By Dennis Collin
New functionality introduced to Revit a few years ago enabled users to create legend-type schedules on sheets. Everything from furniture, light fixtures, pipe and duct components, floors, walls, finish materials etc. and even room data sheets!
When adding new parameters to projects and families there is an image parameter type listed. This parameter is available as an instance and type parameter for most of the model system and component families. Certain system family types such as views, sheets, datums etc. are excluded.
The images can be sourced from a mixture of locations and captured using the Windows Snipping tool or similar. Crop the images to suit and save in an easily referenced location.
Fig 1. Image parameter within a project, available as an instance or type!
The image itself will be embedded into the Revit project and family files, and like any raster image, will impact on the file size and therefore project performance. It is recommended to keep the size of the images less than 300kb, with a detail of 300 x 300 pixels in size, and a resolution lower than 96 DPI. This can all be achieved by editing the images in any suitable package, or even Microsoft Paint.
Once created the image can be referenced with the browse button in the properties dialogue as shown in the following image.
Fig 2. Adding image parameter to a wall system family
The Add image function will embed the image into the family or project. Should the image not be present the last referenced image will be shown.
Once added, create a schedule as normal and add the image parameter, sorting the columns as required.
Fig 3. Adding type image parameter to a schedule
The image itself won’t show on the preview page but adding the schedule table to a sheet will show the images as expected.
Should the images need to me adjusted to better fit the printed page, select the image cell on the table and resize the field as desired.