by Garry Stockton
Whether new to Revit or an experienced user, we can often forget some of the basic things when using Revit every day. Here is Part Two of our recommendations.
Housekeeping
- If you do the same operation many times, then it makes sense to start learning Dynamo scripts to optimise the solution (Cadline have a 1 day Introduction to get you started).
- Update your templates regularly, but customise them to suit your customer or project’s needs.
- Keep an eye on your Graphics Card updates.
- When copying families from project to project using typical combinations of Ctrl + C Ctrl + V, errors may occur in further work. The cleanest and most reliable way is through the Revit command “Load Family”.
- Revit is smart and the limitations in some features are not meant to make your life hard, but to avoid mistakes.
- It happens that sometimes it is easier to place an element to the side, and then move it to the right place.
- Hide at scales coarser than. Keep detail tags from showing up on overall plans/sections/elevations.
- Don’t get fooled by the ads for “professional” Quadro graphics cards! The best options are Nvidia cards.
- When choosing to insert DWG into a project, the link is more often selected between link and simple import.
Design
- In a heavy model for selecting elements, instead of the “Filter” option, it is faster to hide the unnecessary items through the “Visibility / Graphics”, and then select the necessary ones.
- Schedules can be linked to the Excel.
- Avoid annotating 3D elements as 2D annotations, especially openings. There will be fewer mistakes if you do everything properly.
- Imports load the model heavily. Maybe deliver them at the last moment?
- It is better to create a small group, and then add the remaining elements to it, rather than a large group at once.
- Make the walls transparent in 3D periodically to see what is behind them.
It’s Revit not AutoCAD
Don’t set up a black background, even if it is “this way” and for the last 10 years you have been working this way in AutoCAD.