Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Revit Links as Underlays

From Autodesk Wikihelp for Revit 2012.

Using a Revit link as an underlay can be a common workflow for architects and especially for engineers. A link can be set to Halftone to distinguish it from the main model, but new work (model lines, for example) can still end up being obscured by geometry (walls, etc) in the link--making it difficult to see what you've drawn. Revit 2012 solves this problem:
  • Open your Revit project.
  • In the Insert tab, click Link Revit.
  • Navigate to the Revit model you would like to use as an underlay. Click Open.
  • In the View tab, click Visibility/Graphics (or type the keyboard shortcut “VG”).
  • Click the Revit Links tab.
  • Next to the Revit link that you just inserted, put a check in the Underlay checkbox. Click OK.
  • The geometry in the link will now be halftone, and more importantly, it's a true underlay: the link geometry will not obscure new lines and edges

I have the following comment on this new setting:

Cool but, keep in mind that this does not address the selection order experience we have unfortunately. I'm describing the situation that a linked file is "selected" by the pre-highlighting before native RST or RME elements. This means that Revit "sees" the Architecture model before it sees the RME user's duct (assuming the view is assigned to Hidden Line).

Ideally a link should take a "selection back seat" to elements that are native to the active project file.

4 comments:

GuybrushThreepwood said...

Has anyone ever found a way to have all links come in as Halftone and Underlay as their default setting?

Manually setting these options for every view and view template for multiple links seems like a step that could be avoided if they all came in with these checked on by default.

Then, you would spend less time unchecking halftone and underlay for all links that don't require it. (Maybe this is only relevant to Mechanical, Electrical and Structural, but not Architectural)

Steve said...

Guy - A very old post... The secret is Project Templates that configure Views and View Templates and Filters in advance. A template that uses placeholder linked files to preset these things can use Reload From to provide a path to the actual linked file when you get them.

The MEP disciplines use halftone/"wireframe" by default.

The relatively new Selection settings allow us to ignore links when trying to select elements.

ledge33 said...

Steve,
similar to the situation in this post, i have a linked model in my model where i would like to be able to choose one of the levels in my linked model for my underlay range: base level?

Steve said...

You'll only be able to choose native levels, make sure your model has matching levels.