-ride the cut pattern of stairs - but this requires several steps (excuse the pun) on top of just changing one View Detail Level setting:

Due to the fiddly nature of changing this in the view (similar settings may need to be applied to other categories), you would certainly need to include this as part of a View Template - so it could be applied or removed at the flick of a switch.

Filters

You could also try using a View Filter, as it could potentially be applied to multiple categories

This has an advantage in that it is more "discoverable" than searching through all the category overrides - unless you have a gazillion filters applied!

Another advantage in Revit 2021 is the ability to "Enable" or "Disable" the filter without losing the override settings - a very useful new enhancement for Filters.

Downsides

The View Detail Level is very easy to switch on/off - and it affects all categories that have the built-in Coarse Scale override capability.  If you set the view back to Medium, the 'by category' cut pattern overrides get left behind - so you would need another operation to remove those (hence the need to use View Templates).

Another problem with the Visibility Graphics workarounds is what happens when you choose anything other than black solid fill as your hatching override:

If you make it grey . . .

 

The Stairs will show the joint lines between different materials - you may or may not want this, but it is clearly different behaviour to the Coarse Detail Level control that hides the material join lines and treats it as one material, for a nice clean look.

Of course, this is not helped by the inability to join walls/floors to Stairs !!  You still get the joint lines between those.  Refer to Stair Joint Lines

The Worst Workaround

Filled Regions are extremely useful for patching up Revit's inadequacies, but they are not popular with BIM & Model Managers because they cause so many other problems as soon as a model changes.

Filled Regions allow you to make the hatching look exactly how you want, because they allow some of their edges to be "Invisible Lines" - thus they can appear to join with adjacent "real' cut hatching.

Filled regions are placed per view, so if you have multiple sections cutting through the same or similar parts of the model you may end up with many filled regions.

One possible method to manage that problem is to include them in 'Detail Groups' - but they are also problematic to manage, not to mention a major shortcoming of really slowing down your Revit model if you have too many of them.

Conclusion

Whichever workaround you use the most important thing to do is to follow company standard procedures - and be consistent.  Agree with your workmates on which dodgy workaround to use, and stick to it.  This will make it so much easier to come back to make changes when the model is updated.

Revit's Most Hidden Commands (part 4) - 3D Cut Pattern

This Revit feature really is obscure, and I can never remember how to do it without looking online for solutions.  Plenty of people have posted on blogs and forums about this one, but I have my own slant on it.  Most of the references to this are something like "How to create sectional perspectives in Revit" - and then describe how to apply a colour pattern to the cut surfaces of the section.

Applying Colour/Hatching to Cut Edges on a 3D View

1. 3D View.
In fact this technique applies to any 3d view, perspective or otherwise - but only if a section box is applied as a view property:

2. Section Box

3. Section Box Cutting

A section box will actually crop the 3d model (only in the view).  This is not to be confused with Crop View and Scope Box which only crop the view, not the model.
Make sure that the extents of the section box are cutting the model where you want - drag the shape handles.  In a perspective view it may not be so simple - other blogs describe this process well (Use View cube to temporarily make perspective orthogonal;  adjust section box; rewind view back to perspective).

You can hide the section box in 'Visibility Graphics', but don't uncheck the box in the view properties.

 

There are several subtle settings that control how and when the coloured cut edges are applied:

4. Coarse Detail

• It only works when a view is set to Coarse Detail Level (not at medium or fine)

5. Coarse Poche Material
[Edit:  This section added later]
Once the view is set to coarse, and has a section box activated, Revit will automatically apply the 'Coarse Poche Material' to any edges that are cut by the section box.  This material is is controlled by a 3D view Type property - so it will affect all 3D views of that type.

• In the standard Revit project template this property is set to "By Category", which means that nothing appears to change - it uses whatever the settings are for each category.
• In some project templates this value may already be set to a particular material, in which case that material will automatically be applied to cut edges.  Typically that material would be a special material called "Poche"- this is a system material that is present in all templates (including families).  [If you delete that material, it will pretty soon come back into your project or family!]

Before changing the Coarse Poche Material type property, it is recommended that you duplicate your 3D view type, unless you want to apply it to all 3D views.

When you click on the value for the property, it will automatically default to the "Poche" material

Select the Poche material (or some other material)

It will apply the material properties to cut edges according to the following rules (maybe . . .):

6. Material Properties

• By default, the Poche material has a dark blue shading colour and NO cut hatching pattern - you can change this of course.

• This means that the colour will only appear if the view is set to Shaded, and not appear if the view is set to Hidden Line

Medium View, Hidden Line - No poche material is applied

Coarse View, Hidden Line - No cut Shading visible

• Once the view is set to Shaded, the shading colour appears - this is standard Revit behaviour, but in the context of the other variables it can be confusing

Coarse View, Shaded - Shading Colour is visible

• You can also add a cut hatching pattern to the Poche material

Coarse View, Shaded - Shading & Cut Pattern visible

• If you have a cut pattern defined for the material, you can revert to a Hidden Line view and it will display the hatching but not the shading colour (again, this is standard revit behaviour)

Coarse View, Hidden Line - Only Cut Pattern is visible

• Alternatively you can use a solid fill colour for the cut pattern, and this will display on a hidden line view

Coarse View, Hidden Line - Cut Pattern (solid colour) is visible

If you have a shaded view and a solid colour cut pattern, things start getting tricky (if not downright weird):

• If the shading is set to zero transarency, it will show neither the shading colour, nor the solid fill colour - ie. the clash makes Revit give up and show no poche.
• If you set the shading to semi trasparent, it shows the solid fill colour but at the shading transparency!!!

Coarse View, Shaded - solid fill pattern, 50% shading transparency

No wonder I can never remember this setting - it is so obscure and has so many variables to juggle in order to get it working.  If you forget just one variable, it may not work at all.

Checklist:

1. Any 3D view (perspective, Isometric etc)
2. Section box must be active (although it can be hidden in Visibility Graphics)
3. Section box must cut through the model (Poche material only applied to cut surfaces)
4. Coarse Detail Level view
5. 3D View type properties - Coarse Poche Material property
6. Poche material
7. Shaded View  shows poche Shading colour (and cut pattern if it has one)
8. Hidden Line View shows poche cut pattern only (nothing displays if no pattern is set)
9. Shaded View + Solid Fill cut pattern + Shading colour =  ??

[Edit] This is a whole lot more complicated than I first realised.  The  "Coarse Poche Material" for view type properties (as pointed out by "Alm" in a comment) may or may not be preset in your project - if it is set to Poche, then it works according to the rules above (as it did during my initial testing);  if it is set to 'By Category' then it will not work, or at least it follows different rules depending on various settings for each category.  These will be described in another post . . . .

Link to other hidden commands