Simplified Export to DWF

There are times that your project needs various paper sizes for sheet hardcopy. It is sometimes very annoying when you have to choose a print setting to use.

To simplify this procedure, I advise you to use the following “Print Setup” as shown below when to need to do a DWF Export with various paper sizes.

You simply choose from the drop box Name: <in-session> and for the Paper Size: <Use Sheet Size>. Once you have done with these settings, you will be able to export to “dwf” using any paper size. You do not need to open this Print Setup dialog box to set the print to A0, A1 or whatever you need for your hardcopy.

Let this tip work for you from now on.

Floor Spot Elevation Problem

This seems to be a common problem when you issue Annotate>Spot Elevation and the top face of the floor you want to annotate cannot be detected and a symbol shows up, like a screw head. The Spot Elevation can only locate the edge of the floor as shown below and not somewhere on the floor surface.

If your Visual Style is set to “Wireframe”, Revit cannot locate the floor top face and that is why a screw head symbol shows up. To fix it, always set your Visual Style to “Hidden” and not to “Wireframe” in order that you will get your Spot Elevation Annotation correctly on the middle of the floor.

    

Slab with drop and column head

Welcome back to Revit-IT! I am sure everyone is looking forward for the coming Season's holiday.

As usual, today's article is about a model I encountered in our office. It's about a slab with drop panel and column head. One of my co-workers modeled this structure using "model in-place". No doubt, using this method had some issues. One of the issues I noticed is that the column head and the drop panel is not an integrated part of the column. So when the floor level height change, you have to move every column head and shortened the column which is really a tedious job to do.

You are better off when you build this structure using a structural column family. With this method, you are more flexible instead of modeling in place. You can reuse the family in other project thereby your office will be more efficient. It took me some hours to develop these two family types for this project. Moral lesson here, as a Cad Manager you must have an overview what your modelers are doing and not allow them to just having their way with modeling.

Merry Christmas to everyone and wishing you all the very best for the coming New Year 2011.

Profiles in Revit

In Revit, a profile is a single line, chain of connected lines, or closed loop that can be used to generate a form. Profiles can be designed so that the user can manipulate it to change the geometry of a form. It can be added to the following forms types namely, extrusions, lofts and sweeps.

The following is an example wherein a predefined profile is used in slab edge.

The profile shape for this particular slab edge is a flexible one. The user can duplicate the predefined family properties or select from a list of predefined types.

Other common use of profiles can be found in Wall reveals and sweeps, steel framing which I usually advocate the use of it for complex framing form.

Thanks for dropping by and if you have any questions, just feel free to contact me.