This tip shows how to control display behavior if linked files overlap some objects in Revit. In some cases you might have met problems with correct display of linked objects located above other objects. You need to control display behavior of overlapping objects. If you know AutoCAD, you may remember command like DRAWORDER to solve the problem. How shall we do it in Revit. The answer is easy, just read this tip, please.

Example: You linked DWG with floor plan and created walls overlapping positions of doors and windows.

Tutorial:

1.    Link CAD file (eg. DWG file) via tab Insert – Link CAD

2.    Create walls (tab Home – Wall) using some methods (individual sketch or picking lines).

Situation: At this moment walls are overlapping sketch in imported symbol of CAD file and you don’t see positions of opening, windows, doors for insert objects in Revit model.

Workaround of control draworder in Revit:

3.    Select imported symbol and display palette Properties.

4.    Set Base Offset to value among Cut Plane – Top in View Range of Floor Plan.

5.    Now, you can see the difference:

Notice: Remember the value for Base Offset imported symbol must be among values for Cut Plane and Top in View Range for Floor Plan. To setup View Range parameter go to Properties palette if nothing in view is selected and click Edit.

In dialog View Range you can set the range of view.

Hope the tip helps you.

© Dmitriy Melnikov – Fotolia.com

If you haven’t, why not considering to give them cool learning materials like CAD books, or training video? We can recommend you these.

Autodesk Official Training Guides

© mirabile – Fotolia.com

Autodesk Official Training Guides (AOTG) are great books for learning Autodesk applications. Those books were reviewed by Autodesk itself, and approved it for self learning and as guide in training classes.

Do you intend to get Autodesk certification test? Based on my experience, this is the best resource to learn for your preparation.

We compiled all AOTG titles. If you are interested, you can see all the title in our e-store here. You can purchase them online from Amazon, or find them in local book store near you.

Infinite Skills training video

© L.S. – Fotolia.com

Books are great. But if you think your friend don’t like reading books, you can consider to give them training on their desktop: a training video. These training videos are great alternative if you are too busy to attend training classes, so you can use it at your own pace when you have time. It’s also a good alternative if you prefer training but can’t find training center near you that can provide those classes.

If you see the author profile, I believe they are the one of the best in trainings. They also have years of teaching experience.

If you are interested to see the titles, you can see them in our e-store here.

Infinite Skills also published dozens of training video. If you want to get non CAD training video (Windows, Office, WordPress, etc.) you can see the complete titles here.

Disclosure: I will get share if you purchase book from Amazon and training video from Infinite Skills using those links.

Last, but not least: our own e-books

We also have several e-book titles. Our best seller is AutoCAD Block Best Practices. We also have other titles here.

You may find it hard to imagine wrapping e-book in pdf format and give them to your friends. But I’ve seen some people are being creative, burn them in a small CD and wrap it nicely.

If you still can’t find a perfect gift, they can be nice alternative. Don’t you think?

I’ve got an email from Infinite Skills, notifying me that now they have training video for Revit MEP. This is a great news, because there are not many Revit MEP learning resources available yet. And not many training center can provide Revit MEP class.

Infinite Skills always provide high quality of learning resources, as a training video. So this is a very valuable learning resource. Like usual, if you are interested to find further information, you can visit their website and see some demo video here: Learning Autodesk Revit MEP 2012.

They also have Learning Revit Architecture 2012 training video and advanced Revit Architecture 2012 training video (they also offer them as a bundle). I hope they can release Revit Structure training video soon, so we can have a complete series of Revit training video.

See demo and purchase Revit MEP 2012 training video here.

About the author

Simon Whitbread is currently a Revit specialist for KarelCAD, major provider for Autodesk solutions in Australia and New Zealand. He’s been using Revit since Revit 5.1. He has 25 years of experience in Building Services and Architectural industries.

You can create one detailed view, and refer other section to the first view.

To do this, after you activate section tool, activate reference other view in option bar and choose view you want to use as reference.

This method works for sections, callout, elevation views, etc.

However, this is not always true.

Sometimes user just open their application and use for ten minutes. After he finished, he just left and don’t close their application. The license is still checked out to this computer, and can’t be used by the others.

On busy day, there will be a good chance many users from different department use the licenses. It might be one department use most of the licenses and other department just get a couple of licenses.

You may also want to limit licenses that can be accessed by users, not opening AutoCAD with Product Design Suite for example. This can happen in mixed product environment, Autodesk use cascading license. It’s a good concept, but it can be a disaster if we don’t manage it properly.

There are many possibilities that can make things go wrong if we don’t control network license usage.

If you’re the one who are responsible for managing license, then you can have many complaints about controlling available licenses.

© Stéphane Bidouze – Fotolia.com

You can set timeout, reserve license for important users, set maximum number of licenses for a group, and many more by using option file. It can optimize license usage. If your company has mixed Autodesk products licenses, then you need to seriously consider setting this up.

If you are interested to learn more about Autodesk option file, read this white paper from Autodesk: http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=TS1055247

If you want to see details of Autodesk network licensing configuration, see the complete guide here: http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=TS1076366

Dividing your element to smaller parts allows you to create detailed appearance of your element. You can have different materials in a wall layer. You can modify part size by dragging the grips.

Not limited to its appearance, you can report parts in your schedule. You can also tag them as separate elements, not as the whole original element.

Applying materials

Applying material is the same with applying it to original element.

Choose your part(s) and change your material in properties palette. You must uncheck material by original to allow this override.

This is what I have done to my wall.

And yes, we can render it too.

Don’t forget to change part visibility to show parts! If you choose to set your view to show original, it will render the original element.

Creating schedule

You can create parts schedule by selecting parts in category. The process is exactly the same as creating other schedules in Revit.

You may want to try changing parts size and see how the schedule is dynamically updated. You can drag shape handles to change part size.

To enable shape handle, you need to select the part and check show shape handles in properties palette.

Tagging parts

You can tag parts using tag by category.

Activate the tool, then click on your part. If you haven’t loaded part tag, you will see this warning.

Click yes to load tag. You can find part tag in annotations folder. Remember, M prefix is for metric families. If you’re using imperial families, you will see part_tag.rfa.

Place your tags to your parts. You may see question marks like this. Why was that?

Just like other Revit tags, you need to define the element mark that shows the tag value. Select the part and fill mark value in properties palette.

Do you think you can use it?

Do you think Revit parts can be useful in your work? Have you use it, or how do you plan to use it? Share with us here!

In Revit, you can divide element into smaller parts. Snipped from help file:

Parts can be generated from elements with layered structures, such as:

Walls (excluding stacked walls and curtain walls)
Floors (excluding shape-edited floors)
Roofs (excluding those with ridge lines)
Ceilings
Structural slab foundations

The idea of dividing into parts is for scheduling and tagging purpose. So we can deliver schedule report in more details, and also flexibility to work with smaller parts.

Let’s try to create parts from a wall.

Creating Revit parts

We can create parts from an element by selecting it and click create parts from contextual ribbon.

In this example,I use basic wall. It has several layers.

I select it and click create parts, then each layer will become a part. If you move your pointer above the wall, you will see they are separate parts.

If you don’t see the parts, check your properties palette. When you have nothing in selection set, it should show you view properties.

Check if parts visibility value is show parts.

You should be aware that if you set it to show original , you will not be able to select part in this view.

Dividing Parts

Still need to divide them to smaller parts?

After you create parts, you can split it further. Select your part and click divide parts.

Remember, you have to select part, not the original element. Selecting wall in parallel elevation view can be difficult, so it might be easier if you open multiple views if you have high resolution.

After you activate it, you might need to set work plane to work with this part. You can just pick part faces as a plane.

Now all we need is to divide the part into smaller parts. Draw lines as necessary to divide it.

After you finish with the sketch, click finish edit mode.

You should see your wall is divided to smaller parts.

We will continue working with parts in the next article. We will work with tags.

© Stéphane Bidouze – Fotolia.com

Up and Ready covers many aspects in software installation, licensing, deployment, and related troubleshooting tips.

Look at some of these articles on the blog:

1. Create AutoCAD 2012 deployment using profile.
2. Illegal server host name for network licensing.
3. General error codes in Autodesk products installation.
4. And also something quite basic like how getting license online.