Scope Boxes are one of those Revit features that gets overlooked a lot. They are pretty potent and can solve some issues in your model. Do a Google search and you will find some really good information on them. In no particular order, here are some quick tips that I use to introduce folks to them.
They are a great way to organize datum elements in phases. Grids and levels are phase agnostic; they exist through the entire timeline of your project. But how to organize them? We often use a Scope Box for existing and new phases (or whatever phases we have) that way we can keep them organized together and control their visibility in views easier.
You can control their visibility in views. Each Scope Box has its own setting that you can force them on or off in individual views. Just don’t forget you used this setting once you start doing it.
They can help divide up large plans. Very close to the Dependent View, you can create the limits of a scope box and then assign views to that scope box. The crop region for those views will lock into the scope box size, so whenever you update the scope box, the crop region updates as well.
They are 3D! Don’t forget that they are 3d elements. A lot of times folks forget to control how high they go. If you use them properly in the Z plane, you can save yourself a lot of time down the road.
I have discovered over the years that I enjoy programming. My brain really gets a kick out tackling a logical challenge and overcoming the issues you can find when writing a program.
I’ve had the opportunity to create some really baby Revit Add-Ins over the years, and it’s been a while since I made something new. My work programming with Revit are limited because either 1) the amount of time it would take to program something isn’t worth it, 2) the Revit API is limited and I cannot actually accomplish what I want, or 3) I don’t have nearly enough knowledge in programming to get the task done properly. Usually, it’s a combination of all three.
This past week, I hobbled together some free time, and was able to work together the beginning of a new add-in. Unfortunately, it is probably also the end of this new add-in as well.
I have a backlog of items in my head that I wonder why Revit doesn’t do, or at least, do better. One of those is allowing for distinction in line weight in elements in elevation, based on distance from the “viewer”. This is an old standard in manual drafting days; if something was closer, you use a heavier pen, and if it was farther away, you use a lighter pen. Revit cannot automatically replicate this effect, and it would be nice if it could. You do get more information, or at least clearer information, when you have this.
Granted, you could do this manually with element display overrides, and I have seen folks do this, but at the end of the day this is tedious and prone to errors. I have also seen some other solutions, but nothing that didn’t seem dangerous, BIM-wise.
So, I took a whack with the API. After some head scratching, sketching, and basic geometry, I had a workable prototype.
Top secret notes!
In any cropped elevation, it would slice the crop into thirds; near, middle, and far. Any wall (I started with walls only to keep things simple) in the “far” zone was set to halftone, walls in the “middle” had their surface pattern color set to a dark gray, and finally the walls “near” the viewer, had the projection lines beefed up. Pretty straightforward idea, and it worked well on my little test model.
BeforeAfter
I got pretty excited. Technically, it was still the manual trick of overriding the element’s graphics, but it was done with a single click.
And then I started thinking about modifying the code. I wanted to add an option to allow the user to select where the “near” and “middle” started…which wouldn’t be too tricky. I probably should add an option to allow some user selection of lineweights… not awesome, but not bad. But first I would need to build in other categories. I looked at an elevation print I had sitting on my desk and started planning out each element. Let’s start with the rood!
And that’s where I realized my problem. Many times, when a roof gets modeled, it is a single element that covers the entire building, whether it is a flat roof or sloped. So that is a single element that is in all three “zones”; near, middle, and far. If the roof has sections that show up in each, they will all have the same element override, pretty much ruining the effect.
So, I sat and stared at my wall for a bit, trying to come up with a way around this.
My wall
But even the zen of Lego couldn’t get my brain to an acceptable solution.
So, this programming project is gonna get put in the file cabinet for now. Maybe I’ll come up with a genius realization one night in my dreams! Maybe the solution will come to me while I stare at a pile of mashed potatoes! Probably not. Usually the pile of mash doesn’t last long enough for me to have any epiphanies.
This means something…
I’ll keep programming, and I’ll probably keep banging into walls. But every once in a while I’m able to polish off a little gold nugget, and that seems to make all the head banging OK.
I’ve spent some time cleaning up the blog. No, there are still some really old and useless posts, but I have tried to make the categories make more sense and make it easier to find what kinds of articles you are looking for.
I also swapped themes for one that will force me to keep the blog… prettier…? More graphically interesting at least.
When we first started looking at Revit, it was strongly recommended that we AVOID the Keynotes. And after reading the workflow, we decided that was good advice.
But I never tried it out myself. I’m kind of scared at this point.
And now, years later, I still have never used it. I understand they have made some improvements over the years, and have decided it is now time to dive in and try it out for myself.
There are many things that I have trouble doing (touching my toes, for instance) and forcing myself out of my fear-based practices is one of them.
We have been told that it is a MUCH better experience when you get a keynote manager add-in. Although a 10 second Google search shows there is mainly only one player in that space. Oh! Maybe it’s time to dust off the old API and write something! Nah. Probably not.
So, wish me luck! I might come out the other side with a new found appreciation of an unused tool, or I might just get angry because I wasted two hours on something that still sucks!
Last night I was fortunate enough to do another presentation for our local Revit user group, Revit RVA. It was a quick 15 minute walk through of the day in the life of a Revit support guy. I hope folks got something out of it. Thought I would share one of the slides that shows a critical factor to getting through the day.
Let’s say you need to align something to the center of a circle or arc or ellipse, or vice-versa, you need to align the center of a circle or arc or ellipse to something. When you are in the ALIGN tool and try mousing around the center, nothing shows up. You also cannot override your snaps to find it!
Calm down! It’s gonna be OK. Select that circle (or arc or ellipse) and check out its Properties. See that parameter? CENTER MARK VISIBLE.
Had a great time presenting at Revit RVA last night. Gave a quick chat on Plug-Ins 101. Despite going over my time, I think it went OK.
Got a few chuckles at the below slide, warning folks that I could sometimes dial the Nerd Level up to 11, but would try to avoid to. I think we only hit 6 or 7.
Thought I would drop an update on my growing collection of Lego Architecture sets. Added a couple more over the last few years and had to spread out the space. It’s kind of meditative for me to dive into a model. And they ALWAYS have all the pieces. Sometimes I think it’s not there, but it is.
I’m having a lot of fun with my 30 day trial of Infraworks 360. Being in the arch end of the design world, I never paid much attention to Infraworks Naught, but our friends at Autodesk have been pushing the 360 end of it hard, specifically Model Builder.
“Pushing”. We’ll come back to that in a second.
The Model Builder is easy to get started and get your initial data downloaded. Amazingly easy, actually. I found the importing of AutoCrap and Sketchup models to be a little confusing when trying to place (be sure to tell Infraworks what type of thing your thing it is), and my Revit test model didn’t even load up properly.
But so far, the slickness of the software has impressed me. I might need to get a few copies. And that’s where the fun comes in.
Our Suite subscription allows us to have a handful of Infraworks licenses (sidenote: Infraworks is surprisingly hard to type, and really hard to say). This is NOT Infraworks 360, which is what you need to have the Model Builder awesomeness. Bear with me here. My Infraworks licenses are networked, so I have a nice pool of available seats and can maximize usage, and can leverage expenses and all that business jargon crap. Infraworks 360 requires you to upgrade an Autodesk 360 account to be able to access it, which limits who can use it and totally makes me shrug and say “wha?” BEYOND THAT, the use of 360 is going to require Cloud Credits (don’t get me started on Cloud Credits), but Autodesk can’t tell me how many yet.
Yeah. The pusher. They are going to get us hooked and then tell us how much it costs for the sweet sweet GIS and satellite and infrastructure candy.
So, I am EXTREMELY cautious about buying even a single seat of Infraworks 360. Even if that is not a huge investment, who knows if it will be prohibitively costly to use the portions we want to use. My suggestions: dump the extra license fee for 360. I know how much I spend on my Ultimate Suites. You can have Showcase back. Gimme Infraworks 360, or at least Model Builder. On top of that, let me know how many cloud credits I am going to have to spend. I REALLY want to share this new technology with everyone, but I am REALLY nervous to do so right now.
So, yeah, get the 30 day trial and use the Model Builder, but watch out for when the pusher comes to you with the bill.
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