By Dennis Collin
A common question often received from Revit users is why are elements not showing correctly or at all within a view. Whilst most users are aware of the category visibility settings in the visibility graphics overrides interface, users are less aware of the power of View Filters.
View Filters allow users to leverage the power of meta data within the model and then apply that data to a view. This is useful for all disciplines, Architecture, Structure and MEP. For Architects, filters can be employed to control fire compartment drawings, for structures, filters could be used to distinguish between different grades of concrete in a formwork model. For MEP, filters could be used to help identify the myriad of different pipes and services in a busy plant room.
Filters enable users to make elements look different even if they are of the same category or system.
Not only can filters be used to highlight elements a different colour, weight and linetype, they can also be used to hide items in a view. This will override category controls and system properties. In the example below for a domestic plumbing plan, a filter is used to hide pipework relating to heating or cooling, hiding any pipe element that is a member of a hydronic system.
View filters work in a similar way to filters in schedule views, in that it focuses the view on elements that are more important and ignores elements that need not be considered at that time. In recent years filters have become even more useful and can be utilised to differentiate between different construction phases, design options, family types and many other useful properties.
While at first glance it may seem view filters are somewhat tedious to create and apply, it must be remembered that these filter tools will be required for every project undertaken and as such could be Saved to a project template file and held in a view template. A view template is a named collection of settings that can hold many relevant view properties, including category visibility, view range, scale level of detail and many other properties.
Revit has over 30 ways of hiding elements in a view. Most times it is usually a case of checking the visibility of categories, however view filters are another possibility, along with section depth, discipline and view range. I will discuss these features in more depth in future post.