By Garry Stockton
Whilst we create digital models and work in 3D, there is still a need to produce 2D drawings which can be understood by other project team members and contractors. The drawings are just lines on a sheet, which in turn represent the Building, MEP and Structural elements. A lot of the times our drawings are self-explanatory or are understood with text notes, but sometimes (especially if the drawing is cluttered) we need the help of legends to clarify content.
Legends are a clear way of showing what a particular element represents. This could be standard building elements such as floors, walls, columns, or indicative items such as symbols or line types.
Let’s start with creating a Legend. On the View tab, under Create you will find the Legend button.
Alternatively, on the Project Browser you can right click on Legend and select New Legend.
Give it a name and a scale. If you are creating a Legend of modelled elements (a Wall/Door/HVAC Legend for example), then you want to set the scale to match your floor plans.
Now here’s the fun part. On the Annotate tab, click the Component drop-down and right at the bottom, select Legend Component.
This brings up a sub-menu, where under Family we can choose from all the Model elements in the project.
Once we have selected an element, we can choose how we display it from the View dropdown. (e.g. how you would see it in plan or section). Also, the Host length option controls the length of the element within the Legend.
Next, just add some text as you normally would to describe the elements (Note: You can’t tag unfortunately).