Revit 2010 Silhouette Bug

When you have silhouette edges turned on (under Graphic Display options) in a view in Revit 2010, you cannot “Override Graphics in View” by Element or by Filter as you did in Revit 2009. The override ends up being behind the Silhouette rather than overriding it.

What really annoys me about this bug is I have been trying to spend a lot of time ensuring users are producing good looking drawings with appropriate line weights. When using Silhouette you can still individually line work each line, but having the option of using filters or overriding items by element to change line work is very powerful a large repetitive elevations.

Autodesk have been made aware of the problem and have passed it onto their development team.
The best work around is to use the line work tool and specify the desired line style.
Problem exists on Revit 2010, including SP1 and SP2

ACIS (.SAT) files not cutting correctly in Section

It’s been 2 months since by last post. Work has been very busy, I also just started as REVIC chairperson (Revit users group of Victoria Australia) and I’ve been enjoying our nice long Christmas break.
We started to try importing ACIS (SAT) files into Revit from Rino. The reason for going via ACIS was as some of the geometry was curved. You may know, when you try to import a curved dwg file geometry into Revit, it comes in with triangulated faces and thus is very messy when viewed. ACIS can be exported from Rino to avoid this.
The ACIS files did in general export without a problem out of Rino. During the import process the files were imported into an external generic model family (we also tried an in-place family). However when we took a section in one direction It did not cut correctly (I looked like an elevation). Cutting the section in the other direction worked fine. We tried all the various different SAT exports in Rino and tried some different geometry and the same issue happened. Importing using the same method with a dwg file worked fine.
We have made Autodesk aware of the problem which they acknowledge and they are chasing it up with their Revit development team. I have not come across a direct workaround for this problem. My advice, avoid ACIS file imports where you want them to cut in section until Autodesk resolve the issue.

Split Segment Sections with Dependent Views.

I’m currently doing a project where we need to do some very long site sections. It requires we use Split Segment Sections along with Dependent Views.

After creating the split segment sections I started to make the dependent views. I found in plan I could no longer change the location of the split segment or even the section view dept.

Through support I was advised in order to change these items you must select the crop region in the parent section view. Only then can you change the location of the split segments or view dept in plan.

To add to this a bug was found that Autodesk have said they will review a fix in future releases.
When you do the above the dependent view does not automatically update to the new section location (the parent view does). In order to update the dependent view you need to alter the view or annotation crop region in some way. Dragging it back and forth will update the view.

This issue happens with Revit 2009 sp3 & Revit 2010 sp1

2D Model Families and detail views

We regularly hear keeping families basic is the way to go with larger projects. An example would be loose office furniture. From a documentation point of view, you don’t need 3d office furniture and creating a furniture family using model lines in plan should suffice.

What you may not know is that when creating call outs of the floor plan, if you end up using a “detail view” rather than a “floor plan” call out, you won’t be able to see your 2d family in the detail view. On moving the mouse over the missing item, you will notice it ghosting. To solve the problem you will need to change the view dept (far clip offset) to plus 1mm or more from what it is set to.

This is actually correct behaviour. For a detail view to display an item, its “far clip offset” needs to physically cut the item and not just touch it (1mm cut is enough). Floor plan views however behave differently. The far clip just needs to touch an item to see it.

If you are creating 2D model families and don’t want to change the far clip offset draw your model lines on a reference plane 1 mm above the “0 Reference level” in the family.

Battle of the “line” overrides

There are obviously a lot of graphic overrides in Revit. Just in regard to “line weights, line patterns and line colours” here is the ranks of what wins out the line overrides

1. Line Work Tool
2. Override graphics in view by elements
3. Filters
4. View Depth -Beyond system line type (plan views only)
5. Phasing graphic overrides
6. Advanced model graphics – silhouette edges.
7. Visibility / Graphic overrides – Halftone
8. Visibility / Graphic overrides – Override host layers (Cut line styles)
9. Visibility / Graphic overrides - (projection & cut lines)
10. Project object styles

Note:
Design options – to use the line work tool or override graphics in view by elements on items in design options, you must be in edit mode in the design option.

Silhouette Edges

From Revit Help

“Revit Architecture can automatically apply a line style to silhouette edges. Silhouette edges are view-specific.
After you have applied silhouette edges to the model, there may be edges you do not want to display in silhouette. You can remove these lines as necessary”.

What it fails to say is that the Silhouette function does not work on all Categories. It works fantastically on Roofs, Wall, Floors, Columns, Structure, Openings, Furniture, Casework, Generic Models, and Speciality Equipment, Site Elements. It does not work on Mullions, Curtain Panels, Stairs, Railings, Ramps, Lighting Fixtures, Mechanical or Electrical items.

In the above graphic I've set the silhouette edges to Red in order to clearly see what is silhouetted.

The big pain here is Curtain Mullions and panels. So, on your elevations you have to manually go around and Silhouette the mullions.

Design options – Hide /Unhide in view

Here is an interesting little thing. If you have someone working with design options in our project, and there is something in the design option that you want to hide in a view, you have to open up the design option first before you can select that item to hide or unhide in the view. With all the different things you have to think of when you are having visibility issues, this is just one to add it.