By Dennis Collin
A common question when setting up Revit templates is does Revit support complex linetypes like AutoCAD? i.e. can Revit have text characters or symbols to represent such elements as services like Storm, Foul Water drainage or Gas Mains? The short answer is currently no, linetypes in Revit can only consist of a sequence of dashes, dots and spaces, but a workaround exists by making use of a line-based detail or generic model family.
Firstly, a generic annotation component needs to be created, this will form our linetype symbol. It will resize according to scale.
Create a label, and add a new parameter called ‘Text’, of the type category. Ensure the label is set to kept readable so that the linetype is always right reading.
Load the generic annotation label into a line-based family, this can either be of a Generic Model or Detail depending upon user requirements.
Once loaded, add some planes and parameters to set a start and end offset. Also place, array and constrain the annotation element to form our complex linetype.
The next step is to add some parameters to set the number of symbols, spacings etc. along with a conditional IF statement to trap any error messages with short lines and an array value of 1 which Revit does not support.
All parameters are set as instance apart from the Service Type which is connected to the Text parameter within the Generic Annotation family.
Once created, this family can be duplicated so that a different line-based family exists for each required service and saved with the project template.
A limitation to this workflow is the line-based feature is limited to straight line segments and will not follow a curve, but it should be adequate for most situations.