Explore the process of modeling in Revit MEP by starting off with the mechanical trade and learn how to place supply diffusers in a project. This article guides you through the steps of setting up your file, adding spaces, bringing in link files, adjusting space tags, and actual modeling, focusing on placing air registers accurately.
Key Insights:
- The article provides a walkthrough on modeling in Revit MEP, beginning with setting up the file and adding spaces, leading up to actual modeling.
- One of the key focus areas in the modeling process is placing air registers. The article outlines how to choose the correct type of diffuser, host it to the ceiling, and adjust its placement for accuracy.
- The article also gives tips on using various tools in Revit for a smoother modeling process, such as using the thin lines option for better visibility, using the align tool for accurate placement, and how to save and proceed with the project.
Welcome back to the CAD Teacher VDCI video course content for the BIM 321 course, Introduction to Revit MEP. In the previous videos we went ahead and got our file all set up and ready to go, and we added in the spaces, we brought in the link file, we added in the space tags and adjusted those. Now what we want to go ahead and do is actually start modeling some things.
The first thing that we want to go ahead and start off with is we're going to start off with the mechanical trade, and to work with this mechanical trade we're going to go ahead and go to our ceiling plans. If you would please, in your project browser, let's go over to our mechanical discipline under HVAC, under ceiling plans here, let's go to ceiling mech for the first floor. And there we are.
As you can see, we have a grid layout, which are for the T-bar ceilings, or the dropped in ceilings, and we have some hard lid ceilings in both the stairwell and in the bathrooms here. So what I want to go ahead and do is I want to start off by placing some air registers. So I want to go ahead, let's go up under our systems tab, under our HVAC panel, let's go to air terminal.
And here we are. Now we have a supply diffuser that is a 24x24 face with a 12x12 connection. So it's saying that the actual face of it is 24x24, and that it's a 12x12 connection.
Now, there are multiple different types of actual different diffusers. This one is not one that we're actually going to use because it's not what we call hosted. Yes, it is hosted to the level one floor plan, but the issue here is that it is not hosted to a specific element.
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We want to actually host these items to the ceiling. So say that the Architect makes a change to the ceiling, then raises it, lowers it, our registers will automatically change independently. So what I want to go ahead and do is we're not going to use this one specifically.
Let's go ahead and let's go to load family, please. And I'm in my Imperial library, and I'm going to go ahead and we're going to go ahead and find this under the mechanical location here. Let's go to our MEP.
Let's go to our air side components. Let's go to air terminals. And here we are.
So there's a lot of different things here. The one that we want to go ahead and use is we're going to use a supply diffuser hosted. Again, it's going to be a supply diffuser hosted.
So I'm going to go ahead, select that one, and hit open. And there we are. So as you can see, it's a supply hosted.
Everything there is good to go. So I want to go ahead. I'm going to go to place on face.
Again, I don't want to place it on a vertical face. This means I would place it on, say, a wall. I actually want to choose place on face.
And here we are. As you can see, you can now see that item. I'm going to go ahead in this room, and I'm going to place it about right here for right now.
What I want to go ahead and do is I'm going to place it off to the side, and then I'm going to use my align tool later to come back in and actually put it in. I'm also going to go ahead, pop another one in about right here. Again, I'm hosting them to the actual ceiling itself.
Place one about here. And again, I'm offsetting them specifically because I don't want to have it cause any issues where I accidentally snap something, and then I'm going to go back and align these here in a little bit. I'm going to go ahead and place another one there.
I'm going to go in the offices here. I'm going to go ahead and place one here, and I'm going to place it in the same location in all the offices. Just work your way around slowly.
Take your time with it. Again, I'm just kind of offsetting it to the side. I'm also, and that is that.
I'm going to go ahead and place one in this room also. And there we are. I'm going to go ahead and hit escape to say that I'm done placing these.
I'm going to go ahead and zoom extents. Now we need to go ahead and go back and actually populate or actually correct these in the correct locations. What the first thing I want to go ahead and do before I do this is, is because if you zoom in, you can see I have very thick lines here.
I'm going to go ahead and go to my thin lines. This is something that's very useful to use when we are actually working in a workable drawing. We don't really necessarily need to see the line weights right now.
So I'm going to go ahead and go to thin line, and then I'm going to go AL for a line. I'm going to go ahead and pick here and pick here, pick here and pick here. Come over here, pick here and pick here, pick here and pick here.
Again, I'm just going around and aligning the edges to the specific ceiling tile that I want to be sending in. So this will take a little bit of time, but go ahead, go through and put those in their correct locations. The one thing that we can do is I know that I want all of these registers along this same grid.
All the ceiling grids line up. If I go up here to my align tool in the options bar, I see where I have multiple alignment. I'm going to go ahead and check that.
Now what I can do is I can select this, and you can see that I have that line extending. I'm going to go ahead and pick here, pick here, pick here, pick here, pick here, and there we are. The one issue with this is though is that it wants to keep aligning to this edge.
To clear out or to then select the one I want to align to again is I have to click off of something. I have to click off of everything. It's going to go away, and then I would have to pick here and then pick here.
I no longer want to align to that, so I'm going to click off in dead space or nothing there. There we go. Pick there, pick there.
Click off in that dead space. Pick here, pick here, pick here, pick here. Again, I'm going out here and clicking off the dead space.
Pick here, pick here, pick here, and pick here. And there we go. I'm going to go ahead and escape to say that I'm done.
Now you notice that we have these arrows around our different diffusers. Well what's actually happening is that we actually, this is showing that it's a supply. So I want to go ahead and turn those off because those just clutter up my drawing.
So I'm going to go ahead and drag over everything. And there we go. I'm going to go ahead, let's go to our filter here and filter our selection just so that we have just the air terminals.
I'm going to go ahead and hit okay. And there we are. If you look over in your properties palette here, you'll see up arrow, right arrow, left arrow, down arrow.
I'm going to go ahead and uncheck all those. Now I just have the actual diffusers themselves. If you're looking at this and you're like, well that one's kind of off a little bit, we can adjust these.
So I'm going to kind of adjust my ones here in this large conference room. So I'm going to come back down to here and then kind of center this. Click off into the dead space and there.
And there we go. Looks a little bit cleaner. Does that make sense? Control S and save the file.
What I'd like for us to go ahead and do is let's go ahead up to the second floor and do the same exact thing. So here, I'm going to go back to air terminal. Again, we're just placing our supply diffusers right now that are hosted.
I want to go ahead. Let's go ahead right now under our properties panel and uncheck these different mechanical arrows so that we don't have to deal with it later on. Again, since I started this over again, I need to go up to my placement and go to place on face.
And there it shows. Go here and here. Go there.
And just kind of work your way around. Come over to this here. Again, I'm not placing it in exactly the spot that I want to.
I'm just placing it close to the actual ceiling tile and I'm going to go back through and align it later. That just makes for a lot more accurate modeling. So I'm going to go ahead and hit escape to see I'm done.
I'm going to go ahead and hit AL for align. Pick this edge here and align that. Align that.
Align that. Click off into the dead space. I'm going to pick on this edge here.
Align this and align this. I'm going to come over here and align all of these to their correct locations. There we go.
And now I'm going to go ahead and actually uncheck my multiple alignment option and then go back and align them the last way that I need to. Just make sure you're clicking on the correct pieces and just navigate around the drawing. And that thin lines really does help in making sure that we're clicking the correct lines.
Because sometimes some of these families will have two or three lines representing like the edge of the diffuser or something along those lines. There we go. I'm going to go ahead and hit escape to say that I'm done.
Let's go ahead and zoom extents. Control S, save the file. And that was placing our supply diffusers.
I'm going to go ahead and stop this video here. In the next video we'll go ahead and come back and place our return diffusers. See you then.