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.

How to Find Linework Overrides in Revit

The Linework tool is much misused in Revit - it seems like a quick and easy way to make individual lines look the way you want.  In reality, it wastes much more time than it saves - this is because it is so hard to undo or change later on.  My advice to Reviteers is to use it as a last resort when every other method cannot or will not work - instead you should use sub-categories, filters, view visibility overrides or even object styles.

What does a BIM or Model Manager do to figure out when the Linework tool has been used?  Well, it is basically guesswork.  All you can do is set the linework linestyle to <By Category> and then hover the cursor over any lines that you suspect might have been tampered with using the Linework tool.

Why is this inconsistent with so many other Revit tools that have a 'None' option that sits at the top of the list?  Who knows - it is lost in development history, but it makes training harder.
And why is <By Category> not automatically at the top of the list?  I guess because it sorts alphabetically - but it is very irritating trying to find it in a list.

Once you have managed to select the linestyle of  <By Category> you then hover the mouse over the line and it will probably turn dark blue - which is not easy to spot on a large busy view.

Tip to speed up the search

I know of a quick tip that will help you in the search for overriden lines:
All you have to do is change the 'Pre-selection' colour to something brighter.

• Go to Revit Options
• Choose 'Graphics'
• Spend 30 seconds wondering why 'Selection' and 'Pre-selection' colours are the same, and why dark blue, which is very hard to distinguish when most lines are black in Revit.
• Spend another 30 seconds wondering which $#&*%$#* at Autodesk thought it was a good idea to make the default setting colours both dark blue.
• If the colours are not both dark blue in your options, then you probably need to praise your BIM Manager for changing the Revit.ini file that is rolled out in your company.  Give them a gold star or buy them a drink

• Change the 'Pre-selection' colour to something really bright like red (unless you are red/green colour-blind, in which case choose something else).
• I like to change the selection colour too, although it is tricky to get a good selection that is not the same as sketch lines, and all the other special line types like Area boundaries.

Now when you hover the cursor over any line that has had a linework override applied, it shows up red (or whatever bright colour you chose) - don't forget that it only works when you have set the linestyle to <By Category>

I hope this saves someone, somewhere in the world a few minutes, and eliminates some anguish

Weird stuff with Revit Line Weights

Following on from my previous post about line weights for material patterns, I have found some more weird things about Revit line weights that I never knew before:

1.  Pattern Line Weights

As Frank Giorlando rightly pointed out in a comment on the previous post:  Ceiling surface patterns use Line Weight 2.  So, if you want to control those independently, you should start your regular line weights from #3.
Thanks for that tip, Frank.

It would not surprise me if there are other categories that use different line weights again.

2.  Apply Button

The "Apply" button on the Line Weights dialog box does not appear to work - so if you start changing settings for different scales and want to check what happens (with hatching lines for example), you have to click OK to close the dialog box to see the effect.  I wasted a bit of time making changes that did not seem to be having any effect before I realised.  (as of Revit v2016 R2)

3.  Grid Line Weights

In testing the previous bug, I discovered some more weird settings:
Gridlines have all sorts of hidden away weight controls -
Unlike most elements, the actual grid line weight numbers are controlled from the grid Type properties (not from the Object Styles settings).  However, the Grid Heads have a master control in Object Styles where you might expect the gridlines to also be controlled

And something else I never knew:  The type properties for grid lines allow you to set different line weights, colours and styles for the centre and end segments - by choosing 'Custom' Center Segment..

Why would anyone want this?  I guess someone out there needs it and the programmers thought it would be useful.  Personally I would have been happy to see the weight set in Object Styles, with Visibility Graphics overrides if you need them - like most other categories.  This just seems like an unnecessary complication and inconsistency.

[Edit: Steve Stafford has previously blogged about how and when to use the Center Segment setting in this link.  I can see that you might well want to have a gap in the grid, but I still can't imagine why anyone would want a different line weight - just to make their drawings look ugly?  This also highlights the radically different way to control breaks in the middle of gridlines vs breaks in the middle of section lines - oh, I wish we had more consistency in UI and methodology in Revit]

4.  Dimension Tick Line Weights

Another category where the line weights are controlled in the Type Properties is Dimension lines.  The line itself and the dimension 'Tick Mark' have independent weight settings (at least both appear to be in the same place, unlike grids and grid heads).

But when you go to the arrowheads dialog box and check the settings for the Tick Mark, there is another weight control called "Heavy End Pen Weight".  Now someone is showing their age by using the term "Pen" in there!  Most of the time it is greyed out and has no effect, but if you cycle between the different Arrowhead Types, each one has a different value.  Why?

Well, if you change the Arrow Style to 'Heavy End Tick Mark' it enables that setting and you can change the number.  If you change the Arrow Style back to Diagonal or Arrow, it greys out the number but remembers it - I guess it does nothing.  I decided that I do not want to know what a Heavy End Tick Mark is nor why it needs its own special setting that causes confusion to the other arrow styles - it is a 'rabbit-hole' I don't want to go down any further!

Note the mix and match of imperial and metric units that came straight out of the v2016 metric sample file.  Sloppy work by someone there!

[Edit: Steve Stafford has blogged previously about when you might use Heavy End Tick Marks in this link]

Really Weird:  Line weights in Perspective Views

Revit Hatching Pattern Line-Weights

Following on from my post about hatching patterns on stairs, I thought I would describe a strange Revit phenomenon that I noticed a few years back. . . .

There are two main types of hatching patterns in Revit:

• Hatching patterns applied to the surface of a material, or as a cut pattern
• Filled Regions - 2D annotation patches

I intend to discuss the former - in particular material surface patterns.

As any good Revit implementer should know, most Revit material hatching patterns are displayed and printed using the Revit line-weight number 1.  [Edit. Ceiling surface patterns use line weight 2]
This number is then converted to a line thickness according to the scale of the view, on a matrix chart accessed from the 'Additional settings' icon on the manage tab of the ribbon.

This matrix is stored per project, and is something that should be set up in the company project template, and then seldom changed.  Unfortunately many new users are not aware that material hatching lines use line weight 1, so they often assign that as their general use thinnest line drawing number.  Most experienced users would recommend reserving weight 1 for hatching, then start the rest of the element line weights from 2 onward (2 = 0.1mm, 3 = 0.18mm, 4 = 0.25mm, 5 = 0.35mm etc).  [Edit. or start from 3, to avoid ceiling hatching patterns in 2].  Once you have set up all your family templates, and libraries it is not easy to change them all a year later.  Sadly the default templates and Autodesk libraries are almost all set up to default most things to weight 1 as the thinnest line weight, which propagates this awkward setup.

Incidentally, if I use the term 'Pen 1' instead of Weight 1, it gives away the fact that I once used pen plotters in the dim, distant past (or even Rotring pens!).

Let's assume that you have set up your library and templates to reserve weight 1 for hatching, it gives you more freedom to play around with pattern line-weights without affecting anything else in the drawings.  But you need to know some mysterious things about how you can control hatching display - or in fact that you have very little control!  The reason for this is that there are various limitations and some hard-coded behaviours within Revit.

Material Surface Patterns - Law of Diminishing Returns

When you apply a surface or cut pattern to a material, you do not get any option to set the line weight - you can only control the pattern and colour.

Object styles do not give you the opportunity to control material pattern line weights;  nor do Visibility Graphics pattern overrides, which can be changed per category:

Or they can be overriden by element, where you can change the weight of projection or cut lines but not hatching patterns:

Notice the colour of the hatching lines at different scales in the screen snapshots below - I have chosen the 'colour purple' to make it easier to distinguish.  At scales from 1:1 through to 1:50 they would all look the same (I only show 1:20 onward), but after that the lines get progressively lighter at each scale change.  This is hard-coded into the software - not something that we appear to have any control over.

1:20 material hatching

1:50 material hatching

1:100 material hatching

1:200 material hatching

1:500 material hatching

1:1000 material hatching

1:2000 material hatching

1:5000 material hatching

You might notice that the line thicknesses above are the same from 1:20 up to 1:1000, which would not necessarily be the case in a real Revit project.  I artificially bumped up the line thicknesses at the smaller scale, to compensate for the screen scale display of the lines.  I ran out of 'thinness' for 1:2000 and 1:5000 as the thinnest that Revit lets you put in is 0.025mm.  However, it is unlikely that your plotter will be able to get lines that thin anyway.

Artificial settings to get consistent screen display - do not use!

At 1:5000 the hatching just stopped displaying - or maybe the lines are so pale we can't see them.  I'm not sure how Revit decides at what scale to give up displaying, as it is not always the same.  It seems to depend on the line thickness, and spacing as well as density of the pattern.

For more weird Revit line weight behaviour click here

What does it all mean?

This is another example of  the software writers deciding what is good for us!  We have no choice or control that I can figure out.  All I can recommend is to reserve weight 1 for material pattern hatching.  It is probably wise to put all filled region hatching in weight 1 too, so that when you apply those nasty little filled region patches in section, they blend together.  Normally I do not approve of that, but when it comes to pads and earth hatching in section it is pretty much unavoidable!

I did wonder about that print settings dialog option 'Replace halftone with thin line':

It does not treat those faded hatch pattern lines as halftone - it only affects them if the whole element or category has been set to halftone.

Weird Revit Railing Stuff - part 6 - SubCategory Overrides

I was recently asked to solve a tricky Revit railing puzzle:  Someone wanted to show their glass panel balustrade as semi-transparent in elevation.  Simple, you might think.  Think again.
All good Revit experts would know that any element with a glass material that has a (semi-)transparency property will display transparent in a 3D view, but in elevation or section it shows solid.

Glass transparent in 3D view

Why is this?  Because it has always been an architectural drafting convention to make window glass opaque in elevation, so you cannot see through windows to all the stuff inside.  This is pretty sensible as elevation drawings would look a terrible mess otherwise.  So this convention was hard-coded into Revit software, as were many other conventions that we now see as restrictions .  Unfortunately this also applies to any glass element - even a glass balustrade that hides vital information behind it on a balcony.

Opaque glass balustrade in elevation

The obvious solution is to make either the railing category or just a selected railing semi-transparent

Semi-transparent Railing category override

But that is not much use as the handrail and balustrades have become transparent too.  So what about the railing subcategories?  Unfortunately the actual subcategories do not have individual transparency overrides - it is all or nothing for the whole category.

Railing subcategories in Visibility Graphics

 In addition to that, if you wanted to override the surface patterns there are some random restrictions:  some new railing sub-components allow overrides, some don't;  the old railing components do allow surface pattern overrides.

• Balusters (old subcategory) - Yes
• Rails (old subcategory) - Yes  - these are the original horizontal rail structures
• Supports (new subcategory) - Yes
• Terminations (new subcategory) - Yes.  Great, I can override the surface pattern but there is no possible way to make them visible in plan.  how good is that?
• Top Rails (new subcategory) - No!   This is a newly added subcategory (in 2013), so why build in a restriction to the subcategory most likely to need an override pattern?

Most experienced Revit users would not attempt to create glass balustrades using 'Balusters' because they are almost impossible to control the spacing of (and width).  Instead they would use the old rail subcategory and have one rail for the handrail on top and another long tall, skinny glass rail for the balustrade (crashing through the actual support balusters).

Filters

Next stop view filters to see if the same restrictions apply.  Perhaps we could filter the glass rail separately from the top rail structure?

More inconsistencies here:  Balusters (old subcategory) can be filtered, but not the old Rail subcategory.  Foiled at the next turn by yet another inconsistency.  But this time all the new subcategories can be filtered, including 'Top Rails'.  So maybe we could (mis)use that for the glass balustrade, and create a view filter for the Top Rail only?

 You could even take it one step further (no stair pun intended) and restrict it to Top Rails with the word 'glass' in them.  Note that I have used the filter "contains" rather than "equals" as it would then find all types with that word in the name.  To make it more robust, you could filter by "contains" "lass" so that it would pick up lower and upper case glass and Glass types.

Once the filter is set up, it needs to be applied to the view, and then have its transparency override set

All that remains is to make sure the railing definition is set to use a 'Top Rail' for the glass balustrade, and a 'Rail' for the actual rail along the top.

And finally it works as desired - but it shouldn't be this hard to achieve.

Semi-transparent Top Rail subcategory for glass balustrade

A gold star to anyone who spotted that the swing symbolic lines are broken on the doors behind the railing.  Not my doors, I just grabbed them from an old library to demonstrate this issue!