Understanding the interface and setup customization in a software like Revit is crucial to enhancing work efficiency. This article guides you through adjusting the project browser, docking properties, and adjusting disciplines and subdisciplines for better project management.
Key Insights
- The article emphasizes the importance of customizing the interface in Revit to suit your individual comfort for enhanced efficiency. This includes adjusting the project browser and properties positioning.
- It provides a guide on changing disciplines and subdisciplines in the software. For example, changing from the Mechanical discipline to Fire Protection, which isn't readily available but can be manually input.
- The piece further discusses creating and applying new view templates for various project elements such as reflected ceiling plans. It offers steps on how to make these adjustments and apply them to various project levels.
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Before we move on, what I'd like to do is set up my interface that's comfortable for me. Now, feel free to follow along, or if you like this setup as is, then you can go on ahead and skip ahead. The project browser, with the properties right below it, I find this uncomfortable to work with because there's a lot of information to scroll through.
I prefer to have my properties docked over here to the right. So, if I hold my mouse button, left mouse button, and drag, it should dock to the right side of my screen. Now, if you're working on multiple monitors, it can be a little tricky, but if you see a silhouette, then that's a good place to let go of your mouse button, and it will dock where you want it to go.
So, if I drag over here, okay, this is what I want. Now I can see more menus and options in my properties, as well as in my project browser. So, let's find, under Mechanical, HVAC Floor Plans, let's go to level one.
Now, we're working with a fire sprinkler system, not an HVAC system, and the reason it's set up like this is because we brought our project in under the mechanical template in Revit. There is no fire protection template, but we can set it up ourselves. So, what we're going to do is, if we see the properties here of our view, we can see that the discipline is under Mechanical, and the subdiscipline is HVAC.
Let's change that to fire protection. Now, if we click here, it is not an option, but we can type it in ourselves. Okay, now if we go back to our project browser, under Floor Plans, level one is missing.
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That's because we now have fire protection, and if we open that up, Floor Plans, here's our level one floor plan. So, let's do the same thing with our other floor plan and ceiling plans. So, let's open Floor Plan, level two, and go to the subdiscipline, and now fire protection will be available.
So, we can select that. Let's go to our ceiling plan, level one. Okay, and we'll put that on the fire protection subdiscipline.
And finally, ceiling plan level two, and we'll put that on the fire protection subdiscipline. Okay, now if I look up here, I see a level one, a level one, a level two, and a level two. I find it difficult to check at a glance which plan I'm going to be looking at before I click on it.
So, what I like to do is rename them here. So, our floor plans are actually going to be our piping plans, and our ceiling plans are going to be our reflected ceiling plans. So, let's go into level one floor plan, right click, rename, and let's call it level one piping plan.
Now let's go to level two, right click, rename, level two, piping plan. Now, here Revit is not asking me if I want to rename my corresponding views and levels. If Revit asks you to do that, please select no, because if we do select yes, then when you go into your section views, your levels will be called this instead of just level one and level two.
Let's go to our ceiling plan level one, rename, and I will call it level one reflected ceiling plan. Okay, and lastly, let's rename. We're almost there.
So, let's go into our level one reflected ceiling plan. Now, with fire protection and our ceiling plans, we generally do not want to see any of our piping. All we want to see below the ceilings are the location of our sprinkler heads, which are these here in the classroom, for example.
So, what we're going to do is we're going to create a new view template for our reflected ceiling plans. So, under our properties, if we go down to view template, it's currently set to none. So, let's click on that, and we do not have a fire protection reflected ceiling plan already, but we're going to make it ourselves.
So, let's click on the architectural reflected ceiling plan, and let's duplicate it, and we're going to rename it FP for fire protection dash reflected ceiling plan. Okay, now let's go into our visibility graphics overrides model and click edit, and under the model categories, let's find pipe and pipe fittings and turn all of that off. So, how about pipe accessories as well, pipe fittings.
We don't have any insulation, so we're not going to worry about that, and our pipe. Now, later when we bring in another MEP discipline, we can possibly come back in here and change those visibility graphics again, but for now, let's just select these. Okay, go ahead and click okay.
Lastly, we want to make sure this is on the right subdiscipline. So, let's scroll down, and under discipline, instead of architectural, let's change that to mechanical. In our subdiscipline, let's find fire protection.
Go ahead and click okay. Perfect. Now, when we zoom in, we can see our dimensions between sprinkler head locations and our sprinkler heads.
So, let's go on ahead and apply this template to the next level. So, we'll go to our level two reflected ceiling plan, go under view template, none, and now we can select our FP reflected ceiling plan. Go ahead and click okay.
All right. Now, this is much better. In the next video, we're going to create our underground site plan.
